Nine tree species growing in the villages of Bangladesh were studied to determine their suitability for making hardboard. Hardboards were made on defiberizing the pre-steamed chips mechanically. Strength and water-resistance properties of the boards were determined. It was found that none ofthe species could make hardboards good enough to meet the requirements of Class-1 hardboard of the US Hardboard Association Specifications. Nevertheless, all the species except neem, produced good, or even better, hardboards compared with sundri used in Khulna
Hardboard Mills.

The tropical moist deciduous forests of Bangladesh locally known as sal forests predominantly contain sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn. f.). It covers about 110 thousand hectares ofland and has a wide but interrupted distribution. There is scant record on the flora and vegetation ofsal forests from Bangladesh. About 65 percent of sal forest is highly degraded. The present work is a first attempt to document the woody flora of sal forests of Bangladesh. In this paper a general description ofthese forests containing landscape, soils, climate, forest types, vegetation, floristics and diversity has been given. The woody taxa enumerated including three monocotyledonous families (Gramineae, Liliaceae and Palmae) number about 260 species under 160 genera comprising of56 families. Out ofthese 260 taxa trees,shrubs and woody climbers are represented by about 133, 77 and 50 species respectively. Leguminosae ranks top of the list. Euphorbiaceae and Rubiaceae occupy the next positions. About 17 families are represented bysinglewoody taxa only. Floristic composition varies from area to area. The conservation needs have been emphasized.

This paper attempts to compare the efficiencies of moulded chairs and conventional chairs from financial view point. The financial impacts of moulded and conventional chairs were evaluated through a case study. The study areaswereBangladesh ForestResearch Institute (BFRI) and three otherlocations ofChittagong city. The study revealed that the net presentvalue, benefitcost ratio and internal rate of return stood at Tk. 113.06, 1.36 and 105.39% respectively for moulded chairs compared to Tk. 58.53,1.16 and 48.85% respectively for conventional chairs. The cross over discount rate was 29.71%. Further, the internal rate of returns due to production of moulded chairs were found less sensitive to changes in costs and prices. The study, therefore, found the moulded chairs to be a better choice within some limitations.