8 THE POKEST KESOURCES OF THE WORLD. 



As may be seen from this table, the non-European countries pos- 

 sess a forest area of over 3,000,000,000 acres. This with the 

 750,000,000 acres of European forests, form an enormous total of 

 almost 4,000,000,000 acres, or 24 per cent of the total land area of the 

 world. If to this we add the forests of China, Korea, South America, 

 and Africa, for which there are no available data, the extent of the 

 forests of the world will be still greater. Unfortunately, all figures 

 for forest areas are more or less approximations. While the figures 

 for the forests of Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Sweden, ^S T or- 

 way, Finland, Belgium, and Switzerland are fairly accurate, the fig- 

 ures for Russian, Canadian, or even for the United States forests are 

 only approximate, and will eventually need correction as knowledge 

 of the forest resources increases. The enormous forest areas in Rus- 

 sia, the United States, and Canada include a large proportion of land 

 at present unproductive, such as swamps, burns, or lands which 

 sooner or later will be taken up by agriculture, and which do not 

 therefore give a true idea of the forest land proper. Also the figures 

 which show the percentage of forest land give only an approximate 

 notion of the distribution of forests in the country, because the pro- 

 portion of forests to total land area greatly varies in different parts of 

 the same country. 



"Forest land" is usually understood to mean land covered with 

 woody growth of economic importance. After the Glacial Period, in 

 prehistoric times, and also according to tradition and written record, 

 in the earliest historic times, forests occupied much larger areas than 

 now. However, there are scientists who hold that some forests hi 

 Europe, for instance were preceded by prairie. 



The character of the forest depends upon climate. Forests of 

 cold and moderate regions contain fewer species and are more homo- 

 geneous in composition than those in tropical regions. True tropical 

 forests are found in some parts of India and in the basins of the large 

 rivers of South America and Africa. In Java, Borneo, Kongo, and 

 along the Amazon and Oronoco the forests are extremely rich in 

 variety of species. 



In the world market the wood of common trees has the greatest 

 economic importance. Pine, spruce, larch, and fir are used for con- 

 struction purposes ; oak, birch, hickory, and others are used by wood- 

 working industries. The amount of rare, precious wood which is 

 used in international trade is comparatively small. 



The various countries of the world may be separated into two 

 groups in accordance to the relation of their wood exports to their 

 wood imports. 



The countries whose wood exports exceed their imports are: 

 Austria-Hungary, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the United 

 States of America, Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Roumania, and 

 Japan; the countries whose wood imports exceed their exports are: 

 The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, 

 Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Australian colonies, China, Greece, 

 West Indies, Bulgaria, Servia, and British possessions in Africa. 



In determining the forest resources of European countries it was 

 impossible to obtain any figures which would show the total stand in 

 cubic feet or board measure. In most European forests the cutting 

 of timber is confined either to the annual growth or to a fraction of 



