LUMBER INDUSTRY, the produc tion of and trade in sawn timber for building purposes. The chief countries engaged in this industry are the United States, Canada, Russia, Hungary, Ger many, Sweden, and France, to which may be added Brazil, British Guiana, Mexico, and other tropical countries as the producers of the hardwoods, such as mahogany, cyprus, etc. In France, Sweden, and especially Germany, the in dustry differs from that in the United States in that it includes the cultivation of the trees from which the timber is cut, the natural forests having long ago been depleted. The unlimited license hitherto given the cutting of timber in the United States has of recent years brought appreciably nearer the need of a similar organization of the produc tion. The first step in this direction has already been taken in the establishment of the Forestry Service, under the juris diction of the Department of Agricul ture, whose function it is to guard the national forests against fire, destructive insects and diseases and otherwise to encourage the growth of marketable timber, a certain amount of which is cut and sold each year under the supervision of the Bureau of Forestry. Because of this service the depletion of the timber lands of the country has been consider ably checked.
The resources of the United States in marketable timber were estimated as follows in 1913: the total area of for ests still uncut amounted to 545,000,000 acres; about 1,013 billion board feet of timber was available in the Pacific Northwest; 634 billion board feet in the South, mostly white pine; about 100 bil lion board feet in the Lake States, and 450 billion board feet scattered elsewhere throughout the country. Aside from this there was 600 billion board feet under the control of the Federal Government, on the national reservations, including Alaska, with another 90 billion on State government reservations. The produc tion of ordinary building timber during 1912, the last year of normal conditions in the industry, amounted to 40 billion board feet, which does not include shin gles, laths, etc. During the war, how ever, the demand for lumber for the shipbuilding industry caused great in roads on our reserves of white pine, spruce, etc. The result has been a notable shortage of supplies for or dinary building purposes, as well as a shortage of wood for the production of paper.