FARM FORESTRY 247 



of the chief reasons why our nation is so very prosperous 

 is because we have been bountifully supplied by nature with 

 timber. Hence it is the duty of every citizen to see that this 

 great national heritage is not wasted or wantonly destroyed. 



The forests of the United States. About one-fourth of 

 the United States is in timberland. There are two great and 

 unlike forest regions; namely, the Pacific and the Atlantic 

 regions. All the country east of the Mississippi River was 

 originally a vast forest of about seven hundred and fifty 

 million acres, of which about 40 per cent has been turned into 

 farm lands. The area to the west is almost twice as large, 

 and into it stretch, like peninsulas, the forest mountain ranges 

 of the Rockies and the forests of the Sierras and Coast Ranges. 



The Atlantic forests are composed of a large variety of 

 broad-leaved species, with conifers intermixed, gradually 

 changing to the westward into prairie country. To the west 

 of the prairie belt lie the plains and semi-arid regions, where 

 tree growth is almost absent. Into this type of country the 

 Rocky Mountain forests protrude. These forests are prin- 

 cipally coniferous. Parallel to the coast from north to south 

 extends the Pacific forest, along the mountain slopes of the 

 Cascades, Sierra Nevada, and Coast Range. These forests 

 have trees of most magnificent development, with only a few 

 broad-leaved species. Here grow the famous "big trees," 

 now rapidly vanishing before the lumberman. 



From this vast forest domain the federal government has 

 set apart nearly two hundred million acres as great national 

 reservations. These reserves are controlled by expert for- 

 esters whose policy, as heretofore explained, is that of care- 



