. Conservation. Forests and forestry. THURSDAY MORNING SESSION Section of Forests SUMMARY OF SECTION REPORT THE United States now has 550,000,000 acres of forested lands, or about one- fourth of the total land area of conti- nental United States. The original forests covered not less than 850,000,000 acres. Pub- licly owned forests cover one-fourth of the total and contain one-fifth of the timber standing; privately owned forests cover the remaining area and contain the remainder of timber standing. Scientific forestry is now practiced on seventy per cent of the publicly owned forests and on l
. Conservation. Forests and forestry. THURSDAY MORNING SESSION Section of Forests SUMMARY OF SECTION REPORT THE United States now has 550,000,000 acres of forested lands, or about one- fourth of the total land area of conti- nental United States. The original forests covered not less than 850,000,000 acres. Pub- licly owned forests cover one-fourth of the total and contain one-fifth of the timber standing; privately owned forests cover the remaining area and contain the remainder of timber standing. Scientific forestry is now practiced on seventy per cent of the publicly owned forests and on less than one per cent of the privately owned forests. The total yearly growth of our forests is less than seven billions of cubic feet; we take from the forests each year, including waste in logging and manufacture, 23,000,000,000 cubic feet, or more than three times the annual produc- tion. We use annually 100,000,000 cords of fire- wood ; 40,000,000,000 feet of lumber; more than 1,000,000,000 posts, poles and fence rails; ii8,ooo„ooo hewn ties; 1,500,000,000 staves; 133,000,000 sets of heading; 500,000,000 barrel hoops; 3,000,000 cords of native pulpwood; 165,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, and 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation. Not less than 50,000,000 acres of forest land is burned over annually, and since 1870 forest fires have each year destroyed an average of fifty lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. One-fourth of the standing timber is left or otherwise lost in logging; the boxing of long-leaf pine for turpentine has destroyed one-fifth pf the forests worked; the loss in the mill is from, one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed, and the loss in the mill 36 product, from seasoning and fitting for use, is from one-seventh to one-fourth. In other words, only 320 feet of lumber is used for every 1,000 feet that stood in the forests, uur lumber cut has increased less than fifteen per cent in the last seven years, but the aver- age price at the mill,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectforestsandforestry
