0 y¥ \ 5 ma NG, 
“ 
CIRCULAR No. 11. 
United States Department of Agriculture, 
DVISION OF FORESTRY. 
FACTS AND FIGURES REGARDING OUR FOREST RESOURCES BRIEFLY 
STATED. 
The following data regarding the extent, condition, and consumption 
of our forest resources have been compiled to answer frequently recur- 
ring inquiries. 
There are no forestry statistics in existence. Even the census figures 
referring to the lumber industry are avowedly imperfect and based on 
partial returns. The data given, therefore, are only approximations and 
must be taken with that reserve. 
The forest area of the United States (exclusive of Alaska) may be 
placed at somewhat less than 500,000,000 acres. This does not include: 
much brush and waste land which is, and will remain for a long time, 
without any economic value. This area is very unevenly distributed ; 
seven-tenths are found on the Atlantic side of the continent, only one- 
tenth on the Pacific Coast, another tenth on the Rocky Mountains, the 
balance being scattered over the interior of the Western States. 
Both the New England States and the Southern States have still 50 
per cent of their area, more or less, under forest cover, but in the former 
the merchantable timber has been largely removed. 
The prairie States, with an area in round numbers of 400,000 square 
miles, contain hardly 4 per cent of forest growth, and the 1,330,000 
square miles—more than one-third of the whole country—of arid or 
semi-arid character in the interior contain practically no forest growth 
economically speaking. 
The character of the forest growth varies in the different regions. On the 
Pacific Coast, hardwoods are rare, the principal growth being coniferous 
and of extraordinary development. Besides gigantic red woods, the soft 
sugar pine and the hard bull pine, various spruces and firs, cedars, hem- 
locks, and larch from the valuable supplies. 
In the Rocky Mountains no hard woods of commercial value occur, 
the growth being mainly of spruces, firs, and bull pine, with other pines 
and cedars of more or less value. 
The Southern States contain in their more southern section large 
areas occupied almost exclusively by pine forest with the cypress in 
the bottom lands; the more northern portions are covered with hard- 
woods almost exclusively, and intervening is a region of mixed hard- 
wood and coniferous growth. Spruces, firs, and hemlocks are found in 
small quantities confined to the mountain regions. 
