THE LUMBER INDUSTRY. 17 



Although the great forests of White Pine in Maine have disappeared, a small amount of this 

 material is still cut in the State every year, so that since 1881, on the Penobscot, for instance, out 

 of a total cut of about 150 million feet per year between 24 and 30 million feet have been pine, the 

 pine thus generally forming 15 to 20 per cent of the entire output. 



In Pennsylvania the exploitation of White Pine likewise began quite early. Pittsburg 

 furnished pine lumber to points along the Ohio and even to St. Louis, Mo. As late as 1850 

 Philadelphia received its 150 million feet of lumber, largely White Pine, from the State, importing 

 but very little from New England and the South. At Williainsport, the center of White Pine 

 lumbering in Pennsylvania, thejirst large mills were erected about 1838, and the bulk of the pine 

 was cut prior to 1870. 



In the forties the >Vhite Pine product marketed at Williamsport excelled in quantity all other 

 points of production. The highest production was reached in 1873, with nearly 300 million feet 

 B. M. in logs boomed, which in 1893 had sunk to a little over one-tenth of that amount. While 

 in 1873 the amount of timber standing was estimated as 3,300 million feet B. M., in 1896 the State 

 commissioner of forests places the remainder at 500 million feet B. M. 



The only uncut White Pine forests of Pennsylvania now standing are isolated bodies in the 

 more inaccessible parts of Clearfleld, Lycomiug, and Tioga counties. 



In the State of New York, too, which in the Adirondacks and in the western counties con- 

 tained considerable quantities of White Pine, the species is largely cut out. Hardly more than 5 

 per cent of the cut is now of White Pine, the output from the Adirondack mills being in the 

 neighborhood of 25 million feet B. M. 



The exploitation of White Pine in the Lake region began during the thirties, when small 

 mills were erected at various points, both in ^Michigan and Wisconsin. The first steam sawmill at 

 Sagiuaw was built in 1834, and the first mill at Alpeua was built two years later. Nevertheless 

 the lumber industry of both Michigan and Wisconsin remained insignificant until toward the close 

 of the fifties, when most of the present sites of manufacture had been established. Ten years 

 later (1870) the annual cut of White Pine in Michigan and Wisconsin amounted to nearly 4 billion 

 feet; Minnesota had scarcely begun to contribute to the output; and in the marketing the rail- 

 way was fast displacing the older method of rafting. The progress of lumbering is well illus- 

 trated in the following figures from the Northwestern Lumberman, representing the annual cut of 

 lumber alone from 1873 to 1897 : 



.Iniiiinl cut of lumber (exclusive of shini/les and laths) of the three Lake States, Michigan, Wisconsin, 



and Minnesota, 1S7S-1S97. 



FeetB. M. 



Feet B. M. 



1873 3,993,780,000 1886 7,425,368,443 



1874 3,751,306,000 i 1887 7,757,916,784 



1875 3,968,553,000 ! 1888 8,388,716,460 



1876 3,879,046,000 i 1889 8,305,833,277 



1877 5,595,333,496 i 1890 8,664,504,715 



1878 3,699,472,759 



4,806,943,000 

 1880 5,651,295,006 



1891 7,943,137,012 



1892 8,903,748,423 



1893 7,599,748,458 



1881 6,768,856,749 i 1894 6,763,110,649 



1882 7,552,150,744' 1895 7,093,398,598 



1883 7,624,789,786 1896 5,725,763,035 



1884 7,935,033,054 1897 6,233,454,000 



188.', 7,053,094,555 : 



Or, dividing the time into periods of five years each, the figures are as follows: 



I'n'. of lumber (exclusive of shint/les and laths) in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, by periods of 



fire years. 



Feet. 



1876-1880 21,562,090,361 



lxsi-1885 36,933,924,888 



1886-1890 40,542,339,679 



1891-1895 38,302,143,140 



Tota l 137,340,498,068 



20233 No. 22 2 



