10 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



PASSING OF THE FOREST KING 



The story of the white pine, one-time king of 

 the forest growth, might have been the title of 

 and article in the American Lumberman of Chi- 

 cago, published in a recent issue. Here is the 

 story of the pine as told by the Lumberman : 



"In the history of the lumber industry of 

 North America white pine figures large and 

 unique. In Canada and the New England col- 

 onies its availability for building early became 

 apparent. 



"As settlement increased and moved into the 

 interior, throughout the middle states and west- 

 ern Canada, the pine forests became the main 

 dependence for building and other structural 

 purposes. In Connecticut such dependence was 

 shared by oak and other hard woods, and in the 

 south Atlantic states southern pine was the main 

 resource. Florida live oak, in conjunction with 

 pitch pine and white pine of Maine, was em- 

 ployed in shipbuilding. As population increased 

 and populous commonwealths were developed in 

 the great lakes region and southward to the Ohio 

 river and later beyond the lakes and the Missis- 

 sippi river the preponderance of white pine as a 

 structural material made rapid progress until it 

 dominated all other woods and that by a large 

 degree. 



"White pine, with its consort, Norway pine, 

 down to about 1890 was the paramount lumber 

 woods of the continent. This can be said without 

 underestimating the large place occupied by the 

 hardwoods, southern pine and, in the later period, 

 Pacific coast woods. The white pine industry 

 and trade, with the accompanying exploitation of 

 standing timber values, developed a remarkable 

 energy and enterprise by the men engaged in the 

 lumber interest and resulted in a vast accumula- 

 tion of capital that became a reserve which has 

 been and will continue to be employed in timber 

 investments and lumber manufacture in_the south, 

 the farther west, in Mexico, in the tropics and 

 eventually in South America and other parts of 

 the globe. The white pine business evolved cap- 

 ital, skill, energy and enterprise that in their 

 operation and influence are limited only by the 

 extent of the earth's surface. Old white pine 

 operators are to be found all over the American 

 continent, in the West Indies, in the Philippines, 

 in China and Japan. 



"It is a peculiarity of the white pine lumber- 

 man that he knows no bounds to his enterprise 

 and he will go to any locality on earth where 

 merchantable timber can be found out of which 

 he can figure a profit in manufacture, transporta- 

 tion and sale. Because of his tutelage and leader- 

 ship we might say he is the father of the lumber 

 industry and commerce of the western world. It 

 was for the exploitation of white pine manufac- 

 ture that the best sawmill machinery was in- 

 vented and the planing mill and dry kiln pro- 

 cesses were perfected. In transportation and 

 marketing the same influence has extended 

 throughout all branches of the lumber industry 

 and trade of the continent. 



"There is no space here to go into the details 

 of this evolution, but data could be gathered 

 to substantiate what is here asserted. Thus it 

 is found that the great impulse in the American 

 lumber industry has proceeded from the utiliza- 

 tion of white pine. The cause of this continental 

 movement inhered in the character of the wood, 

 coupled with the local incidence of it with the 

 settlement and spread of population. The New 

 Englanders and the Canadian French settlers 

 found white pine ready to their use. It stood in 

 apparently unlimited quantities at their very 

 doors, as it were. It had no price, but was con- 

 sidered as a cumberer of the ground, aside from 

 its adaptability to use. It grew in dense groves, 

 tall, long bodied, easily reached and generous in 

 the outturn. It was soft and easily worked from 

 the stump to the finished form. It was com- 

 paratively light for handling and hauling to the 

 mill. It produced a large percentage of good 

 lumber and even to the culls was useful in a 

 large variety of application. 



"While white pine was available in quantity, 

 there was no motive for using any other wood 

 except in cases when greater tensile strength and 

 wearing quality were requisite, requirements that 

 were abundantly supplied by the oaks. No wood, 



BRING THE TWO TOGETHER 



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when properly cut, selected and thoroughly dried, 

 would better stay in place and endure the test of 

 weather and time. Clear heart wood white pine is 

 the peer of them all when it comes to sterling 

 merit in respect to exact working and lasting 

 quality. This was so well recognized while good 

 growths of white pine were available at permis- 

 sible prices that railroads of the north and west 

 employed white pine for bridge material to a 

 greater quantity percentage than any other wood. 



