80 CANADIAN FOR />V7'r ASSOCIATION. 



made as thorough as possible and conducted among the smaller producers as well as 

 the larger manufacturers. From these estimates the standing timber in Wisconsin at 

 the beginning of 1897 was stated at eighteen billion feet. The reports of the different 

 mills which draw their log supply from Wisconsin timber show that there has been 

 cut sinas that time 13,643,669,200 feet. Taking this amount from the eighteen billion 

 feet standing in 1897 will leave the present amount of standing timber at only 4,356,- 

 330,600 feet. A general survey of Wisconsin forests and of the reported holdings by 

 the different owners of stumpage in the state makes these figures seem correct. If the 

 mills continue to saw white pine as vigorously as in the past, Wisconsin will cease to 

 be a white pine lumber producer within the next three years.' 



If Minnesota had only eleven billion feet of white pine in 1880, as stated by ^Ir. 

 Hotchkiss, there should not be much left now. In other words and compared to what 

 there was formerly, practically speaking there is no white pine left in the northwestern 

 states. 



This exhaustion of the American forests accounts to a great extent for the evolution 

 in the value of the forests of the older provinces of Canada. For want of pine the ^N"< \v 

 England markets have accepted spruce; the same change tas been going on for the last 

 few years on the markets of the state of New York, and ere long it will also take place 

 ou ih f - market of Chicago, which takes yearly about t'.vo billion feet of liitnbt'r. 



The extension of our railway systems is also a great t^ctor in ;ho enhancement of 

 our forest values. Accessibility by railroad has already made available a great part of 

 our hard woods. Several roads are projected which will run east and west through 

 the central region, with terminals on the Georgian bay, where they will connect with 

 steam navigation on the Great Lakes. Scores of millions of feet of hard woods in the 

 forests to be traversed by these railroads, which are now worthless, will be turned to 

 account as soon as such means of transportation will allow to carry them profitably 

 to the furniture factories of Grand Rapids and the unlimited market of Chicago. By 

 this route the pine and spruce of the Ottawa territory will travel only 125 miles by 

 rail and less than 500 by water to reach the market of Chicago, which absorbs yearly 

 about two billion feet of lumber, and also the market of Milwaukee, which takes an 

 average of 250,000,000 feet. Actually, these markets are closed to the products of the 

 upper Ottawa territory by the excessive length and cost of transportation. In one of 

 his reports Mr. Henry O'Sullivan shows that several thousand square miles in the north- 

 eastern section of the territory contains an abundance of good pine and spruce timber 

 which can be made available only by the construction of railroads. The remoteness of 

 part of these forests excludes their products even from the Ottawa market. ' In case,' 

 he says, ' of a railway being built anywhere in the vicinity of Kakabonga or Bark lakes 

 this whole region, covering 1 one thousand square miles of territory, might be served 

 with lines of steamers in connection with the railway. Although the first quality of 

 pine has been culled here some years ago, there is still a great deal in the interior, and 

 owing to the great distances and roughness of the rivers, the cost of driving is such 

 as to forbid the handling of spruce or second quality stuff of any kind. With a railway 

 and steamboat service it would be different; milk could be built on the spot and every 

 kind of sawed" lumber shipped by rail. 



'In the last mentioned report, I dwelt on the great advantage that would accrue 

 from the diverting of the Lake Victoria waters by the valley of the Dumoine, if it 

 were possible to do so; but in the event that this may be found impossible, a more 

 desirable and beneficial alternative would be the building of a railway through that 

 country. A glance at the general map of that region will show that between the 

 discharge of Lake Barriere and the discharge of Lake Des Quinze, there are over 

 six thousand square miles of territory drained by the Ottawa and its tributaries above 

 Lake Des Quinze, that can never be developed to any advantage without a railway. 

 I am not prepared to say that all this great extent of six thousand square miles is fit 

 for agriculture or well timbered; but I can safely say that more than half of this 

 area is within the limits of the best pine-growing region now available in the pro- 

 vince, and that a great deal of good agricultural land may be found there also. 



