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MISC. PUBLICATION 16 2, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



timber. An additional 100.000.000 acres bear some timber, but it is 

 mostly too small for sawlog production although large enough for 

 cordwood. Of the remainder, some 71.000.000 acres have young 

 growth in varying amounts, but there are nearly 77.000.000 acres of 

 land suitable for producing commercially valuable timber that are 

 now almost entirely deforested and nonproductive. All told, our 

 462.000.000 million acres of commercial forest land are growing only 

 about half as much timber as they could. 



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

 and denuded areas, lies east of the Great Plains. That region, how- 

 ever, now contains only about one-third of all our remaining timber 

 of merchantable size. The whole eastern half of the country now has 

 only about as much saw timber as the 6 percent of our forest area in 

 the coastal regions of Oregon and Washington. 



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 area. 



Figvee 6. — Principal forest regions of the United States 



Northern Forest Regiox 



The northern forests of mixed conifers and hardwoods extend from 

 the Atlantic coast through New England westward across Xew York 

 and the upper Lake States region to the Great Plains, and southward 

 from Xew York along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Geor- 

 gia. Characteristic of the forests of this region is the mixture of 

 pine, spruce, and hemlock with the hardwood types. 



In the northern part of this region the most important commercial 

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



