FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



319 



expended upon it. The black walnut grows 

 well in the prairies, and is one of the most 

 valuable timber-trees. In many of the older 

 States, the undergrowth which springs up after 

 the original woods have been cut away is found 

 to be capable of becoming an excellent forest 

 if it is taken care of and trimmed. A growth 

 representing a large variety of hard-wood and 

 coniferous trees is springing up in some parts 

 of Michigan from which the forests have been 

 cut, which might ultimately be made as valu- 

 able as the original woods. Not all the land 

 from which the trees are cut is, however, capa- 

 ble of spontaneously producing a useful second 

 growth. Replanting with white pine is recom- 

 mended for Michigan. Among the less com- 

 mon trees, the catalpa and the ailantus are 

 recommended as good growers, and as furnish- 

 ing durable wood, and wood suited to domestic 

 uses. 



SUCCESSFUL AND EXPERIMENTAL PLANTA- 

 TIONS. Some of the most conspicuous exam- 

 ples of successful forest-planting may be seen 

 in the dunes and Landes of Southwestern 

 France. The dunes, shifting sand-hills extend- 

 ing for a hundred miles along the coast between 

 the Gironde and the Adour, were planted 

 toward the end of the last century with the 

 maritime pine, and have now become fixed 

 forests 148,200 acres in extent. The Landes, 

 an extensive waste tract of swamps and sands, 

 infested with miasmatic fevers, were subjected 

 about thirty years ago to a process of drainage, 

 and were planted with trees. They now con- 

 stitute a million and a half of acres of mari- 

 time-pine lands ; they furnish abundantly fire- 

 wood, charcoal, staves, telegraph-poles, posts, 

 railway-ties, mining props, hewed timber, and 

 sawed lumber, and yield large supplies of tur- 

 pentine under a system of collection that does 

 not exhaust the trees ; and the former wretched, 

 half- barbarous inhabitants have become an in- 

 dustrious, enterprising, and thrifty population. 

 At Larch wood, Iowa, a plan has been experi- 

 mentally adopted of planting the central forty 

 acres of each section of land with forest-trees, 

 by which each tract of one hundred and sixty 

 acres is given a wood-lot of ten acres, and 

 promises well, both for the growth of the trees 

 and the provision of the land. Another ex- 

 periment has been made on the shores of Lake 

 Michigan, near Waukegan, 111., of planting five 

 hundred acres of waste, marsh, and sandy 

 land, with Scotch, Austrian, and white pines, 

 ailantus, and catalpa. 



LUMBER INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

 A table of statistics of the lumbering indus- 

 tries of the United States for the year ending 

 May 31, 1880, shows that there were produced 

 during that year, at 25,708 establishments, 

 18,091,358,000 feet of lumber (board-measure), 

 1,761,788,000 laths, 555,504,000 shingles, 1,- 

 248,226,000 staves, 146,523,000 sets of head- 

 ings, 34,076,000 feet of spool and bobbin stock 

 (board measure), and other products to the 

 value of $2,682,668. The value of the logs 



consumed in making these goods was $139,- 

 836,869; the total value of all the products 

 was $233,367,729. The capital invested in the 

 factories was $181,186,122. The business was 

 most extensively carried on in Michigan, where 

 $39,260,428 were invested, and the value of 

 the products was $52,449,928, while the largest 

 number of establishments (2,827) was in Penn- 

 sylvania, which stood second ($22,457,359) in 

 value of products. The third State in respect 

 to value of investments and products was Wis- 

 consin, where $19,824,059 of capital were em- 

 ployed, and the total value of the products was 

 $17,952,347. 



CONSUMPTION OF FOREST PRODUCTS AS FUEL. 

 A partial estimate of the consumption of 

 forest products as fuel in the United States 

 during the census year has been published by 

 the Census-Office. The total amount of wood 

 consumed is given at 145,778,137 cords, and 

 its value is fixed at $321,962,373. The table 

 shows, further, that 74,008,972 bushels of char- 

 coal were consumed, the value of which was 

 $5,276,736. Of the wood, 140,537,439 cords, 

 the value of which was $306,950,040, were 

 consumed for domestic purposes; 1,971,813 

 cords, valued at $5,126,514, by railroads ; 787,- 

 862 cords, valued at $1,812,083, by steamboats ; 

 1,157,522 cords, valued at $3,978,331, in the 

 manufacture of brick and tile ; 624,845 cords, 

 valued at $3,548,285, in mining and amalga- 

 mating the precious metals, and other mining 

 operations ; and the rest in the manufacture of 

 salt and wool. 



FUEL-VALUE OF DIFFERENT WOODS. A de- 

 termination of the fuel-value of some of the 

 more important woods of the United States, 

 made by the Forestry Bureau of the Census 

 Department, represents the results of analysis 

 and experiments upon fifty-five species, natives 

 of all parts of the country. The most valuable 

 species for fuel by volume is the mountain 

 mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) of the Pa- 

 cific coast, and it is followed by the Southern 

 long-leaved pine (Pinm australis), shell-bark 

 hickory, chestnut-oak, pitch-pine, and other 

 varieties of hickory, pine, oak, and hard-wood 

 trees. 



The different species of oak, however, vary 

 widely in their value by volume. The most 

 valuable tree, by weight, is the Southern pine, 

 and it is followed by the pitch and yellow 

 (mitis) pines, cypress, yellow pine (ponderosa), 

 of the Pacific region, and other conifers ; and 

 among the broad-leaved trees, the mesquite (11), 

 sugar-maple (12), aspen (13), cotton-wood (15), 

 and white ash (17). The least valuable Woods 

 in volume, among the Atlantic species, are hem- 

 lock, aspen, black spruce, white pine, tulip- 

 tree, and yellow or white cedar {Thuja occi- 

 dentals). The least valuable in respect to 

 weight are the persimmon (50), black oak 

 (Quercus tinctoria) (51), tulip-tree (52), water- 

 oak (Quercm aquatica) (53), black-jack (Quer- 

 cus nigra) (54), and the white oak of the North 

 Pacific (Quercus Garry ana) (55). 



