THE STORY OF WHITE PINE 



43 





Photo by "Pine Cone," Minneapolis, Minn. 



Logging Camp in a Northern Pinery. 



a typical temporary habitation of the men who fell the pines and bring the logs out of the woods. the 

 double walls offer good protection against the winter cold, for the thermometer here stays below 

 zero during much of the logging season. the thinned forest in the background shows that the cutters 

 h.ave finished xe.\rby, .\nd a few straggling pines .\nd a brick or two are the remnant of the former 



STANT). 



240 feet high and six or seven feet in 

 trunk diameter in the primeval forests 

 of New England, and one extreme in- 

 stance is cited of a tree 270 feet high 

 which stood on the site of Dartmouth 

 College. It is uncertain whether these 

 were guesses or measurements. In view 

 of the astounding discrepancies between 

 the guesses and measurements of some 

 of the big trees of California and Aus- 

 stralia, it would be interesting to know 

 the exact origin of some of the figures 

 for New England's famous pines. There 

 is no question, however, that of all the 

 pines of the United States, the sugar 

 pine alone exceeds the white pine in size. 



WHITE PINE LUMBERING. 



Two and a half centuries have seen 

 many changes in lumber operations. 

 Practically all that is known about 

 logging, and absolutely everj^hing 

 known about sawmilling have been 

 learned in that period. The cutting of 

 timber was on a mighty small scale be- 

 fore that time. Julius Caesar made 

 more ado over getting out enough 



dimension stock for his bridge across 

 the Rhine than a contractor these days 

 would over a contract to supply the 

 Panama Canal. One of Solomon's 

 great glories consisted in bringing up to 

 Jerusalem timber for the Temple, and 

 he had an army at work on the job 

 during several years, yet the whole bill 

 of lumber was less than a first-class 

 Minnesota white pine sawmill cuts in 

 one forenoon. 



The world had no real lumbering 

 experience until it was learned in 

 America, and the beginning was made 

 with white pine in Massachusetts, New 

 Hampshire, and Maine. It continued 

 with white pine in New York and 

 Pennsylvania, and ended with white 

 pine in the Lake States. As men learned 

 more the methods changed. Ox teams 

 dragged the logs out of the woods along 

 the Piscataqua river, and the old sash 

 saws wasted half in getting out the stuff. 

 By the time the lumberman reached the 

 vast pineries of New York and Pennsyl- 

 vania the discovery had been made 

 that wood will float, and the rivers and 



