COMMERCIAL USES OF WHITE PINE 



393 



soundest. Fire that was carelessly permitted to burn 

 in the slash left after lumbering, destroyed an unbe- 

 lievable amount, without doubt, at least, another third. 

 Today white pine is worth $15 or more per thousand feet 

 on the stump and the greatest care is exercised in pre- 

 venting waste. 



The progress in lumbering white pine is graphically 

 illustrated by a lumber operation in Western Pennsyl- 

 vania. About sixty years ago this lumberman began 

 cutting white pine in the virgin forests, floating the logs 

 to Pittsburgh to be sawed. Following the methods of his 

 grandfather and father, who had logged white pine in 

 Maine and Eastern Pennsylvania, he at first cut no trees 

 under two feet in diameter. The stumps were four to 

 six feet high, and no logs were cut from the trunk above 

 the first limb ; also, it was usual to "butt" the first logs ; 



STACKS OF WHITE PINE FOR EXPORT 



Here is shown some of Minnesota's best product. This grade 

 often called "cork" pine and corresponds to the "pumpkin" 

 pine once abundant in New England. It dries as straight 

 as an arrow. Pattern makers want this kind. 



that is, a section 10 or 12 feet long was sawed off the 

 lower end of the first log and left to decay in the woods. 

 This was done because some of these logs were more or 

 less affected by wind-shape and did not furnish the abso- 

 lutely perfect lumber demanded by the trade of that day. 

 It was not long before the young lumberman worked 



out a plan to make a profit from some of this waste 

 material. From the butt logs and high stumps he made, 

 split shingles, loaded them on a raft of logs and sold 

 them in Cincinnati for a dollar more per thousand than 

 the regular market price. Thus encouraged, when he 

 built a sawmill on the tract he installed the first lath 



NEARLY OUT OF BUSINESS 



The refuse burners at the big white pine mills no longer 

 consume much material. Slabs are worked into lath, 

 molding and other small artciles, the sawdust goes to 

 stables as horse bedding the chips and splinters are 

 loaded in cars to be hauled to the towns for fuel, and 

 very little finds its way to the waste heap. The picture 

 represents a scene at the mill of the Northern Lumber 

 Company, at Cloquet, Michigan. 



mill in Western Pennsylvania and manufactured laths 

 from the white pine slabs that others burned, and was 

 ridiculed for his economy. However, the lath mill pro- 

 duced a profit, and it was not long before other manu- 

 facturers followed his example. 



This pioneer in conservative lumbering has continued 

 to apply new methods of manufacturing profitable by- 

 products from waste; his mill has no need for a slab- 

 burner as there is not sufficient waste to supply all the 

 fuel needed to furnish power for the plant. In the 

 woods, low stumps are made, and all of the tree that can 

 be saved is taken to the mill. The tops are cut into 

 cordwood and sold to the paper pulp manufacturers ; the 

 brush is piled and burned, and should a forest fire be 



