38 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICAS FUTURE 









WEST 



70% 



NORTH 



WEST 



1 /lo/i L-ii- Lj ix 266 billion bd.-ft. 

 1,434 billion bd.-ft. 



357 billion bd -ft 



EAST 



30% 



SOUTH 









west includes Coastal Alaska 



Figure 17 



The distribution of timber volumes is signifi- 

 cantly difi^erent from the distribution of forest 

 area. The 70 percent of sawtimber volume in 

 the West and Coastal Alaska occurs on 25 percent 

 of the forest land, whereas the East with 75 

 percent of the forest land has 30 percent of the 

 sawtimber volume. The principal reasons for this 

 are the heavy volumes of old-growth timber on 

 50 million acres in the West and the generally low 

 volumes per acre in the East. Although the 

 West, including Coastal Alaska, now has 70 per- 

 cent of the sawtimber volume, it may ultimately 

 grow only about 30 percent of the Nation's saw- 

 timber crop. This would be a relative decline for 

 the West, but, in absolute terms, gi'owing 30 

 percent of the Nation's sawtimber capacity would 



be in excess of the 1952 timber cut in the West. 

 The estimates of capacity to grow sawtimber are 

 based on estimates of realizable growth. The}' 

 show that ultimately gi'owth in different sections 

 of the country will be roughly parallel to distribu- 

 tion of forest-land acreage (fig. 18). 



Regional timber volumes are summarized in 

 table 21. Three States, Oregon, Washington, and 

 California, contain 54 percent of all sawtimber 

 volume, and every western region with the excep- 

 tion of the southern Rocky Mountains contains 

 more sawtimber volume than any eastern region. 

 Coastal Alaska, on the other hand, often thought 

 of as an important reservoir of softwood timber, 

 has about 4 percent of the total. 



