144 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



great changes and shifting scenes of production. It is 

 remarkable that in the lifetime of such a man so many 

 changes could be worked in the development of one of 

 the leading resources of the nation. Within the allotted 

 "three score years and ten" three immense regions have 

 been divested of their forest cover to a large extent, and 

 the fourth, the southern pine region, has reached its apex 

 of production. No other land was ever more generously 

 blessed with timber or timber so well adapted to man's 

 needs as our own great stretch of country. Perhaps 

 it has been the very great abundance of wood on every 

 hand that has caused us as a people to value it lightly 

 and countenance its ruthless destruction by fire and im- 

 provident lumbering methods. 



There is an economic feature in this shifting of regions 

 of production which stands out boldly like a figure out- 



and the bulk of the consumers ever getting farther apart, 

 however, the economic burden of transportation has been 

 laid upon the consumer and becomes increasingly heavy 

 each year. In 1850 the center of population in the United 

 States was Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 1910 it had 

 moved to Bloomington, Indiana, or northward and west- 

 ward, while the main production of lumber shifted to the 

 southern and far western States. This transportation 

 cost burden is a heavy one. Take a city like Phila- 

 delphia, for instance. In the earlier days rafts of logs 

 and lumber coming down the Delaware and Schuylkill 

 Rivers supplied the inhabitants of the city with wood. 

 Then the big stores of white pine and hemlock in central 

 Pennsylvania were unlocked by the lumbermen and much 

 of Philadelphia's share was brought down the Susque- 

 hanna River and its tributaries, through the old Chesa- 



TQTAL LUMBER PRODUCT/ON 1850-1918 IN THE UNITED STATES 

 BY GROUPS OF STATES 



lined against the horizon. The figure in this case is the 

 burden of transportation that puts its load on the con- 

 sumer as the proverbial thumb of the butcher or grocer 

 tips the scales when weighing our minor purchases of 

 food. In 1850 the sawmill and consumer were within 

 a reasonable distance of each other, and many communi- 

 ties secured their supply of wood from local mills. A 

 decade or two later, as the timber near at hand became 

 well cut out, the mills moved farther away. Still the 

 distance lumber had to be hauled was not great and the 

 cost was lessened by the use of rivers and canals for the 

 movement of logs and lumber. With the timber supply 



peake and Delaware Canal and then up the Delaware 

 River to the city. The water borne traffic was carried 

 at a minimum of expense, possibly $1.50 or 2 a thousand 

 feet. Subsequently the movement of western Pennsyl- 

 vania lumber and still later that of the Lake States was 

 by rail, and the transportation tax increased possibly to 

 $2 or $3 a thousand feet. Today the freight charge 

 amounts to from $7 to $8 a thousand feet on North 

 Carolina pine, $9 to $11 on southern yellow pine, $11 to 

 $14 on southern hardwood, while the freight charges on 

 Douglas fir loom large at from $20 to $24 a thousand 

 feet. In some instances the transportation charges alone 



