In her forest area, Pennsylvania exceeds twenty-one of her sister States, and in this respect is exceeded by fifteen of them.

The counties of the Commonwealth have timber areas varying from 88.3 per cent. in Cameron, to 5.2 per cent. in Philadelphia, distributed as

This forest area is more or less densely covered with trees of from one hundred to one hundred and five distinct species, of which sixty-five to sixty-seven sometimes reach a height of fifty feet or more. Of these the deciduous oaks, two species of ash, beech, chestnut, and white pine attain the greatest perfection. On the mountain ridges the white oak, ash, and hickory attain a degree, strength, and durability which has made them noted even when not specially remarkable for their size.

"The forests in BRADFORD are a mixture of hemlock, oak, chestnut, maple beech, &c. Hemlock timber is worth about eight dollars per thousand.

The central and south-eastern portion of SULLIVAN are covered with dense primeval forests. Immense tracts are reported as covered with hemlock as fine as the world produces. These are intersected by a ridge of hard wood, from which the timber has been largely cut off for the market, though the stock left will last for many years. For the last ten or fifteen years, hemlock has been extensively destroyed for the bark. In many sections the hemlock will yield fifty to seventy-five thousand of manufactured lumber per acre.

In FULTON, twenty-five years ago the best of mountain forest could be bought at fifty cents to one dollar per acre; now it brings fifteen to twentyfive dollars per acre. The most valuable timber on the mountain is chestnut, chestnut oak, and yellow pine. Four large steam tanneries are very destructive on the chestnut oak for the immense quantities of bark they consume. Mountain land from which the pine and chestnut oak are cut off, in twenty to twenty-five years will have a fine growth of chestnut fit for rails. A forest of large yellow pine with a mixture of oak, chestnut, hickory, &c., was cut off from a lot twenty-five years ago. On it yellow pines grew thickly. Recently, after leaving the best standing, fifty cords of lime kiln wood per acre have been cut from it.

Nine tenths of the land in MCKEAN is in forests, though the valuable timber in them, such as pine, cherry, ash, and poplar, is nearly gone. Half the remaining timber is hemlock.

About one half the surface of MIFFLIN is occupied with broken land and mountains, on which are growing large quantities of chestnut, valuable for fencing, &c.

BEDFORD Contains about twelve acres of forest to one of cultivation. The mountains and high ridges are abundantly covered with white and yellow pine, rock oak, and chestnut. Tracts of chestnut readily yield three thousand to four thousand rails for fencing, per acre, worth five dollars per hundred. The lowlands abound with mammoth white oak, eight to twelve feet in circumference, and knotless for forty to sixty feet from the base--not of much value for want of a market. From one locust tree, recently cut, were made one hundred and eighty-three number one fencing posts, worth forty cents each, (?.) Chestnut grows so rapidly, that in sixteen years after the first cutting, the land will reproduce an equal yield. About one half the area of FAYETTE is mountainous, and fully one half