TREES
OF THE FOREST
Their Beauty and Use
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
FOREST SERVICE PA 613
Walk In the Woods One Day ...
It will not take long to realize or remember that of allAmerica’s riches, the inherited and acquired, the naturaland manmade, trees are among our most cherished.
It would be a poorer nation indeed without them, if anation at all. As living creatures they delight the eye andinspire belief as you walk among them. As wood, loggedand hewn, they serve civilization in myriad ways.
When the Founding Fathers arrived, the native Americanforest stretched almost unbroken from the Atlanticto the Great Plains and beyond the Plains to the Pacific.Trees were the source of their first crude forts, of theirfurniture, firewood, fruit, and even of their medicines.Game and fish for the table of pioneers were harvested incool woodland shadows.
The Nation’s forests have shrunk appreciably throughthe years, yet today almost 800 different species of nativetrees and hundreds of others introduced from foreignlands grow and thrive in the United States. They fulfillmany purposes. Peach, apple, and cherry are trees of theorchard. Sheltering your home, shading your street, orlending dignity to your city park may be the elm, oak,maple, weeping willow, or handsome, slow-growing Englishyew. You may be on speaking terms with a nearbyLombardy poplar, a slender, stately tree which PresidentThomas Jefferson once planted in rows along PennsylvaniaAvenue in Washington. Or perhaps the wide-spreadingornamental hackberry, which like all treesserves more than a single use: robins and mockingbirdsthrive on its purple-black berries.
Other types of trees, including more than 175 species ofcommercial value, grace our contemporary forest. Theyadd to the grandeur and glory of our land, immeasurablein their fullest meaning, though in a tangible sense furnishingfood and protective cover to wildlife, shade andfirewood to campers, and timber to us all.
The future of the forest? One day walk in the managedstands of our 154 National Forests. Observe how theselands are managed for many uses, how their trees benefitfrom man’s touch and influence, and how logging with apurpose enhances the health of the forest and its valueto your children’s children. Meanwhile, follow throughthese pages the story of growing trees and timber on theNational Forests.
Light, Water, Soil, and Space for Growth
What are the National Forests from which much of ourtimber comes?
Trees are their dominant characteristic, but trees arehardly alone or even self-sufficient, for a forest is a vibrantlycomplex, interwoven community of many formsof life. Within its depths the tree, shrubby plant, largeanimal, and minute creature struggle together andagainst each other to survive and to perpetuate theirspecies.
From the beginning to the end of its days, the tree exertsa ceaseless effort in the contest fo