Periodical Literature. 589 



The shipment of lumber from Wisconsin had assumed con- 

 siderable proportions by 1839, and by 1845 the State was com- 

 peting with Michigan for the Chicago market. The first develop- 

 ment was along Lake Michigan and the Wolf, Wisconsin, Black 

 and Chippewa rivers. The cut on the Wisconsin river rose from 

 19.5 million feet in 1848 to 149 million feet in 1857; ion the 

 Black river from 12.5 million feet in 1848 to its highest mark 

 in 1890, with 243.2 million feet, dropping to 40 million in 1900; 

 and on the Chippewa from 11.3 million feet in 1848 to a maxi- 

 mum of 428 million in 1883, and falling to 176 million in 1900. 



The lumber industry acquired great prominence about 1870. 

 By 1880 Wisconsin was outranked only by Pennsylvania and 

 Michigan; ten years later it occupied second place, and by 1900 

 it stood at the top. The year of greatest production, however, 

 was in 1892, with a cut of 4.1 billion feet. From 1900 the in- 

 dustry declined, the center of production shifting to the south, 

 till in 1909 Wisconsin stood eighth in the list. 



For years lumbering with the attendant secondary industries 

 was the dominating industry of the State. Roth estimated the 

 original stand of pine at about 130 billion feet, of which 86 

 billion feet had been cut and 26 billion burned, by 1898. In 1890 

 the lumber industry represented one-sixth of the total taxable 

 property of the State. The timber products rose from a value 

 of $1,250,000 in 1850 to a value of $61,000,000 in 1880, falling 

 to little more than one-half of this by 1909. 



The method of conducting the operations has resulted in great 

 loss to the State, mainly through mill and logging waste, and de- 

 struction by fires. It is estimated that of the forests of Wiscon- 

 sin not over 40 per cent, of the timber reached the mills. The 

 greatest fire was the Peshtigo fire of 1871, in which 1,000 lives 

 were lost, another 1,000 persons crippled, and 3,000 more ruined, 

 to say nothing of the property losses. In 1908, nearly a million 

 and a quarter acres were burned over, destroying one-half billion 

 feet of merchantable timber, six million dollars' worth of young 

 growth, property worth $150,000, and at a cost of $100,000 for 

 fire-fighting alone. Again, in 1910, some 900,000 acres were 

 burned over with a loss of over $5,000,000. 



The evil effects of deforestation and the approach of the 

 timber famine drew attention to the necessity of taking steps to 

 repair the loss. In 1897 a state forestry commission was es- 



