STUDIES IN THE VEGETATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, I. 721 
manual labor) is great, but the ruling high prices justify the expense. 
The cost of extracting the softer woods by the same methods is as great 
or nearly as great because the logs are usually much larger in size. The 
price paid for such logs is comparatively low so that the profits, if any, 
are much lower. The introduction of modern logging machinery will 
reduce and is reducing the cost of logging greatly. 
3. The demand for great amounts of cheap construction timbers is 
supplied by bamboo stems or palms, and small or young dicotyledonous 
trees. 
4. 1ST o widespread attempt has ever been made to place the general 
construction woods of the tropics on the markets of temperate zones. 
It is shown from the above that the volume per acre of the dipterocarp 
forests of the Philippines is great enough to allow lumbering operations 
on a large scale, and the supply is sufficient to allow a large per cent for 
export of the cheaper classes of timber. It is believed that in time such 
timbers will be exported to temperate regions and sold at a price that will 
allow them to compete successfully with timber of a like grade. That it 
is not done at the present time is due to certain unfavorable economic 
conditions, which will in time be overcome. 
The amount of timber in the Philippines is limited, principally because 
the land area of the Philippines (about 120,000 square miles) is small, 
with a virgin forest area of approximately 40,000 square miles. What 
proportion of this will ultimately be absolute forest land, to yield con- 
tinuous crops of timber is not yet known. Large deforested areas are 
on non-agricultural land. It is shown that so far as the Philippines 
are concerned the forests yield mostly general construction timbers, which 
are as a rule practically unknown to the temperate zone markets of the 
world. Borneo with an area approximately two and one-half times that 
of the Philippines is rich in dipterocarps and because of its smaller popu- 
lation probably has a much larger percentage of virgin forest area than 
the Philippines. There as well as in other parts of the thinly settled 
Malayan regions, so far as is known, no attempt has been made to take 
an inventory of the forest resources. In thickly settled Java nearly all 
of the accessible virgin forest area has been removed. With the exception 
of eng (Diptero carpus tuberculatus Eoxb.) and sal ( Shorea robusta 
Gaertn.), the dipterocarps of Burma and tropical India are little known 
outside local markets. Concerning the forests of Burma I quote the 
following from a letter of M. L. Merritt who recently visited a small 
portion of this region. “Naturally I saw more of the plains and low 
bill forests than any other. Here teak ( Tectona grandis) and pyingado 
( Xylia dolabriformis ) are the two species which they regard as being 
most valuable. The former is very scattered and I doubt if there will 
be one-half to one-third trees to the acre. Pyingado is more numerous 
and will run approximately one to three trees per acre. The dipterocarps, 
Dipterocarpus alatus and Dipterocarpus laevis, both of which resemble 
