THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 561 



Missouri is the tenth state in the importance of its lumber-manufacturing interests. It owes its position in 

 part to large mills located upon the Mississippi river manufacturing logs cut in the forests of Wisconsin. A much 

 larger amount of lumber, however, in the aggregate, both pine and hard wood, is produced in numerous small 

 railroad mills located along the line of the Iron Mountain and other railroads running through the southern ijart 

 of the state. 



Saiut Louis is an important center of lumber distribution. It receives a large portion of the Wisconsin pine 

 crop by raft, Michigan pine by rail, and southern pine and hard woods by rail and river. 



DAKOTA. 



Dakota, with the exception of its river lands and the small territory between the north and south forks of 

 the Cheyenne river, is practically destitute of timber. The bottoms of the principal streams contain extensive 

 groves of hard wood. As far west as the James river timber exists about the shores of the larger lakes, and upon 

 the Low Turtle and Pembina mountains of the northern boundary, occasionally ascending the coteH or sides of low 

 tables rising from the prairie. The Black hills, an extreme outpost of the Eocky Mountain system, were once 

 heavily timbered. The yellow i)ine of the Pacific region is here mingled with the white spruce, the canoe birch, 

 the burr oak, and the elm of the eastern forests, while poplars of the Atlantic and Pacific regions grow side by 

 side. 



Much timber has already been cut along the eastern rivers to supply the wants of a rapidly-increasing 

 agricultural population, and the isolated pine forests of the Black hills, separated by hundreds of miles from 

 any equally large or valuable body of building timber, have already suffered serious inroads. The best and most 

 accessible pine has been cut and manufactured into lumber or consumed as fuel in the silver mines and stami)ing 

 mills to which this region owes its population, and much timber has been allowed to perish in the fires which of 

 late years have often swept through these forests. 



The principal center of lumber manufacture is Deadwood, in the Black hills, where a comparatively large 

 amount of pine is sawed. In the eastern counties a little oak and elm is manufactured, for the most part in small 

 portable mills. 



The following extracts are made from Mr. H. C. Putnam's report upon the eastern portions of the territory : 



" Along the whole length of the Missouri river in Dakota there is a belt of hard-wood timber in the bottoms 

 in bodies of from 100 to 500 acres in extent. This timber sometimes grows continuously, but more often there are 

 open spaces between the groves. About three-fourths of the trees are burr oak, the remainder sycamore, cottonwood, 

 green ash, box-elder, poplar, willow, etc. A similar forest growth lines the banks of the Eed river north of Fort 

 Abercrombie as far as Fort Pembina, near the international line. This strip of timber averages perhaps forty 

 rods in width, and consists of the same varieties of trees that grow upon the Missouri river. 



"In the Pembina mountains and west of Fort Pembina, on the Tongue and Pembina rivers, there are bodies of 

 timber, generally of stunted growth, lying mostly along the streams or about the Pembina mountains in groves of from 

 ICO to 3,000 acres in extent. This timber is situated principally in the two northern tiers of townships of Pembina 

 county. It has no value except as fuel. The next body of timber in Dakota is in the neighborhood of Devil lake ; 

 it aggregates some 25,000 acres, distributed as follows : At Wood lake, some 20 miles nortli of Devil lake, there 

 are 1,000 acres; on Graham's island, a promontory on the north shore of Devil lake, near the northwest end, are 

 2,500 acres of timber; east of this, on the north shore of the lake, are two groves of about 600 acres; at Eock 

 island, which is really a promontory running into the lake, are 3,800 acres of timber; around the east and north 

 shores, and around the whole southern shore of the lake, past Fort Totten to the extreme west end, are some 15,000 

 acres of forest adjacent to Devil lake; at Stump lake, a lake some 15 miles in diameter on the north side of 

 Devil lake, there are 1,400 acres of timber; and commencing some 10 miles south of Fort Totten, and extending 

 down along Cheyenne river into township 140, range 56, in Traill, Foster, and Grand Forks counties, are about 

 10,000 acres of timber. The valley here is only 1 or 2 miles in width, and the timber is generally distributed 

 through it. Probably seven-eighths of all this Devil Lake timber is burr oak; the remainder is sycamore, green 

 ash, etc. This timber in many places grows large, sometimes 30 or 40 feet 1o the first limb, and is valuable for fuel, 

 for the construction of log houses, and for general use by settlers in the absence of other and better material. 



"In the Turtle mountains, in Bottineau and Eolette counties, and extending into the British possessions, is 

 quite a large tract of timber, principally oak of short, scrubby growth, and only valuable as fire wood. A body of 

 timber from 1 mile to 5 miles in width extends for 150 miles along the Mouse river, in the counties of Bottineau, 

 McHenrj-, Stevens, and Eenville. This timber is composed of burr oak, box-elder, sycamore, green ash, etc., and 

 is suitable for fire-wood, house-building, atid rough construction." 



Mr. Eobert Douglas, of Waukegan, Illinois, contributes the following remarks upon the forests of the Black 

 Hills region, of which he made a critical examination: 



"From Fort Meade the stage road runs about 2 miles along the base of the hills, and then follows up through 

 heavy timber, gaining an altitude of over 1,600 feet above the fort when within 2 miles of Deadwood ; thence down a 



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