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>- there are more trees now than at any time in this country's history

Hard to believe..

From http://fia.fs.fed.us/library/briefings-summaries-overviews/docs/ForestFactsMetric.pdf

"It is estimated that - at the beginning of European settlement -
in 1630 the area of forest land that would become
the United States was 423 million hectares or about 46
percent of the total land area. By 1907, the area of forest
land had declined to an estimated 307 million hectares or
34 percent of the total land area. Forest area has been relatively
stable since 1907. In 1997, 302 million hectares -
or 33 percent of the total land area of the United States-
was in forest land. Today's forest land area amounts to
about 70 percent of the area that was forested in 1630.
Since 1630, about 120 million hectares of forest land
have been converted to other uses-mainly agricultural.
More than 75 percent of the net conversion to other uses
occurred in the 19th century."