CONTENTS 



Page 



Forest land 113 



Distribution of forest areas and types 114 



Commercial forest land 114 



Noncommercial forest land 116 



Nonforest land 119 



The ownership pattern 119 



Commercial forest land mostly private 119 



Noncommercial forest land mostly public 121 



Condition of commercial forest land 122 



Sawtimber and poletimber stands occupy 



nearly equal areas 122 



Old-growth sawtimber on 10 percent of com- 

 mercial forest land 122 



Large share of commercial forest land is under- 

 stocked 123 



Trends in forest land area 124 



Forest land area now greater than in 1945 125 



Timber use competes with other land uses 126 



112 



Page 



Timber volume 127 



Volume on commercial forest land 127 



Two-thirds of sawtimber volume is in the West- 127 

 Softwood species comprise four-fifths of saw- 

 timber volume 128 



Nearly 10 percent of all timber volume is in cull 



trees -__ 132 



Additional volume on other land 133 



Ownership of timber 134 



Accessibility of timber 135 



Timber quality 136 



Log grades measure tree quality 137 



Small trees lack quality 138 



Cull trees numerous 139 



Better quality species diminishing 140 



Trends in timber volume 140 



Data adjusted for comparability 141 



Apparent overall changes show no discernible 



trends 141 



