OUR FORESTS 



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33,289,369,000 feet of lumber. They also cut over 12 billion 

 shingles and nearly 30 billion laths. Nobody can tell how much 

 lumber was wasted, either in the forest or at the mill. The census 

 estimates, moreover, that owing to conditions caused by the panic, 

 the amount cut was very considerably under that cut in 1907. 

 Washington ranks first in the production of lumber. Here the 

 great Douglas fir, one of the " evergreens," forms the chief 

 source of supply. In the Southern states, especially Louisiana 

 and Mississippi, yellow pine and cypress are the trees most 

 lumbered. 



Uses of Wood. In our forests much of the soft wood (the cone- 

 bearing trees, spruce, balsam, hemlock, and pine), and poplars, 

 aspens, basswood, with 

 some other species, make 

 paper pulp. The daily 

 newspaper and cheap books 

 are responsible for inroads 

 on our forests which cannot 

 well be repaired. It is not 

 necessary to take the largest 

 trees to make pulp wood. 

 Hence many young trees of 

 not more than six inches 

 in diameter are sacrificed. 

 Of the hundreds of species of trees in our forests, the conifers are 

 probably most sought after for lumber. Pine, especially, is prob- 

 ably used more extensively than any other wood. It is used in 

 all heavy construction work, frames of houses, bridges, masts, 

 spars and timber of ships, floors, railway ties, and many other 

 purposes. Cedar is used for shingles, cabinetwork, lead pencils, 

 etc. ; hemlock and spruce for heavy timbers and, as we have seen, 

 for paper pulp. Another use for our lumber, especially odds and 

 ends of all kinds, is in the packing-box industry. It is estimated 

 that nearly 50 per cent of all lumber cut ultimately finds its 

 way into the construction of boxes. Hemlock bark is used for 

 tanning. 



The hard woods, ash, basswood, beech, birch, cherry, chestnut, 

 elm, maple, oak, and walnut, are used largely for the " trim " of 



Transportation of lumber in the West, 

 logging train. 



