264 



Canadian Forestry Journal, June, 1919 



THE GREAT FORESTS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



B-^ Percy F. Martin, F.R.C.S. 



The World's Last Regions of Unexploited 



Timber — Immediate Protection the 



Antidote to Quick Action. 



The twenty sovereign states of what is known 

 geographically as Latin America are possessed 

 of natural resources — as distinct from manu- 

 factured products — of which the world has but 

 an imperfect knowledge, and makes but a re- 

 stricted use. A country, or a series of countries, 

 with a superficial area of something over 8,000,- 

 000 square miles, must, necessarily, contain 

 within its borders a vast number of natural re- 

 'sources of different kinds and various degrees of 

 usefulness to man ; and even to-day the inhab- 

 itants of those regions are ignorant of the riches 

 a bountiful Providence has bestowed upon them 

 or how to put them — where known — to the most 

 profitable advantage. Whereas to several of 

 the countries many of these gifts are common — - 

 such as timber, minerals and precious stones — 

 others are possessed of resources peculiar to 

 themselves ; for instance, the nitrate of Chile, 

 the gayule of Mexico, and the quebracho of 

 Argentina and Paraguay. 



Lt us consider the case of the forest-lands, a 

 conspicuous feature in the majority of the Latin 

 American states. If we except two small re- 

 gions, the South American forests are composed 

 of broad-leafed hardwoods. There is a close re- 

 semblance between these and the hardwoods 

 of North America. Some are of between 10,000 

 and 20,000 feet boad measure to the acre, and 

 the common belief that tropical forests contain 

 only very hard woods must be disabused, since 

 recent investigations show these forests to be 

 composed of soft or medium hardwoods which 

 are as suitable for general construction as the 

 pines and various conifers and hardwoods of 

 North America and European forests. 



The timber lands of Latin America — in which 

 comprehensive term are included those of Cen- 

 tral America and Mexico — can be roughly divid- 

 ed into four categories, more or less distinct, the 

 species composing each varying from region to 

 region, but the general effect of each type from 

 Columbia to Argentina being much the same. 

 Putting aside the employment of technical or 

 botanic phraseology, these four principal types 



of trees may be described as dry forests, tem- 

 perate forests, swamp forests, and tropical rain 

 forests. There are, of course, other and minor 

 types, quite distinct in themselves, upon which 

 further comment is unnecessary, since the ob- 

 ject of this article is merely to show the char- 

 acter of the South American forests so far as 

 they lend themselves to commercial exploitation. 

 The first or dry type of timber is to be found 

 in the temperate or sub-tropical regions, and is 

 met with at both high and low levels. Immense 

 areas exist where the rainfall is either deficient 

 or unevenly distributed throughout the year, 

 thus occasioning long periods of drought. Such 

 forest areas are usually covered with some form 

 of growth which, at its best, is a dense mass 

 of comparatively few species. The trees are 

 short-boled, round-headed, often armed with 

 spikes or thorns or short spur-like branches, and 

 with harsh or bristle-pointed leaves. The trees 

 do not usually exceed 50 feet in height, and in 

 many regions the average is little over 25 feet. 

 The commercial stem varies from 10 to 20 feet, 

 with diameters of 12 to 24 inches common. 

 These forests grade into chaparral on one side, 

 and into tropical rain-forests on the other. Per- 

 haps the best known representatives of this type 

 are the quebracho-algarroba forests of Northern 

 Argentina and Paraguay. These occupy the 

 great semi-arid plain lying between the foot- 

 hills and the Andes and the Parana and Para- 

 guay rivers, known geographically as the Gran 

 Chaco. Other representatives of this type are 

 the Cotinga forests of Brazil, and the coast for- 

 ests of Colombia and Venezuela between Carta- 

 gena and the Island of Trinidad. 



Antarctic Beech and Conifers. 



The second, or temperate, type is met with 

 along the slopes of the Andes, where elevation 

 and moisture combine with suitable soils to 

 make growth of a temperate forest possible. This 

 type is best developed in Patagonia, and reaches 

 practically to sea-level in Tierra del Fuego. 

 Here, in the south, the trees are rather stunted 



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