In Asia, Japan exports small quantities of oak. Walnut and other 

 hardwoods are exported from Asiatic Turkey and the Caspian region. 

 Siberia has about 30 per cent, by area, of the Temperate Zone broad- 

 leaved forests of the world. Except in the Far East, however, they 

 consist of fairly light stands of aspen and birch, much of it valuable 

 chiefly for firewood or pulp and not to be compared with the oak, 

 ash, maple, chestnut, beech, and other hardwoods of the United 

 States and Europe. 



In the temperate region of the Southern Hemisphere, including 

 southern Chile and Argentina, portions of New Zealand and Tas- 

 mania, and the high mountains of South America and Africa, are 

 only relatively small quantities of valuable hardwood timber, little 

 or none of it available for export. 



The United States now has the largest supply of hardwoods in the 

 Temperate Zone; the other North American countries have no 

 surplus over their own needs. For many years the United States 

 has been the largest exporter of high-grade hardwoods, and the 

 exportation of products made in whole or in part from such woods, 

 aggregating in value many millions of dollars, has been possible 

 because of the abundant and accessible supplies within the country. 

 Now the original stand of approximately 250,000,000,000 cubic feet 

 of merchantable hardwoods has dwindled to about one-fourth of 

 that amount, and is being further depleted at the rate of over 

 2,000,000,000 cubic feet a year. The United States uses almost 

 two-thirds of the entire world consumption of Temperate Zone hard- 

 wood timber, exclusive of firewood, or nearly 4,000,000,000 cubic feet 

 a year. There is no prospect of getting large supplies from other 

 countries w T hen our own hardwoods are gone. Nevertheless, the 

 outlook for future supplies of hardwoods is probably better than for 

 softwoods, because woods adapted to the same uses can be got from 

 the Tropics, though they may cost considerably more. 



TROPICAL FORESTS WILL NOT SATISFY NORTHERN TIMBER NEEDS 



The tropical hardwood forests occupy nearly 5,700,000 square 

 miles, or close to one-half of the entire forest area of the world. 

 Not all of this area, however, bears timber of commercial value. 

 In many regions the forests have been depleted by centuries of 

 misuse, by burning and cutting in order to carry on the shifting 

 agriculture that is so prevalent in tropical countries, or by cutting 

 to supply the wood needs of the local population. In such places 

 the original stand is represented by scattered remnants, or the new 

 stand is composed mostly of inferior, comparatively worthless trees 

 and scrub. Yet there are still vast areas of virgin forest, unutilized 

 and even unexplored. The amount of standing timber is far greater 

 than the amount remaining in the temperate regions, and the esti- 

 mated growth that might result if the whole area were devoted to 

 systematic timber production is at least four times the world's 

 present timber consumption. 



The peoples of the Tropics use very little timber, in comparison 

 with those of cooler regions ; and the northern wood-consuming coun- 

 tries have always had access to forests nearer at hand than are those 

 of the Tropics. Hence the tropical forests have played a minor part 



