292 The Philippine Journal of Science «28 



With the arrival of the Americans the Bureau of Forestry 

 was again revived. This resulted in an immediate and general 

 inventory of the forest resources of the Islands and the enact- 

 ment of measures which were intended to stop unnecessary 

 timber destruction by land squatters and kaingin makers. 3 

 Whitford 4 in 1909 pointed out for the first time that the real 

 forest wealth of the Philippine Islands lies in their dipterocarp 

 forests, which make up about 75 per cent of the standing 

 timber. Following the publication of his studies several saw- 

 mills of modern type were established, and at the present 

 writing there are no less than twelve modern plants, each with 

 a daily capacity ranging from 25,000 to 100,000 board feet. 

 As a result the Philippine market has been flooded with woods 

 that were little or wholly unknown before. Importation of 

 structural timber from Australia and the United States has 

 decreased, and to-day appreciable quantities of Philippine lum- 

 ber are being exported to the United States and our neighboring 

 countries. 5 



PURPOSE OP THE STUDY 



Much confusion has arisen in the utilization of native dip- 

 terocarp woods owing to their sudden influx into the lumber 

 markets of the world. Dipterocarp timbers intergrade but 

 present wide extremes in strength, durability, beauty, and figure 

 of grain, and it follows that some are more desirable than 

 others, at least for special purposes. It is out of the question 

 to expect the ordinary lumber grader or dealer to distinguish 

 the wood of closely related species. In fact, errors of substitu- 

 tion are often pardonable or justifiable in that the structural 

 variation is so slight as to have little or no bearing on the 

 mode of utilization. 6 • Few lumbermen, for instance, know the 

 difference between red lauaan and tangile, or giho and yakal, 

 or manggachapui and palosapis, to say nothing of the numerous 



"A "kaingin" is a temporary clearing in the forest used for crop pro- 

 duction by the natives. The trees are felled, allowed to dry, and sub- 

 sequently burned during the dry season. The kaingin system is largely 

 responsible for the extensive grasslands that are found throughout the entire 

 Archipelago. 



4 Whitford, H. N., The composition and volume of the dipterocarp forests 

 of the Philippines, Philip. Journ. Sci. § C 4 (1909) 699-725. 



5 See P. I. Bur. Customs 1913 et seq. 



6 The lumber of tangile and red lauaan, which are among the most 

 important dipterocarps, is often mixed indiscriminately and marketed 

 under the trade name of "tangile." 



