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and before that the Maryland Geological Survey had published 

 voluminous reports on the forests of a few counties; but the pres- 

 ent publication covers the whole state in a very satisfactory 

 manner, with the thoroughness that has long characterized official 

 scientific work in Maryland. It discusses the history of forest 

 exploitation, present conditions in general and by counties, the 

 species of trees, the principal uses of the forest, the wood-using 

 industries of the state, and various other matters appropriate to 

 an economic report. 



For each county the total and relative area of forest, improved 

 land, waste land and salt marsh are given, and the forests are 

 further subdivided into mixed hardwoods, pine, and pine and 

 hardwood, each in two degrees of density. There are somewhat 

 similar details also for each of the election districts, averaging 

 about twelve to a county.* The maps, one for each county (one 

 of them covering also the city of Baltimore, which is not a part 

 of any county, and another the District of Columbia), on a scale 

 of three miles to the inch, show the location of all the forests 

 more than a few dozen acres in extent, divided into several types 

 and density classes by means of colors and symbols. It was 

 obviously out of the question to cover the whole state in a single 

 year, and some of the counties were surveyed as long ago as 1907; 

 but the boundaries of wooded areas in Maryland are not chang- 

 ing very fast, so that these maps apply without appreciable error 

 to present conditions. The 30 half-tone illustrations are well 

 chosen, but in most cases the places where the photographs were 

 taken are not indicated, except inferentially by the location 

 of some of the plates among the county descriptions. 



Of the total area of the state (which had 130 inhabitants per 

 square mile in 1910) 35 per cent is estimated as forest, 51 per 

 cent as improved farm land, 1 1 per cent waste land, and 3 per cent 

 marsh. Of the forest 65 per cent is classed as hardwood, 15 per 



* The election districts used in the tables (but not shown on the maps) seem to 

 be those outlined on the large county topographic maps published by the state 

 geological survey several years ago; but some additional districts were carved 

 out even before the U. S. census of 1910, so that the forest statistics cannot be 

 completely correlated in these minor details with the population figures of the 

 census. 



