88 UlRAL MICHIGAN 



000 fence-posts alone; tog^ether with great quantities 

 of general building material, hoops, staves, ties, and 

 charcoal furnace wood. 



The inchistries and products here enumerated 

 clearly have a relation to agriculture, through their 

 connection with the economy of the farm and the 

 farm-home. There are also unfinished materials, 

 such as posts, poles, pickets and rails for which the 

 Michigan farmer has been indebted to the forest, 

 as well as such home-made articles as barrel-hoops, 

 handles, whipple-trees. The yield could be much 

 greater if fire had been kept from the cedar swamps 

 and oak uplands. 



Long ago the people of Michigan began the syste- 

 matic imdermining of this remarkable industrial de- 

 velopment based on its timber resources. As rapidly 

 as human labor, assisted by poM'er and fire, could 

 do the work, the splendid hardwood- forest of the 

 southern counties was swept aside by the pioneers. 

 Great trees were felled in windrows, such portions 

 of them as could serve the settler's requirements were 

 preserved, and the remainder freely consigned to 

 the flames. Log-rollings afforded recreation and 

 merry-making to the primeval home-builders in the 

 Michigan wilderness. The brilliant illumination of 

 the night on which the burn-piles were reduced to 

 ashes in the presence of the gathered neighbors, 

 hither come in quest of such conviviality as the oc- 

 casion might afford, appears to have Impressed in- 

 effaceably the memories of the older inhabitants of 

 the State. Tt signified agriculture, food, sunshine 



