CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FORESTS 333 



hardwood forest dominated by oaks and yellow poplar, next an 

 oak-pine forest, and finally in the southern half of the region, a 

 pine forest made up of longleaf, slash, loblolly, and shortleaf 

 pines. In the lowlands adjacent to the Mississippi river are forests 

 composed of red and tupelo gums and cypress, while Eastern 

 Texas and Oklahoma have forest areas of oak-pine and oak- 

 hickory composition. 



The Western Forest is made up of three principal regions. The 

 forests of the Northern Rocky Mountain region, including 

 Montana and Idaho, are made up principally of lodgepole, 

 ponderosa, and western white pines, and western larch, with 

 different species of spruce and fir than those found in the east 

 occurring at high elevations in the mountains. The Southern 

 Rocky Mountain region includes Arizona, New Mexico, 

 Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and western South Dakota. 

 ^ Here the forest growth is very diversified but the outstanding 

 trees are ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and Engelmann spruce. 

 The Pacific Coast region, including the states of Washington, 

 Oregon and California, possesses the most heavily forested spots 

 on earth. In Washington and Oregon the dominant species east 

 of the Cascade mountains is ponderosa pine; west of the moun- 

 tains the forest growth is dominated by Douglas fir, but with 

 many other species, notable among them Sitka spruce, ponderosa 

 pine, and several true firs. The California forests are dominated 

 by sugar pine, with redwood (along the coast), incense cedar, and 

 iJeffrey pine contributing materially to the forest cover. 



Location and Utilization of Timber Supplies 



From this description of our forest regions, one concludes that 

 most of our forest area is in the eastern United States. This is 

 exactly the case; three-fourths of our forests are in the east, with 

 only one-fourth west of the great plains. This distribution is very 

 desirable, since most of the timber consumption centers about the 

 eastern industrial areas. However, this vast eastern forest area 

 today contains only about one-fifth of the total standing saw- 

 timber, while the other four-fifths of the nations large size timber 

 is in the far west. The Pacific coast region, with only 1 3 % of the 

 United States forest area possesses 63% of the nation's standing 



