348 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



Some of these, which we now use simply because 

 they can be had, since nature grew them without 

 counting the cost or considering that a better ma- 

 terial might have been grown with as much ease, 

 will be discarded by the forester. They will not 

 be grown again consciously by man's aid. Never- 

 theless, with all these eliminations, there remains a 

 large number of highly valuable species for which 

 the chances of perpetuation are to be prepared by 

 the forester. 



The most important furnishers of timber are the 

 conifers : pines, spruces, firs, hemlocks, cedars, 

 larch, and cypress, usually in commerce called soft 

 woods in contradistinction to the broad-leaved 

 trees, designated as hardwoods,^ although both 

 groups contain both hard and soft woods. 



Our flora excels especially in a great variety of 

 pines, those most useful trees of the temperate 

 zone, of which we can boast at least ten timber- 

 producing species, three softwooded white pines 

 and seven hardwooded yellow pines, besides not 

 less than twenty-five scrub-pines, useful to occupy 

 the least favorable dry soils. 



Of other conifers the Red and Black Spruce of 

 the Northeast, the Bald Cypress of the South, and 

 the Douglas or Red Fir, Redwood, and Sugar Pine 

 of the West are the most prominent staples, the 

 others being of minor importance. 



Among the hardwoods the oaks are perhaps the 



^This distinction has received sanction in the courts. 



