THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 
A THOUSAND BILLION FEET 
J OHN BROWN, average American, isn’t much inter¬ 
ested in a thousand billion board feet. His feeling is 
that this is entirely too many feet to think about. Billions 
of anything are always dizzying—even to Americans. 
It doesn’t help matters much if John happens to know 
that a board foot is a piece of lumber a foot square and 
an inch thick. 
But here is this same John Brown, and he’s building 
a new house. He has just paid for several thousand feet 
of lumber—20,833, to he exact—and he knows what 
every foot of it cost not only, but he speaks fluently of 
siding and two-by-fours and ceiling and flooring. Here 
is quite a different person. He follows us now when we 
tell him that in the Pacific Northwest there is enough 
timber to build 48,000,000 houses like his—three times 
as many houses as there are now in all the United States. 
That, in figures somewhat less staggering, is the meaning 
of one thousand billion board feet. 
One thousand billion board feet! The accumulated 
forest wealth of centuries is now unlocked. Normally we 
build 400,000 houses a year in the United States. If forest 
growth stopped, this vast supply would provide for all 
the new homes in the United States at the present build¬ 
ing rate for 120 years. But these forests annually repro¬ 
duce more than half the amount now cut. And with 
more and more attention being given to reforestation 
and fire protection this rate may be increased. Oregon 
-13- 
