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<br />Ojj233 <br /> <br />'The spruce sawtimber stands in the unit average 140 to 200 years old, with some individual <br />trees approaching 300 years. Douglas-fir sawtimber averages 175 to 250 years, and <br />ponderosa pine sawtimber averages 120 years, with older specimens of both reaching 350 <br />years of age. White fir, cork bark fir and subalpine fir average 130 years and live about 220 <br />years. Aspen are relatively short lived and average only SO years, although some trees live to <br />150 years. <br /> <br />Sawtimber volume totals approximately 2,470 million board feet for the entire unit. (A <br />Board foot is a block of wood one inch thick and 12 inches square.) The present allowable <br />timber harvest for the unit is estimated at 21 million board feet annually-meaning that this <br />amount of wood could be harvested year after year without depleting the forest. It takes <br />approximately 10,000 board feet to construct the average American home. <br /> <br />Besides wood production, forests are valuable for holding soil, moderating water flow, <br />wildlife habitat, esthetics, nature enjoyment, recreation, and many other uses. The greatest <br />wildlife use generally occurs in forests with a variety of openings and along edges of forested <br />areas where grass and brush growth occur. Also, varied forest landscapes are usually more <br />pleasing visually than continuous homogeneous forests, and diverse forests, with a mixture <br />of species, sizes. and ages, are usually more resistant to fire, disease, and insect attack. <br /> <br />~ <br />