UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION No. 162 



Washington, D. C. 



Issued July 1933 

 Revised July 1940 



OUR FORESTS: WHAT THEY ARE 

 AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO US 



By Maeie Foote Keislet, assistcmt in education, División of Information and 

 Education, Forest Service 



CCNTENTS 



lntroduction 1 



What the forest is: 



The forest eommunity 2 



How a tree lives 2 



How atreegrows 3 



Relationships of trees 7 



Forest soil 8 



Animáis of the forest eommunity 9 



Forest regions of the United States: 



Northern forest región 10 



Central hardwood forest negion 11 



Southern forest región 12 



Tropical forest región 14 



Rocky Mountain forest región 14 



Pacific coast forest región 16 



How our foreste serve us: 



Forest produets 18 



Page 



How our foresta serve us— Continued 



Forests and water supply 21 



Other uses of the forest 22 



Enemies of the forest: 



Fire— the arch destróyer 23 



Insects 25 



Fungus diseases 25 



Other enemies 26 



Forestry in the United States: 



What forestry is 26 



Federal forestry 28 



State forestry 32 



Farm forestry . 33 



Commercial forestry 35 



Timber, a vital natioüal resource 36 



INTRODUCTION 



The history of the United States is staged against a forest back- 

 ground. From earliest colonial times the forest has played a most 

 important part in the life of the country. Although the early set- 

 tlers had to wrest from it the land upon which to grow their crops, 

 it furnished the timber vitally needed in building their homes and 

 industries. Some of the first colonial exports were forest produets, 

 such as planks and staves, pitch and tar. The tall pines of New 

 England furnished masts and spars for many a ship, and by the time 

 of the Revolution were carrying canvas on all the Seven Seas. 



As the country expanded the forest provided most of the sinews 

 of development and trade. The prairie schooners and canal boats of 

 the pioneers were made of wood, and the early railroads which fol- 

 lowed them, like those of today, were laid on wooden ties. Number- 

 less communities sprang up, subsisting mainly upon the bounty of 

 the forest. Each decade saw more and more forests cut away with 

 the extravagance born of the idea that America's forests were inex- 

 haustible. More and more forest land was laid bare, to be developed 

 into towns and farms or to be left lying idle and unproductive, The 



