PRESENT CONDITION OF FOREST AREAS. 

 Improved a*d forest limit in tin' t'nitnl Xlali-x Conliinicil. 



47 



NOTE The authority Cor the area of improved farm land is furnished by the censns of 1890. The areas of forest, brush, and \va.sti- 



lauds were ascertained by subtracting the area of cultivated land from the total land areas of the several States, and arc placed as per cent 

 of the total areas in e-idninn 4. The part of these supposed to be forest is estimated on information obtained by various agencies. For the 

 western section of the country the further subdivision into forest, brush, and open country is baweii partlv on statistics (jathered by Colonel 

 Ensign and published in Bulletin 2 of the Division of Forestry, and partly on the map republished from the report of the Division for 1892. 



These figures would indicate that, in round numbers, less than 350,000,000 acres are turned 

 into farm lands, more than two-thirds of which was hewn out of the forest; that the productive 

 urea of forest growth, by no means all virgin, falls somewhat below 500,000,000 acres; that nearly 

 150,000,000 acres are open country, which is presumably incapable of producing any valuable, 

 forest growth on account of climatic deficiencies, leaving a balance of over 600,000,000 acres as 

 waste and brush laud, of which at least three-fourths have been made so by the combined eiforts 

 of ax and tire. 



