[blam]

I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.

[Chode]

my woods are lovely, dark and deep...

[Puckster]

“I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.”

Correct-a-mundo!!!!!

That forested area betwixt the Appalachia's and the Mississippi River had a large agrarian population that had burned back most of the forest there. Disease, in advance of any pioneering, collapsed this society.

By the time settlers came they saw a mature forest. The plains native-americans ritually burned back the forest where the plains and the forest met for several reasons including simply keeping the forest at bay. Insect control and fertilization of the prairie for better grazing grass and also for a clear line of view against enemy encroachment.

[marty60]

That is true.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

The tallest trees on earth are the coastal redwoods. But 100 years ago, that was probably not the case. They were perhaps exceeded in height by a few Douglas firs, but they were almost certainly exceeded in height by the Australian mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans). Lumbering in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries opened up the moist forests. Catastophic fires eventually ravaged the now drying habitat.

The best habitat, in eastern Australia, has been degraded. A lesser habitat, The Styx River Valley (aka The Valley of the Giants) in Tasmania, still retains a few trees taller than 300 feet in height.

Here is a photo that gives a hint of what once was:

>

[sand88]

I hiked some in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Hurricane Ridge has some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen.

[Mears]

This makes me glad I live in MA.,which is usually not the case.

Nice chart.

[Peter from Rutland]

I’ve seen pics of my town here in MA back in the OLD days and it was completely stripped. It’s amazing to see the difference between now and then.

[txhurl]

Great map. You can see where Tornado alley rips up saplings before they ever can cast a shadow, and you can see where the TX hill country is the greenest spot in TX after the Piney Woods.

I can’t live without trees over me, under, beside, in front of. The prairie drive to Houston or Dallas depresses me.

[Gator113]

See that dark patch at the top left of our country.... those are my trees.

[Ronald_Magnus]

I’ve been pushing for a long time for our WA license plates to read : “Chop Wood or Die”.

[gibsosa]

bump

[theBuckwheat]

Yes, the ‘organic and natural’ crowd assumed that Native Americans, being the indigenous peoples who only could live in total mystical harmony with the earth. The truth is far less mystical. When, for example, they set the forest alight to aid in harvesting game, they didn’t have the means from stopping the forest fire from consuming many square miles of trees.

Today in much of the US, the old Forest Service fire towers are no longer needed because enough people live where nobody used to and fires get reported promptly. And so, in my neck of the woods, the big forest management issue is that cedar trees are taking over where oak and hickory used to prevail. This because we now choose to suppress fires instead of allowing the forest floor to be burned every few years. I can hardly wait until the enviros want to “re-introduce” fire on the heals of their “re-introduced” wolves.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

When did all the state boundaries change? I’ve been in a lot of meetings this week...did I miss something important?

Can we herd all the libs into those big empty white treeless states in the middle? Or is that where they are building the concentration camps for us?

[womanvet]

Wow.

So, there are few trees, if any, in the Plains or deserts? Is anyone surprised by that? Golly, I wonder why they were called Plains and deserts...

[thecodont]

That dark green on the West Coast is Sugar Pine country.

[okie01]

I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.

And it's true. Every year, Weyerhauser, Georgia-Pacific and the rest plant thousands more trees than they cut.

Moreover, since the first global survey (Surveyor, 1968), the global acreage of forest has increased every single year.

Must be all that CO2...