42 THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 



About a half century ago, little or no importance was attached to 

 lumber as an article of commerce. The early settlers were only concerned 

 with the timber to build the log houses, stables, and sheds, or rail 

 fences, and to get a supply of firewood, and the rest, when cut down to 

 make room for the cultivation of the soil, went to the log-heap and was 

 burned. 



As the pine (including the red pine or Norway) is the most valuable 

 of the forest products of Michigan, and as its surpassing value has at- 

 tracted more attention than the forest products of any other kind, what 

 I have to say Avill be mainly with reference to i»ine forests. 



The virgin pine forests covered the lower peninsula of Michigan, inter- 

 spersed with belts of hardwood (including in that term all of the broad-, 

 leaved trees), in the district north of a line drawn from Lake !^t. Clair 

 through the center of Macomb and Oakland counties, across the south- 

 western corner of Genesee, then through Shiawassee, Clinton, Ionia, 

 Kent, to about the east line of Ottawa, thence running to the south, it 

 passed through the eastern part of Allegan, the north part of Van Buren, 

 to Lake Michigan, at about the north line of Berrien county. In the 

 Upper Peninsula it Avas the predominating forest growth, alternating 

 with belts of hard-wood forest, except some swampy places where, prob- 

 ably, there has never been a stand of timber, and a few rough and rocky 

 places south and west of Marquette. 



One other noticeable feature of the forest was the bottom lands of many 

 rivers and smaller streams where there was a dense growth of cedar, and 

 a few swampy places or lake margins abounding in tamarack. 



The first authentic account of the use of pine as prepared lumber for 

 the market, in Michigan, was about the year 1810, when a small mill 

 was erected and operated in St. Clair county. 



It was not until 1830 that a saw mill was built in the Saginaw valley, 

 which, with one or two mills just before that time built in St. Clair 

 county, was the beginning of the operations in pine lumbering in this 

 State.' 



The product of the early mills was entirely for home consumption, 

 as there were then no railroads and no steamboats available for trans- 

 portation. The early settlers of Michigan were aware of the fact that 

 extensive pine forests existed in the Lower Peninsula, that having been 

 known from the days of the Jesuit Missions and the first French fur 

 traders; it was, however, not until after the civil war that there seemed 

 to be any appreciation of the commericial value of such forests ; and it was 

 not until about 1868 to 1870 that very extensive operations in lumbering 

 were undertaken. 



In order to enforce the main point of my statement, which is the 

 vast extent and value of the original pine forests, and the enormous 

 contribution of wealth which their destruction has made available to 

 the Michigan of today, I ask your attention to the best estimate I can get 

 of the production of lumber in the various centers of activity in that 

 industry about the State. 



The product of the land tributarv to the St. Clair river, from 1867 down 

 to 1896, is placed at 3,000,000,000 feet. 



The product of lumber in the region of which Flint was the center, in 

 1867, was something like 68.000,000 feet and 40,000,000 shingles. The 



