THE FORESTS OF OUR COUNTRY 213 



Both redwood and red fir grow to be over two hundred 

 and fifty feet high ; and while an acre of good spruce land 

 in Maine yields ten thousand feet B.M., it is not a rare 

 thing to cut over two hundred thousand feet B.M. from an 

 acre of redwood or red fir. 



If we ask how much forest we have left, the answer 

 is quite encouraging. In the New England States, the 

 Lake States, and the entire South, not over thirty per cent 

 of all the land is in use for field and meadow, leaving 

 nearly seventy per cent for forest and waste, of which the 

 greater part is still fairly wooded. 



The forest lands of our eastern United States practically 

 all belong to private owners, individuals, or companies, 

 though some tracts are owned by the several states as 

 school lands, etc. In the Western States the Federal 

 Government still holds a considerable portion, especially 

 of the more remote forests covering the several mountain 

 chains. 



Of the private owners, railway and lumber companies 

 have most of the larger tracts, especially in the pineries, 

 both north and south ; while the greater part of the hard- 

 wood forests are in the hands of actual settlers or farmers. 



Of late years the Federal Government has set aside a 

 number of tracts of mountain forests in our Western States 

 as forest reserves for the purpose of protecting these 

 areas against erosion and consequent disturbance of 

 water flow. There are now over forty of these reserves, 



