18 BULLETIN 1119, U. S. DEPAHTMENT OF AGKICULTUBE, 
Pacific in the search for new sources of lumber. The coast has the 
last large supply of North America, and the chances for securing 
softwoods elsewhere are not favorable, although the suggestion has 
repeatedly been made that once the native forests are exhausted we 
have only to purchase our lumber from other countries. 
We must have huge quantities of softwood timber, the best of all 
woods for general purposes. The remaining pine, fir, spruce, and larch 
of the world are gathered in three great bodies. One is in northwestern 
America and Canada, another in Scandinavia and Finland, and the 
third in European and Asiatic Russia. There is little hope from 
Canada, for her so-called limitless forests are rapidly being developed 
to their capacity for the needs within the British Empire. The 
PRODUCTION or LUMBER 1899 TO 1920 - PRINCIPAL SPEC! ELS 
/30-* '30S *306 /JC/ '»>6 /XS J&/0 /S// /9/S /S/6 /^/7 /Jl/d /S/S /920 
Fig. 9. — Yellow pine and Douglas fir are now rivals for first place in point of production. It is possible that 
vs'itliin the nest few years the graphs of these two species will cross. 
Alaskan forests are better adapted to pulpwood than to lumber. 
The largest part of the European forest (except that in Russia) is 
man-made, and by no stretch of the imagination can one fancy that 
its surplus will ever supply even a fraction of our huge consmnption 
in addition to the needs of its owners. Sooner or later Russia will 
resume her industrial activity and rebuild her thousands of dilapi- 
dated villages. A great part of her European timber will then oe 
needed at home. For any surplus from European forests we should 
have to compete with the rest of the world, and the mere fact of our 
competition would inevitably increase the price. 
The forests of Siberia are ringed about by the nations of Europe 
and Asia, some of which already have an eager eye upon this timber 
because it is essential to their participation in world trade. All of 
