24 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICAS FUTURE 



States. For example, there are, roughly, 8,000 

 sawmills compared to 60,000 in the United States. 

 There are about 2}^ times as many pulp and paper 

 plants in the United States as in Canada, and over 

 10 times as many veneer and plywood mills. 



Canadian-United States trade relations in forest 

 products are important to both countries. Canada 

 is a timber exporting nation. Of its total output, 

 73 percent of the veneer, 69 percent of the paper 

 and paperboard, and 33 percent of the lumber are 

 exported to the United States. Canada is the 

 principal source of United States imports of timber 

 products. For example, about 91 percent of all 

 lumber imported by the United States comes from 

 Canada, as does 82 percent of the woodpulp. A 

 high proportion of our imports of other timber 

 products likewise comes from Canada (table 11). 



Table 1 1 . — Relative importance of the timber prod- 

 ucts trade between Canada and the United States, 

 1952 



Product 



Propor- 

 tion of 

 Canadian 

 output 

 exported 

 to U. S. 



Propor- 

 tion of 



U. S. im- 

 ports that 



originate 

 in Canada 



Propor- 

 tion of 

 U. S. con- 

 sumption 

 imported 



from 

 Canada 



Lumber 



Percent 

 33 

 15 

 18 

 69 

 73 

 10 



Percent 

 91 

 99 

 82 

 96 

 94 

 67 



Percent 

 5 



Pulp wood 



Woodpulp. _ _ 



9 

 9 



Paper and paperboard 



Veneer 



Plywood 



17 



All products 



36 



90-95 



10 



1 Negligible. 



Ultimately, if Canadian forests increase present 

 growth substantially, Canada may be able to sup- 

 port not only increased requirements resulting 

 from rapid expansion of its own domestic economy, 

 but also increased exports primarily in softwood 

 species for pulp. In projecting United States 

 domestic timber requirements, an allowance is 

 made for a conservative increase in net imports 

 chiefly from Canada from 1.18 bUlion cubic feet 

 of roundwood in 1952 to 1.66 in 1975 and 1.79 in 

 2000. Canada might be able to support even 

 greater exports to the United States depending on 

 its domestic expansion, export requirements of 

 other countries, and the rate of progress of forestry 

 in Canada. However, the outlook for increased 

 imports from Canada of softwood lumber of quality 

 grades is not encouraging over the long run. At 

 present rates of cutting, there appears to be a 25 

 to 50 years' supply of old-growth Douglas-fir, 

 which is perhaps the most important source of 

 high-quality lumber in Canada. 



Mexico 



Mexico will not be an important factor in the 

 United States' timber situation in the long run. 

 Mexico has, roughly, a tenth as much forest land 

 as the United States and a tenth as much timber. 

 Hardwoods exceed softwoods both in forest area 

 and timber volumes by ratio of two to one in 

 Mexico, and the cubic -foot softwood timber vol- 

 ume is roughly equivalent to that of Coastal 

 Alaska. The most important commercial soft- 

 woods consist of Mexican white, Apache, Monte- 

 zuma, and Aztec pines, Pinus leiophylla and Pinus 

 oocarpa, which occur mainly on the mountains of 

 the Sierra Madre Occidental Range, extending 

 southward through the western half of the country 

 from the Ai'izona-New Mexico border. It is esti- 

 mated that timber cut somewhat exceeds net tim- 

 ber growth. The limited size of Mexico's timber 

 resources and limited utilization and growth would 

 indicate that Mexico is not a significant factor in 

 appraising the United States' outlook. 



North American Resources Compared 

 TO Those of the Free World 



To the extent data are available or estimates 

 can be made, the timber resources of the various 

 countries of North America are summarized as to 

 area, volume, growth, and cut in table 12. 



In addition to North America, the Free World 

 includes Latin America, Free Europe, Free Asia, 

 the Pacific area, and Africa. In comparison to 

 total timber resources of the Free World, North 

 America has only one-fourth of the total forested 

 area but three-fourths of the total softwood area. 



The only comparable estimates of timber vol- 

 umes for the nations of the Free World or the world 

 are for "forests under exploitation" which are 

 limited to those forests currentl}^ yielding indus- 

 trial wood or fuelwood. For the Free World, this 

 includes only 2 billion acres of a total of 7.5 billion 

 acres of forest land. And of these 2 billion acres, 

 625 million are softwoods, 64 percent of which is 

 in North America. For all Free World forests 

 under exploitation, North America has about one- 

 third of the total timber volume and 70 percent of 

 the softwood volume. North America's share of 

 hardwood forest volume of the Free World on 

 forests under exploitation is small (15 percent) and 

 would be very much smaller if more of the hard- 

 wood timber in the other free countries, particu- 

 larly in Latin America and Africa, were available. 



World Resources 



Lack of data and lack of comparability of such 

 data as are available make it extremely difficult to 

 compare world timber resources. Such informa- 

 tion as is available indicates that North America 



