population centers, where overcutting of the woodland is indicated by the steadily increasing distance, already impressively large, over which fuelwood and charcoal are being shipped by rail. Eucalyptus, the plantation species most suitable for fuel, is also cut more rapidly than it is being grown, for example by about 50 percent in the Santiago area. This will of course tend to hold up or further increase the price of fuelwood and act as a deterrent to increased consumption.

Nevertheless it is estimated that these factors, material though they are, will be more than overcome by other factors tending toward increased consumption of wood for fuel. New industries and incompletely satisfied industrial and domestic demands will tend to compensate for the reduction that might otherwise be expected from the increased availability of other more convenient fuels. Llareta, now an important fuel in the north, will probably have to be replaced at least in part because of a limited and decreasing supply. The proposed expansion of the hardwood chemical distillation industry will in itself increase wood consumption by about 3 percent. In addition there will be the rise in number of consumers through normal population increase, averaging 43,000 persons per year, and an expectable increase in per capita consumption, now only 29.2 cubic feet annually, with the rising standard of living which may be expected to result from Chile's industrialization program. Accordingly, consumption during the 1944 to 1954 decade is estimated somewhat larger than at present or at 150 million cubic feet annually.

Future normal consumption (1970), after Chile has had an opportunity to effect an industrialization program and obtain freer use of the forest resource, is estimated at a slightly higher figure, or 160 million cubic feet per year, excluding the possible use of wood in steel production in new furnaces. This estimate assumes that the use of wood per capita of those burning wood (now 29.2 cubic feet) will rise 70 percent, or to 52 cubic feet per year, as a higher standard of living encourages freer wood use, but that the total number of consumers will fall to the equivalent of rural consumers plus a small percentage of urban consumers, with most of the urban domestic and all of the industrial needs supplied by other fuels. This parallels past trends in other countries, where rural communities continue to burn fuel wood as long as it is abundant and reasonably priced even though other more convenient fuels take over urban domestic and industrial demands.

Fencing and Minor Agricultural Use

The use of wood on farms for all purposes, fuel, buildings, posts and fencing, and wagons, carts, and tools is one of the major drains on the forest resource (plate 8-B). Fuel and building requirements, present and future, are discussed under the sections on Fuelwood and on Lumber for Construction, respectively. This section is confined to other farm use, primarily posts and fencing materials and minor agricultural articles from hewn material of small dimensions.

The total current annual requirements for these items is estimated as 7.8 million cubic feet. Some 1.3 million cubic feet or one-sixth of this amount comes from dead trees, logging waste or similar sources and does not constitute a direct drain on the forest resource. Of the remainder, 5.2 million cubic feet, about 80 percent comes from natural forests and 20 percent from woodlands.

Future requirements for farm use will depend not only on the timber needed for maintenance on established farms but also on the number of new farms created by colonization and subdivision. The number of new farms created annually has risen steadily since 1855. (See figure 16.) This number has increased rapidly in the 26-year period from 1911 to

1936, inclusive, with some 132,000 new farm units or 5,077 units per year being created. This sharp upward trend is believed to have continued during the last 8 years, and though no adequate statistics are available, this situation will not change in the judgment of competent agriculturists for various reasons including the falling value of the peso, the resulting rise in land prices, present normal division by inheritance, indirect compulsion to liquidate large holdings through both social pressure and direct purchase and division by the State, and an increasing interest in intensification of agriculture not always feasible on the larger holdings. Many of the new rural units now being created by subdivision are not being developed as farms. It is estimated, however, that some 4,000 new units per year are being equipped for farming and continuation of present trends will raise wood requirements. These requirements resulting chiefly from the creation of new farm units by subdivision, will tend to obscure such smaller and compensatory changes as the rise in population and the more conservative use of wood in all-wood fences, as well as the fact that the use of wood for vineyard stakes - about 20 percent of the amount being considered here is not apt to change because of legal prohibitions against increasing the acreage in this crop. Accordingly, the wood requirements for posts, fencing and minor agricultural use for the decade 1944 to 1954 are estimated roughly as 25 percent above present totals, or approximately 9.75 million cubic feet.

This estimate, however, does not allow for any increase in wood requirements due to a rising standard of living or material change in purchasing power. A real farm boom would require several times as much wood for fencing and other minor agriculture use. It seems probable, however, that even a material change of this kind would be largely compensated, as far as fencing is concerned, by the use of wire and posts rather than solid wooden fence which now takes the major part of wood for fencing (even though the percentage of farms equipped in this way is relatively small).

FIGURE 16.-TRENDS IN POPULATION AND NUMBER OF RURAL PROPERTIES

Accordingly, future normal use (1970) for fencing and minor agricultural use is estimated at the same level as for 1944-54, or at 9.75 million cubic feet annually.

INDUSTRIAL REQUIREMENTS

Lumber and Lumber Products

Lumber and lumber products represent the most important field of use for trees of sawtimber size. Consumption in this field as reported in census statistics averaged 209 million board feet annually for the years 1936 to 1943, inclusive, or 45 percent of the total sawtimber cut. (See figure 17.)

The period of satisfactory record of lumber production is too short to permit an accurate estimate of trends but the available records of both production and rail shipments indicate that lumber production

has risen substantially over the last decade. Average distance shipped has also risen steadily over this period illustrating the effect of overcutting in the forest provinces closest to the Santiago area. Over two-thirds comes from Province Group 4 and about 60 percent from the provinces of Valdivia and Cautin alone. About 28 percent is Roble, 16 percent Laurel (and Tepa classed as Laurel) and 15 percent Rauli, these three species furnishing 59 percent of the lumber cut.

The present cut represents a per capita consumption of some 42 board feet per year which is higher than in other less wooded countries, for example Mexico, Argentina, and France, but low in relation to Chile's substantial forest area and to per capita consumption in other well wooded countries such as Norway and Sweden, estimated as 180 to 200 board feet per capita, or in the United States, where consumption is now about 245 board feet per capita and has been more than double this fig

ure.

Reasonable developments should raise lumber consumption in the next decade 10 to 15 percent or to some 238 million board feet per year. Normal future use (1970) should be more than twice the present use and is estimated roughly at 508 million board feet annually or some 80 board feet per capita. This seems conservative in view of the size of the available resources. Even under crude forest management, primarily fire protection, considerable timber would remain available for export.

Lumber for Construction

Lumber for construction constitutes the largest single consumption item for wood cut from sawtimber stands (plate 9). No accurate figures are available on consumption in this field but fragmentary cenPERCENT

'40

'42

1944

TREND OF LUMBER PRODUCTION, LUMBER SHIPMENTS BY RAIL AND
AVERAGE DISTANCE SHIPPED

Plate 9.

Lumber for construction is the largest single consumer of wood cut from saw timber stands.