total forested area in the us

[twoodward15]

I could have sworn I read it somehwere here, but does anyone know the total forested area now as opposed to 100 years ago.  I have a bet going with wifey and I sure would like to win.  It's gettin' warm up here and she's buying ice cream.

[beenthere]

I am sure it is more than it was 100 years ago, but I will look for that data.

[beenthere]

Found the following site, full of statistics
Inventory of Forest Resources

from which the following was listed:

Area of Commercial and Non-Commercial forestland in the US (79C1)
(Areas (Col.2 and 3) are in millions of acres.)
(Sawtimber inventories (Col. 4) and net growth (Col. 5) are in billion b.f. and billion b.f./ year.)
(Growing Stock Inventory (Col. 6) is in billion ft3 and million m3.)
Year  |Comm. |Non~  |Standing   |Sawtimber | Growing
----    |Comm.|Comm.|Sawtimber|Growth ~  | Stock
1630 | 850    | 100    | 7625~ ~ | ? ?   ~ ~   | ? ??    |(?)
1907 | 580    | ? ?     | 2500~ ~ | ? ?   ~ ~   | ? ??    |(?)
1920 | 464    | 150    | 2215~ ~ | ~9.7~ ~   | ~6.0   |(170)
1930 | 495    | 120    | 1668~ ~ | 11.7~ ~   | ~8.9    |(252)
1938 | 462    | 168    | 1764~ ~ | 32.0~ ~   | 11.3    |(320)
1944 | 461    | 163    | 1601~ ~ | 35.3~ ~   | 13.4    |(379)
1952 | 595    | 163    | 2412~ ~ | 45.1~ ~   | 13.9    |(394)
1962 | 508    | ? ?     | 2430~ ~ | 52.3~ ~   | 16.4    |(464)
1970 | 500    | 254    | 2421~ ~ | 60.0~ ~   | 18.1    |(513)
1977 | 488    | 252    | 2569~ ~ | 73.6~ ~   | 21.9    |(620)
Comments: For comparison, the land area of the 48 states is 1904 million acres (7.708 million km2) (79C1).

Picking 1907 as 580 + 100 = 680 million acres, then the area has increased in 70 years to 488 + 252 + 740 million acres.

[jon12345]

Interesting statistics, the forest area has increased by almost 9% but stand stocking has only increased about 3%

[crtreedude]

Interesting - in the same time we went from about 100% to 27% forest in Costa Rica.

One question, is there data on the quality of the forest? For example, how much hardwoods, large trees, etc. Or, is this huge pine plantations.

There are lies, and statistics...  ;)

[Ron Wenrich]

I found this info in The Northeast's Changing Forest by Lloyd Irland.  In 1909 there was 544.25 million acres of forestland.  In 1992, there was 736.681 million acres.  The estimated original area was 856.69 million acres. 

As for quality, its hard to say.  The link above has some charts that show a steady decline in the number of trees above 29".  But, tree size does not indicate tree quality. 

[twoodward15]

Thanks guys, looks like I'll be eating ice cream this afternoon!!!