The _direct_ utility of forests is chiefly due to their produce, the capital which they represent, and the work which they provide. The principal produce of forests consists of timber and firewood. Both are necessaries for the daily life of the people. Apart from a limited number of broad-leaved species, the conifers have become the most important timber trees in the economy of man. They are found in greatest quantities in the countries around the Baltic and in North America. In modern times iron and other materials have, to a considerable extent, replaced timber, while coal, lignite, and peat compete with firewood; nevertheless wood is still indispensable, and likely to remain so. This is borne out by the statistics of the most civilized nations. Whereas the population of Great Britain and Ireland, during the period 1880-1900, increased by about 20%, the imports of timber, during the same period, increased by 45%; in other words, every head of population in 1900 used more timber than twenty years earlier. Germany produced in 1880 about as much timber as she required; in 1899 she imported 4,600,000 tons, valued at L14,000,000, and her imports are rapidly increasing, although the yield capacity of her own forests is much higher now than it was formerly. Wood is now used for many purposes which formerly were not thought of. The manufacture of the wood pulp annually imported into Britain consumes at least 2,000,000 tons of timber. A fabric closely resembling silk is now made of spruce wood. The variety of other, or minor, produce yielded by forests is very great, and much of it is essential for the well-being of the people and for various industries. The yield of fodder is of the utmost importance in countries subject to periodic droughts; in many places field crops could not be grown successfully without the leaf-mould and brushwood taken from the forests. As regards industries, attention need only be drawn to such articles as commercial fibre, tanning materials, dye-stuffs, lac, turpentine, resin, rubber, gutta-percha, &c. Great Britain and Ireland alone import every year such materials to the value of L12,000,000, half of this being represented by rubber.