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Show 1900} PRODUCTS 4i The trees on the two sides of the continent are sharply differentiated. \ While in the northeast the conifers, or soft woods, fofm the prevailing element, there is, nevertheless, a considerable mixture of hardwoods with deciduous, broad leaves; and farther south the latter constitute almost the entire forest, except along the coastal plain. On the Pacific the reverse is true, the conifers reaching a size and luxuriance unequalled elsewhere, while the hardwoods are comparatively few. The most important species in the east has been the white pine, formerly very abundant in eastern Canada and south as far as Massachusetts, but extending in less quantity south of that limit. For many years the main supply has been drawn from its western range in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. So freely has it been cut that even in that region it is becoming extinct for practical purposes. The original quantity is estimated to have been seven hundred billion feet, 1 and the average cut at present is about two billion feet annually. In the northeast are many other species of conifers, such as various kinds of pine, the white cedar, hemlock, fir, larch, and the spruces already mentioned. The most important hardwoods are the sugar and red maples, the beech, various birches ( especially the canoe birch), the white elm, and the 1 The White Pine ( U. S. Dcpt. Agric, Div. of Forestry, Bulletin 22), p. 19. |