FORESTRY

The term forestry should not be confused with arboriculture. The first is concerned with forests in ma , and the second with the care of separate trees. The conservation of forests includes protective measures against fires, re-forestation with young trees cultivated in nurseries to replace timber cut for fuel or manufacture; the preservation of areas around water-sheds to retain moisture, etc. In Europe the protection of forests dates back about a hundred years. Replanting began in Scotland in the beginning of the 18th century. France and Germany were among the first in Europe to adopt thorough measures for the protection of forests and established schools of forestry. American forests were once so vast that for many years the Government made no regulations to protect them. Devastating forest fires and reckle cutting of timber aroused the states to the need of making laws to stop abuses and bounties were given to encourage planting and taxes remitted on purely forest areas. The government tried to help by giving land to settlers if they planted a@ certain proportion in trees, but this law was repealed. A move in the right direction was the reservation of large areas around water-sheds and rivers. The United lion acres, States forests cover about or 29 per cent of the | Bead perce There are threo great | forest regions, one extending from the | Atlantic seaboard to the Great Plains, the | only timber being along streams and | some heights, and two west of the Plains. White pine is the commonest tree and is most abundant in the north-| ern part of the Lake States. In 1922 the net area of eesonal Forest ene bes million acres and in 1922 there were million acres, of this 137 million are virgin | - timber, 112 million culled and second | growth, fit for sawing; 133 million, | to partially stocked with small growth and | 81 million acres of devastated or waste lands. The United States uses four times the annual forest growth. The annual revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1922, was $5,068,527. From it 1916 aac tan forest by ‘ doves that there are 2800 billion feet of lumber} in the United states forests. One half is in the Pacific Northwest, and in Washington and Oregon in Idaho and Montana | he Over one eighth; in California a little| of le . Of the varieties of pine Washing- | to ton and Oregon supply one fourth (Douglas fir). Other pines, sold as| was ‘Southern yellow pine’ the Gulf and|N.B. South Atlantic states, one-eighth; west-| ern Michigan one-eighth. Spruce, the next soft wood is found in the east and | on western mountains. Hardwoods abound principally in northern parts of | the east, producing about one-fifth of the supply. Alaska supplies western hemlock, Sitka spruce and yellow cedar. The Philippines contain 49,000,000 acres of timber of which 160 varieties are marketable woods, Hawaii and Porto Rico produce valuable hardwoods in great abundance.