ARBORICULTURE. 



259 



The Great Lumber Trust of America. 



[ Reprint from January.] 



Oiving to an e?-ror, several hundred copies were omitted. We thus reprint 



the principal article in this issue. 



That there is a lumber trust in the 

 United States is true beyond a question, 

 and that it is the greatest of all trusts can 

 scarcely be doubted. 



The Cosmopolitan Magazine contains 

 a remarkable article from the pen of 

 Charles P. Norcross which relates so 

 much of history that it demands the at- 

 tention of the American public and an 

 investigation by Congress. 



The article is headed "Weyerhaeuser 

 Richer than John D. Rockefeller." and 

 shows how one man, an alien, in fifty 

 years has become possessed of a hundred 

 thousand square miles of the best timber 

 land of the United States, and is cutting 

 the timber as fast as more than a score of 

 the largest sawmills in the world, work- 

 ing night and day, can convert the trees 

 into lumber. 



We extract from the Cosmopolitan 

 some of the statements : 



"Weyerhaeuser's wealth and opportu- 

 nity grew out of a national crime. One 

 of the most wanton wrongs ever com- 

 mitted in this country has been the spend- 

 thrift waste of forests." "It was only re- 

 cently that the nation awoke to the van- 

 dalism that has been going on unhindered 

 for years." "Weyerhaeuser, born in a 

 land where forestry is an exact science, 

 realized that the methods in vogue, left 

 unchecked, would in time exhaust even 

 the prodigal wealth of the land and bring 



on a timber famine that would cause for- 

 est lands to appreciate in value." "The 

 question naturally arises as to how much 

 timber land Weyerhaeuser owns. He 

 won't tell, land even his closest lieutenants 

 admit that they can only speculate." 



"There are fifty thousand square miles 

 of timber land in the State of Washington 

 alone — thirty-two million acres." 



"In the territory around Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota and the Mississippi River dis- 

 trict he has reigned for years undisputed. 

 It is estimated by those who have studied 

 Weyerhaeuser's widespread business in- 

 terests that fully thirty million acres of 

 timber land are under his control — fifty 

 thousand square miles, an area six times 

 as large as the State of New Jersey." 



"Weyerhaeuser is of German birth. 

 Born at Neidersaulheim, in Southern Ger- 

 many, in 1834, he tilled the vineyard on 

 the farm until eighteen years of age. In 

 1852 he decided to emigrate to America." 

 "Was in 1872 that Weyerhaeuser began 

 to branch out and started in to create the 

 indefinite all-powerful organization which 

 has become known as the Weyerhaeuser 

 svndicate." Weyerhaeuser was elected 

 president of the Mississippi River Boom 

 & Logging Company. "Some of the 

 powerful companies under his control 

 may be named, as follows : Atwood Lum- 

 ber Company, Rutledge Lumber Com- 

 pany, Mississippi River Logging Com- 



