TRENDS IN WORLD WOOD CONSUMPTION 



By RAPHAEL ZON, Director Lake States Forest Experiment Station, and 

 W. N. SPARHAWK, Senior Forest Economist 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 279 



Use of wood prior to industrial era 279 



Use of wood in modern times 281 



Is world consumption decreasing? 283 



Uses of wood are constantly changing 292 



World timber supply is decreasing 295 



World will continue to need wood 296 



INTRODUCTION 



A study of the prospective timber requirements of the United 

 States would be incomplete without consideration of the trends in 

 world consumption. The international trade in wood is large. Coun- 

 tries which have inadequate supplies of the wanted kinds of wood 

 supplement domestic production with imports from countries with a 

 surplus. Countries with more timber than they need at home look 

 to foreign markets to dispose of it. The trends in wood requirements 

 of both exporting and importing countries, therefore, have an impor- 

 tant bearing on the future ability of the United States to meet its 

 timber needs through importation, or to dispose of a possible surplus 

 through sale to foreign consumers. 



USE OF WOOD PRIOR TO INDUSTRIAL ERA 



Wood is a perishable material. Therefore, few wooden remnants 

 have reached us from prehistoric peoples. An indication of the part 

 that wood played in the life of prehistoric man may be learned, how- 

 ever, through the study of the present day primitive races of Africa, 

 South America, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific. From the 

 study of these races, particularly those which inhabit forested regions, 

 we find that wood provides an almost indispensable source of fuel, 

 weapons, implements, utensils, and other objects of everyday life. 



We are in a better position to learn the extent to which wood was 

 used by the ancient historic peoples of the Mediterranean region and 

 in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Except for the 

 mountains, these regions were poorly forested. Yet wood was exten- 

 sively used, both in architecture and in naval construction, as well as in 

 everyday life. The Iliad and the Odyssey reflect the manner of living 

 of the ancient Greeks in the early periods of their culture. In these 

 poems we find descriptions of how and for what purpose^ and what 

 kinds of woods were used. Similarly, the classical writers describe 

 the use of wood in ancient Rome. There, as in Greece, wood was 

 particularly essential for naval construction. 



In the Middle Ages, European culture developed under entirely 

 different geographic conditions than in antiquity. The centers of 



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