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



yellow pine. Western white pine, sugar pine, and western hemlock 

 also are valuable timber trees of this region. 



In California grow the celebrated giant sequoias ("bigtrees") and 

 redwoods. The redwoods are found in a strip 20 to 30 miles wide 

 along the coast, extending from the southern borders of Oregon into 

 Monterey County. Calif. The bigtrees grow farther inland on the 

 western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Because of the comparatively 

 small number remaining, practically no lumber is now cut from the 

 bigtrees. 



Other species found in the Pacific coast region are mountain hem- 

 lock; noble, silver, lowland white, white, and Shasta red firs: Western 

 redcedar. incense. Port Orford. and Alaska cedars: Sitka. Engelmann. 

 and bigcone spruces : western and Lyall larches : lodgepole. knobcone. 

 and Digger pines : Monterey and Gowan cypresses : western and Cali- 

 fornia junipers: single-leaf pinon; oaks; ash; maples: alders; cotton- 

 wood; buckeye; laurel: and madroha. 



HOW OUR FORESTS SERVE US 

 Forest Products 



For many of us the forest is no longer close at hand. Nevertheless, 

 it has continued to contribute more and more to our needs until today 

 the uses to which its resources and products are put are legion. 



The principal forest product, of course, is wood — one of the world's 

 most useful raw materials. Wood provides us with shelter, imple- 

 ments, furniture, and many other articles intimately associated with 

 our daily lives are made of it. It gives us mcst of the paper that goes 

 into our newspapers and books. Our railroads are laid on wooden 

 ties, and in millions of homes throughout the country wood is still the 

 sole or principal fuel used. It is also used in mining the coal and 

 drilling for the oil which heat countless other homes and provide 

 power for industries and transportation systems. In short, nearly 

 all of the products used by the American people, whether vegetable, 

 animal, or mineral, use wood somewhere in the process of production, 

 distribution, or utilization. 



During TVorld War II. wood was one of the most critically impor- 

 tant war materials, needed in enormous quantities for barracks and 

 cantonments, for war factories and housing for war workers, for 

 wharves, ships, aircraft, truck bodies, gunstocks. explosives, and hun- 

 dreds of other war requirements. Vast amounts were used for boxing 

 and crating ammunition and supplies for shipment to the men at the 

 fighting fronts. The armed forces actually used more tons of wood 

 than of steel. The war brought home as never before the fact that 

 wood is an indispensable material. 



As a result of our enormous demand for wood, there has developed 

 a large group of industries engaged in the manufacture of forest 

 products. Foremost among these is the lumber industry, which has 

 to do with felling the trees, cutting them into logs, and getting the 

 logs to the sawmill, where they are sawed into boards and rough lum- 

 ber (fig. 12). Planing mills remanufacture some of the rough lum- 

 ber into finished lumber, sash, doors, blinds, and other products. Still 

 other plants use the rough lumber for the manufacture of shoe lasts, 

 spools and bobbins, woodenware novelties, toys, and other turned- 



