PREFACE 



This book is intended to supply certain information needed 

 by the investor, timber cruiser and student of forestry. In other 

 words, it aims to give for the continental United States and its 

 outlying territories the principal facts regarding the timber 

 resources. Hawaii has been omitted because its timber is useful 

 mainly for its protective value and cutting in the commercial 

 sense is only possible on a very limited scale. Likewise, the Canal 

 Zone is not attractive to either the sawmill man or timberland 

 investor by reason of the restricted area of American territory. 



The investor will find data which will not only enable him to 

 form a notion of what the examination of a tract should cost but 

 he should also get the salient features of the general type of which 

 his particular holdings are but a small part. This work tries 

 to give those basic facts upon which a superstructure of detailed 

 knowledge concerning a particular tract may safely be erected. 



To the estimator or timber cruiser, likewise, it cannot take 

 the place of first-hand observation as far as the appraisal of any 

 given area is concerned. It should, however, show him what to 

 look for and help him to keep that sense of proportion without 

 which his reports may easily give a wholly wrong impression. 



For the student of forestry it should fill an additional purpose. 

 Few attempts have previously been made to gather together in 

 one volimie descriptions of the forest types of the United States. 

 We have simply had detailed studies of isolated regions. With 

 these latter as a basis, however, an attempt is here made to evalu- 

 ate American forest conditions and compare the forest types with 

 each other. This leads inevitably to the application of the 

 principles which the student has learned in his courses in protec- 

 tion, silviculture, utilization and management. In other words, 

 it is hoped he may here acquire some of the local color necessary 

 to give vividness to the framework of fundamentals he has con- 



