TIMBER RESOURCES OF NORTH .\MERICA AND THE WORLD 



333 



The area of commercial forest land is estimated 

 at 529 million acres. ^* The heaviest concentration 

 of commercial forest land occurs in the Maritime 

 Provinces and in Quebec and Ontario; in each of 

 these, commercial forest accounts for approxi- 

 mately three-fourths of the forest land area (table 

 184). Softwood species predominate on 63 per- 

 cent of Canada's commercial forest area, hard- 

 woods on 12 percent, and a mixture of the two on 

 the remaining 25 percent. 



The noncommercial forest is usually stunted, 

 sparsely stocked, and chaarcterized by species that 

 can endure swamp and tundra-fringe conditions. 

 These noncommercial forest lands are principally 

 valuable for food and shelter for wUdlife. 



Of the commercial forest area, 370 million acres 

 are accessible, i. e., are economically operable 

 under present conditions. The remainder wUl 

 probably become accessible as transportation sys- 



5* Includes about 40 million acres in National and Pro- 

 vincial Parks. 



terns are extended, as prices rise, and as wood 

 markets expand. The greatest concentration of 

 accessible forest is in the Maritime Provinces, 

 Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia (fig. 103). 



Most Forests Are Publicly Owned 



Approximately 93 percent of the total forest 

 area of Canada is publicly owned, i. e., is in the 

 possession of the Crown; the remaining 7 percent 

 is privately owned (fig. 104). The corresponding 

 percentages for commercial forest land are 88 

 and 12, respectively. This is in striking contrast 

 to the United States, where 74 percent of the 

 commercial forest area is privately owned. In 

 Canada there has been little effort to move Crown 

 land into private ownership. Rather, the policy 

 has been to retain title to forest land in the 

 Dominion Government. Administration of most 

 of the public land in the provinces rests with the 

 Provincial Governments. 



Figure 103 



