18 
TIMBEE 
we get about 25 per cent., Germany 26 per cent., Eussia 
33 per cent., and Sweden 44 per cent, of the total area of 
the country under timber. 
Turning to the Western hemisphere, we find the United 
States (exclusive of Alaska) with a forest area of at least 
500,000,000 acres, and Canada with about 800,000,000, 
although only about 300,000,000 can be looked upon as 
merchantable timber. Canada's chief timber supplies lie 
in Ontario with 7,750,000, Quebec 70,000,000, and British 
Columbia 182,000,000 acres. 
In British India some 135,000,000 acres are covered by 
forest, of which more than one half are more or less under 
Government control. 
Australian forests cover about 173,500,000 acres, those 
of Tasmania 11,000,000, and New Zealand 20,500,000, 
being about 10 per cent, of the combined area of these 
countries — two-thirds of Tasmania are forest covered, and 
about one-third of New Zealand. 
Japan has a forest area of about 28,500,000 acres. 
Of the timber resources of Africa but little is known, 
though they must be considerable : large supplies of 
mahogany come from the west coast. In Matabeleland 
there is said to be 1,250,000 acres of forest, and a smaller 
area in Mashonaland, whilst there are enormous supplies 
in the region of the Congo ; but in Cape Colony, so destruc- 
tive have been the native races for generations that the 
colony is almost wholly dependent for its timber supply on 
foreign sources, what timber there exists is difficult of 
access ; the Crown reserve only amounts to half a million 
acres." The French colony of Algeria, in the north, pos- 
sesses over 8,000,000 acres, of which over half belongs to 
the State. 
As regards South America, though there are no statistics 
available, it may be stated that large portions of Colombia, 
