10 



THE FOREST RESOURCES OF THE WORLD. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The distribution of forests is very uneven, as may be seen from the 

 following table: 



TABLE 3. Forest area of Austria by provinces. 



COMPOSITION OF FORESTS. 



The forests are composed principally of conifers, such as spruce, 

 pine, and fir. The coniferous forests occupy 16,868,700 acres, while 

 the hardwood forests of seedling origin occupy only 3,522,400 acres. 

 The hardwood forests contain oak, maple, beech, birch, locust, and 

 alder. 



CHARACTER OF FORESTS. 



The State owns only 10.7 per cent of the forests, or 2,573,000 acres; 

 of this amount, the actual property of the State is only 1,620,000 

 acres; the rest is bought by the Government with religious funds in 

 its hands and is under its control. Communes own 14.4 per cent of 

 all forests; hereditary and church forests form 13.6 per cent of the 

 forest area, while in the hands of private owners there is 61.3 per 

 cent of the total forest area. Of the latter, 32.4 per cent is in the 

 hands of large owners, and 28.9 per cent in the hands of small owners. 

 The State takes better care of its forests than does any other owner; 

 the forests that belong to churches and large owners receive next best 

 care. The management of communal forests and of those belonging 

 to small owners is poor. 



Austria is a good example of the influence of railroads on the 

 exploitation of forests. Tnus, before railroads were built in the 

 forested sections of the country, wood was the only fuel, and saw 

 timber was frequently cut for firewood. With the building of rail- 

 roads, coal was substituted for wood as fuel, and this brought a 

 change in the utilization of the forests. The consumption of fire- 

 wood by the city of Vienna may be of interest in this connection. 

 Thus, while on an average for the decade 1848-1857, Vienna, then 

 with a much smaller population than now, consumed each year 

 200,170 cords, of which 77,841 cords were beech wood; for the 

 decade 1888-1897, the annual consumption of wood in Vienna fell to 



