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American hardwood products

The American hardwood industry, which dates back to the first European settlers, has a wealth of experience in processing the native hardwoods of North America. The eastern United States, as we now know them, were heavily forested from Maine in the North to the Gulf of Mexico in the South, and westwards across to the Mississippi valley. The Appalachian mountain range, which runs through the centre of the eastern states, provides a wide variety of growing sites at different altitudes, which in turn gives rise to the varied characteristics of many species. In fact, the USA has more temperate hardwood species than any other region of the world.

A massive hardwood processing capacity has been built in the USA to supply this domestic and growing export demand. Today the USA is the largest producer of sawn hardwood in the world. Sawmills, dry kilns, moulding and dimension plants, veneer slicing and plywood factories, flooring plants and concentration yards for distribution of hardwood material, exist across all eastern states. There is also a small but significant processing capacity in the Pacific Northwest, based on a few local species, the most important of which is western red alder.