I cannot speak to the amount of forest trees, but I have opinion of the quality of trees for timber an commercial sale. Most of the wood for doors, jambs and trim has changed drastically for the worse. 40 to 50 years ago the the coin of the realm, so to speak was white fir. It was known for beautiful even grained, very hard, great even stain absorbition without an applied treatment and great for painting, also. If you tried to supply soft pine, the market did not want it, as it was and is inferior. Old growth seems to be being replaced by much faster growing softer pines, to the point of no lumber yard carrying the higher quality as general stock in this country. The softer pines grow faster, but with more knots. The softer wood is more prone to warping. It is very hard to stain without a pretreatment, as stain absorption tends to vary by the foot, with so much residual tars and saps, to make some areas on a clear lineal 16 pc almost impossible to stain smoothly as some area will not accept stain at all, while others, suck it up like a sponge. Everything you see at the lumberyards is the lower quality pines, and this applies to trim as well has jambs. My home was built in 1962. All the jambs are clear flat jambs, both on doors and window. The wood quality is uniformly excellent, indeed when change various rooms from paint to stain, the jambs turned out to be door quality similar to what is used by premium door manufacturers such as Simpson Master Mark or Buffelen Door. Now many wood door manufacturers in this country are even going to the cheaper fast-growing pines, due to availability and price. As more wood is painted than stain, the shift has gone further making cheap MDF (medium density fiberboard) mostly from other countries in South America instead of finger jointed firs or even pines. That stuff is nothing but sawdust and water based thickener then squeezed out of a mold. When buying doors of more expensive mahogany, you aren't even getting mahogany, just some distant cousin, genetically, also primarily sourced from outside the country. No matter how you slice it, wood in this country just ain't what it used to be, but you would probably say, I am a wood snob from being from the industry for so many years.
That said, for all you true greenies out there, most of the wood I have written about comes from conifers and the needles grown probably in greater numbers as the more knotty the pine, the more branches and needles, probably have a greater carbon dioxide/oxygen exchange than the old growth firs that used a blanket the great northwest, and are much faster to grow and renew.
This is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
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