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MISC. PUBLICATION 162, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



timber and about one-fourth is growing cordwood. A considerable 

 part of the remainder is reforesting by natural means, but there are 

 many million acres of land suitable for producing commercially 

 valuable timber that are entirely deforested and nonproductive. 



Three-fifths of our forest land, including most of the second- 

 growth and denuded áreas, lies east of the Great Plains. That región, 

 however, contains only about one-tenth of the remaining old-growth 

 timber and slightly more than two-fifths of all wood of merchantable 

 size. Nine-tenths of our remaining original growth and three-fifths 

 of all the usable wood in the country are concentrated in the Kocky 

 Mountain and Pacific coast regions. 



There are five principal forest regions in the United States — the 

 northern, hardwood, southern, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific coast 

 (fig. 6). In addition we have a small tropical-forest área. 



FOREST REGIONS 



NORTHERN 

 FOREST 



Figure 6. — Principal forest regions of the country. 



Northern Forest Región 



The northern forests of mixed conifers and hardwoods extend 

 from the Atlantic coast through New England westward across New 

 York and the upper Lake States región to the Great Plains, and 

 southward from New York along the Appalachian Mountains to 

 northern Georgia. Characteristic of the forests of this región is the 

 mixture of pine, spruce, and hemlock, with the hardwood types. 



In the northern part of this región the most important commercial 

 trees have been the eastern white pine, hemlock, and spruce. It was 

 the white-pine forests of the Northeastern and Lake States that 

 formed the backbone of the softwood-lumber industry in this country 

 from colonial times almost to the beginning of the twentieth century. 

 The original stands of this species, however, have almost entirely dis- 



