Scandinavian American. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1945-1958, 1951-03-12
Sweden
How Many Trees =?

Sweden's forests? To Swedes, the
question is vital, because about
half Of the country's exports are
forest output-pulp, lumber, pa
per, fiber board, furniture and
prefabricated houses.
There are other parts of the
world which are more forested:
the New England states, for in
stance. have considerably m or
than Sweden's so per cent of land
area in timber. But few countries
are SO dependent for their pros
perity on the quantity of fores t
products they can ship abroad.
Before the war sales of pulp alone
covered the bill for the important
group Of imports comprising coal,
coke, oil and gasoline, automobiles.
The question is of interest to
other peoples, too Sweden is one
of the main sources of supply for
pulp and lumber. Before the war,
again, one third of the pulp traded
internationally was Swedish.
There was some questioning, par
ticularly in the United States,
when the war ended, whether there
was much left of the Swedish for
ests. or whether they had b n
mostly chopped up for firewood.
Experts came over to have a look,
and returned with reassuring news,
the wartime cutting had been
mostly a cleaning up job, h e
forests were in better shape than
ever.
Then it turned out that only
about II million tons of pulp
could be shipped, compared with
q yearly average of nearly %
million before the war. Lumber
shipments came to only half the
prewar quantity.
Well, how many trees are there
in the forests? Most recent esti-
mate: 1O,347, 100000 measuring
AZ inches or more at breast
height. plus perhaps twice as many
of smaller di m e n S on S. The
trouble is, too many are S m |
trees. This is the paradoXical re-
fult of exemplary forest manage
1t takes a long time for trees
to mature in these latitudes-in
the northern half of the country
it is 1850 years for pulpWood,
100-150 years for saving timber
BY comparison, in the United
States, southern pine can be pulped
at 1925 years. That's a big diff
ference. Fortunately, tn oug h.
the growing conditions give Swed-
ash pulpwood desirable qualities
Before you can get forests on
q sustained yield, you have to
cut down the virgin growth. If
YOU don't, it deteriorates anyway
But the last of this is only just
disappearing, and the freshly
planted trees in important produc-
ing areas are nowhere near ma
turity yet. The volume of harvest
able timber is now in the trough
between two crests.
The height of the next crest
will depend on how the forests are
nursed over. say, the next o r Y
years. Prewar, the forests in the
northern half of the country.
where the bulk of the pulp and
sawmills are located were actu-
ally subjected to a 20-odd per cent
drain on capital That appeared
afterwards, though. The war Pc
-icS, With only 10 per cent in
crease in total cuttings, concealed
the facts longer than would have
been likely in normal conditions
lalmost anything will do for fire
wood, but not for lumber and
pulp.
The latest forest assay shows
this position: counting trees of
more than Az inches at breast
height only, the northern half of
the country (Norrlandl still has
6s per cent of the timber by vol
ume. But, the Norrland volume has
decreased from SIS to 779 million
cubic meters is recorded This
means a net increase for the
whole country of 6s million cubic