THE STORY OF WHITE PINE 



35 



The white pine was not discovered at 

 Plymouth in 1620, but there and then 

 occurrred its formal introduction to the 

 white man on the American continent. 

 The best of a splendid race of 

 men and the finest representa- 

 tives of the forests there met, 

 and each in its own domain 

 was the "heir of all the ages in 

 the foremost files of time." 



EARLY UTILIZATION. 



Contrast the New England 

 pine with the vast forests of 

 mahogany on the west coast 

 of Africa. The latter were dis- 

 covered first. Yet they re- 

 mained untouched for nearly 

 four hundred years, while 

 white pine was put to use im- 

 mediately; and so long has 

 that use continued, and in 

 territory so extensive, that it 

 is no exaggeration to claim for 

 white pine that it has been the 

 most important building wood 

 in the history of the world. 

 That holds in amount and also 

 in variety of uses. Its softness 

 and weakness have barred it 

 from some places in modern 

 manufacturing, and its lack of 

 figure has disqualified it for 

 others; but its range of use- 

 fulness has been so wide, and 

 the supply so great, that it 

 held first place in forest ma- 

 terials during two and a half 

 centuries; and, though it has 

 now dropped back from the 

 first rank, it still occupies a 

 position of great importance, 

 and it will continue to do so for 

 all time. As a timber tree, it 

 is not doomed to extermina- 

 tion as some have been led to 

 suppose. It will have, and it 

 is already having, a new 

 life. Most of the old condi- 

 tions have passed, but new conditions 

 are developing. That ought to be ap- 

 parent from the fact that Massachusetts, 

 where the first white pines were cut, still 

 supplies considerably more than one hun- 

 dred million feet of this timber yearly, 

 and as far as the future may be judged. 



Massachusetts will go on, furnishing 

 that much yearly, for a thousand years. 

 What one region does, others can do. 

 A word concerning its earlv uses is 



"On the Firing Line." 



WHITE pine's extreme FRONTIER IN THE UNITED STATES. NEAR RAINY 

 LAKE BETWEEN MINNESOT.A. AND CANADA. AXEMEN WILL SOON 

 CHANGE, THIS SCENE. NOTE THE FINELY WHORLED BRANCHES OF 

 THE TREE IN THE BACKGROUND. SUCH IS THE TYPIC.\L WHITE 

 PINE CROWN. 



in order, because its first utilization was 

 prophetic. Lacking six years of three 

 centuries ago, the first homes of white 

 men, within the white pine's range in 

 the United States, were built. The 

 forests immediately responded to the 

 demand for building material. It is a 



