WHITE PINE. 39 



pine region and to all periods, yet, in a general way, the cutters of 

 white pine have formed development's vanguard in the advance 

 across the pine region from Maine to Minnesota. The white pine's 

 lightness, which made it easy to float, was a factor in development 

 which can scarcely be overestimated. Every navigable river or float- 

 able stream was a highway for the transportation of the pine within 

 reach of it. The enormous drives of pine logs once seen upon the 

 rivers of Maine, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will probably never 

 again be equaled anywhere. Had white pine been as heavy as red oak, 

 lumbering operations in its region would have followed different 

 lines, and the building of railroads would have preceded the market- 

 ing of the timber. 



When the purchase of Louisiana in 1803 put an end to restrictions 

 which had hampered trade on the lower Mississippi, one of the first 

 commodities to feel and respond to the stimulus was the white pine 

 on the head of the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania 

 and southwestern New York. A fine quality grew in that region 

 and was frequently known as cork pine. Rafts were sent down from 

 the headwaters of the Allegheny River, 100 to 200 miles above Pitts- 

 burg, and made the long journey to New Orleans, more than 2,000 

 miles, measuring the windings of the river. Sales were made at $40 

 a thousand, which made the business highly profitable to the lumber- 

 man. The raftsmen were accustomed to return on foot from New 

 Orleans to Pittsburg. Record exists of a white-pine raft which, when 

 it passed Cincinnati, covered 2 acres, and contained a million and a 

 half feet of lumber. The difference in early prices at Pittsburg, and 

 at New Orleans was striking. A shipment at Pittsburg, a few years 

 after trade began with New Orleans, sold at $5 a thousand, and half 

 the pay was taken in window glass. 



WHITE PINE LUMBERING. 



The cutting of white pine has been a unique and interesting chap- 

 ter in this country's industrial history. This does not apply to the 

 marketing of the lumber so much as to the operations in the woods 

 before the logs reached the sawmills. It is largely a thing of the 

 past and has become history a record of two and a half centuries of 

 conditions never known before and which can never occur again. 

 During two and a half centuries the cutters of this timber followed 

 the retreating pine forest frontier westward from the coast of Maine 

 to the source of the Mississippi. Conditions at the close of the period 

 were very different from those at the beginning, but the white pine 

 lumberman, with resourcefulness and ingenuity that challenge admira- 

 tion, was equal to every demand upon him, met every emergency that 

 arose, and again and again changed his methods to conform to changed 

 conditions. Nowhere else has forest development exhibited so much 



