ABSTRACT
This chapter endeavors to summarize the remainder of this book with broad strokes — to describe the geography, ecology, and silviculture of the many types of forests that cover North America north of the Rio Grande. More or less south of the Lake States are the valuable broadleaf forests of the Central States. From Illinois to Ohio and south to Kentucky and western Tennessee, agriculture competes with forestry in these fertile soils that originally supported oaks, ashes, maples, and American beech. The Coastal Plain southern pine forests that begin in East Texas extend eastward to Virginia and New Jersey. Principal species are loblolly and shortleaf pines. A sense of the cultural influence on the utilization of North American forests aids in recognizing problems and suggesting solutions to those problems that concern silviculture. As the pioneering settlers in the Northeast in the 1700s began the cut-out-and-get-out logging practices, the forests to the west appeared endless.
