Lumber

Lumber, cut wood, especially when prepared for use. There are two kinds of lumber: hardwood and softwood. Softwood comes from trees called conifers, or evergreens, such as pines and firs. Hardwood comes from deciduous trees such as oak, maple, birch, aspen, and cottonwood. Lumbering, the extraction of timber from the forest, is a major industry in the United States. In world timber production, the former USSR is first, then the United States, Japan, and Canada.