What is Timber?
Timber is another name for wood, whether still standing in the form of trees or felled and turned into boards for construction. Some people may also refer to timber as lumber, or differentiate between timber as unprocessed wood and lumber as cut wood packaged for commercial sale. The timber industry around the world is huge, providing wood for a variety of products from paper to particleboard. People have been referring to timber since at least the seventh century, although lumber is a relatively recent word, dating to the settlement of America in the 1600s. Early citizens in the Massachusetts Bay Colony starts to refer to sawed planks as lumber, setting them apart from raw timber which still had to be processed before it could be used. Incidentally, the “timbers” in nautical slang are an important structural component of a ship’s frame. Before timber is felled, it must be assessed by foresters, who determine how valuable it is and whether or not it is safe to harvest. In many regions
