GENERAL CONDITIONS 151 



heavy, hard woods like lignum vitae, ebony, etc. The dry 

 season is long, so long in fact that the trees are not able to attain 

 large diameter or height growth. Sixty feet for the latter and 

 two feet for the former are the maxima. Neither are the stands 

 dense and except for the undergrowth of cacti a horse may be 

 ridden anywhere. At the same time the following species have 

 such valuable quahties that they are logged in spite of their 

 short and crooked boles: 



Cabinet woods. 

 Lignum vitae — Guajacum officinale L. 

 Algarroba — Hymenaea courbaril L. 

 Moca — Andira jamaicensis (W. W.) Urb. 

 Dye wood — logwood — Haematoxylum campech. 

 Corkwood or balsa wood. Oshroma lagopus Siv. 



But highly prized as these species are they do not oflfer attractive 

 logging because they never occur in pure stands but are found 

 singly, seldom more than one to the acre of any one species. 

 Consequently even virgin stands are low in yield, rarely exceeding 

 2000 board feet per acre. 



Murphy's estimate of the present stand is 2,487,000 cords, or 

 approximately one cord per acre, only half of which can be sawn 

 into logs. Hence, it is evident that except in the most inacces- 

 sible places there is not enough timber to attract a lumberman. 

 Nothing else can be expected when it is remembered that the 

 rural population is denser than in any state of the Union. In 

 fact only 2 per cent of the total land area still has virgin forests 

 and not more than 8 per cent has saw timber. The rest of the 

 20 per cent is simply brushland which will yield merely firewood. 