"The range of adaptability of white pine was 

 so so-extensive with the wood-working industry. 

 Its straight and even grain, its softness that ren- 

 dered it easily worked and saved expense in ma- 

 chinery and tools, made it the king of woods, 

 while the supply was sufficient to keep prices at 

 a range that was not prohibitive or, perhaps better 

 said, until the supply fell far in the rear of 

 demand. There was pathos in the way the north- 

 ern manufacturers and carpenters had to submit 

 to the substitution of harder woods for their 

 favorite white pine. Little by little they yielded 

 to the inroads of other woods and finally gave 

 up the fight under the crushing opposition of 

 other, lower-priced and more abundant lumber. 



"The decadence of white pine among the lead- 

 ing commercial woods, as we all understand, be- 

 came a matter of industrial history, not on 

 account of its loss of prestige, but simply because 

 it became in supply vastly unequal to the de- 

 mand. We have seen how New England and 

 middle states were swept practically bare of their 

 stumpage supply ; how within a few years Michi- 

 gan has dropped out as a surplus state and how 

 Wisconsin is verging toward that condition ; how 

 Minnesota at last claims pre-eminence in the 

 quantity of standing white pine yet available this 

 side the continental divide. 



"There is white pine in considerable commer- 

 cial amount in California and in the inland 

 empire of the northwest. A sizeable remnant of 

 white pine is left in the Appalachian range. These 

 resources will continue to furnish a supply of 

 shop l.umber for years. But the great volume 

 that once was turned out from the mills of the 

 lake states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 

 that bulked large and supreme in the markets 

 of the entire north and to a considerable extent 

 was shipped to southern markets and in the bet- 

 ter grades went to foreign countries, subsided 

 to a comparatively minor quantity ten to fifteen 

 years ago, never to resume its former position. 



"To regret the passing of white pine as a com- 

 mercial supreme factor is useless and vain. It 

 is unreasonable to denounce the wastefulness and 

 slaughter of operators in white pine during the 



period from 1860 to 1895. Each timber owner 

 and manufacturer followed his clearest lights 

 when he was cutting his stumpage and marketing 

 his lumber. It was a matter of exigent finances 

 with each. More operators, perhaps, could have 

 imitated the policy of David Ward, bought tim- 

 ber and held it for a substantial rise in value 

 as the main supply should diminish. But not all 

 holders of standing pine were in circumstances 

 for such holding, and not all had his foresight. 

 The great majority owned sawmills and cut logs 

 and manufactured lumber annually as a means 

 of developing the money value of their stump- 

 age. Many possessed no forethought beyond 

 taking off all the timber they could and convert- 

 ing it into money. Many others were too much 

 in debt for both timber and mills to stop cutting, 

 for that would mean bankruptcy. Besides, there 

 was great danger from loss by forest fires. Al- 

 together, the original white pine lumbermen were 

 natural to their generation and circumstances, 

 and nothing in the way of wrong business in- 

 tentions can be charged to them as a mass ; as in 

 any other pioneer class many of them lacked 

 business capacity, good opportunity, capital and 

 lucky fortune. Some were caught in bad years 

 for logging, drouths which hung up their logs, 

 fires in forests and towns that burned up their 

 mills, and floods that carried away both logs and 

 mills. Then there were tides in the markets, 

 like the rise before the panic of 1857 and the ebb 

 that followed the panic; another rise during and 

 after the civil war with a pronounced recession 

 ofter the panic of 1873; another swell in 1880 

 and recession in 1882-83, with minor rises and 

 falls between those periods, and the later stress 

 following the panic in 1893." 



THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD 

 TIMES AND BAD. 



Roads are to the city or village what the ar- 

 teries are to the human body; without them no 

 community can exist, and it naturally follows 

 that the better the roads the greater the prosperity 

 of the community. Many people will go miles 

 out of the way to trade at some place to which 

 they may travel over hard roads and in so doing 

 will avoid the town near at hand to which ao- 

 proach is difficult because of bad roads. Yet 

 there are many places so destitute of good sense 

 and business enterprise that they never improve 

 the roads. These are the places that vegetate 

 and die and whose people curse their fate and 

 complain of hard times. North Adams (Hills- 

 dale Co.) Advocate. 



