330 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



LOKGLEAF YELLOW PINE IN LOUISIANA. THE CRY OF THE PRAIRIE STATES 

 FOR WOOD, AND MORE WOOD AT LAST AWAKENED THE LANGUOROUS 

 SOUTH TO THE FACT THAT THE LAKE STATES COULD NO LONGER MEET 

 THE HEAVY DEMANDS THAT WHITE PINENO LONGER RULED THE WORLD, 

 AND SO IN 1900 THE CROWN PASSED ONCE MORE, THIS TIME TO THE RE- 

 BORN SOUTH. 



perforce left the honors upon 

 her rapidly bowing head in 

 passing. Already New York 

 City was a great metropolis, 

 her needs were supplied with 

 difificulty from her fast dis- 

 appearing forests, and yellow 

 pine from the Southern States 

 was stealing tentatively into 

 her all-devouring harbor. 



Up to that time white pine 

 and oak had been about the 

 only woods for which there 

 was a market. Why use any- 

 thing but the best when the 

 best was there in unusable 

 quantities? Even the fences 

 were built of clear white pine 

 without a knot. The lumber- 

 men have been accused of 

 wanton waste and all of the 

 crimes in the decalogue on ac- 

 count of this extravagance but 

 why blame them? A manufac- 

 turer sells what the buyers de- 

 mand, all they will take, and 

 regrets the waste in his fac- 

 tory. Whoever heard of a 

 man wantonly wasting what 

 would sell for gold? But 

 now that the best was gone, 

 or growing costly from a dis- 

 tant source, the demands 

 changed and other species 

 came hesitatingly into the 

 market. 



Attaining to the leadership 

 only late in her declining 

 years, -New York could not 

 hope to hold her honors long 

 and by 1850 Pennsylvania had 

 snatched away her falling 

 crown. Snatched it but to 

 place it on an already nodding 

 head. For the snowball was 

 beginning to roll, the demands 

 of the country were increas- 

 ing, the markets were growing 

 wider with every newly 

 opened farm, the whirring of 

 the steam-driven buzz saw 

 had replaced the old jigsaw 

 and the waterwheel. The in- 

 dustry was growing apace, 

 and the forests melted as be- 

 fore a blow torch. The new 

 telegraph lines added thou- 

 sands of poles to the forest 



