148 



THE FORESTER. 



June, 



were enough that were unsound and worth- 

 less or that were wholly blackened by fire 

 to apparently lend bad character to the 

 whole. In this system of lumbering the 

 logger contracts to cut and haul and boom 



O 



in water whence they can be floated to a 

 mill or to pile near a railroad the " dead 

 and down" timber. He is paid so many 

 dollars a thousand for doing this, and if 

 his contract is a good one it is for his in- 

 terest to cut as much as possible. The 

 numerous substantial log houses at the 

 camps and the roads made and bridges 

 built in the vicinity of the operations as 

 well as the logs themselves all betoken 

 extensive lumbering. Having reached the 

 place of transportation the government 

 sells the logs to various lumbermen who 







will pay the highest price for them. It 

 is the universal opinion that under this 

 system it is impossible to prevent the cut- 

 tins' of green and sound timber. It is also 







the common opinion that fires are set in 

 order to make a cause for cutting timber 

 in this way. I am confident that at least 

 50,000,000 feet of sound timber has been 

 cut the past winter, and judging from 

 hearsay about 100,000,000 feet has been 

 cut. Of course I have not the means of 

 knowing whether the Indians will receive 

 the full value of the pine, but my impres- 

 sion is that they will not receive its full 

 value within from $50,000 to $100,000. 

 However that may be, this is certain that 

 under the guise of cutting "dead and 







down" timber a great deal of sound tim- 

 ber is being cut, and the whole business 

 has a character of fraud and tends to ex- 

 cite in the Indians discontent, disrespect 

 for the government and for white people 

 generally. 



" There is a remedy for this abuse, and 

 it ought to be applied speedily. The ad- 

 ministration of the Indian pine forests in 

 Minnesota is not a local but a national 

 matter. It concerns the people in the 

 other States as much as it does the people 

 in Minnesota, for it involves the honor of 

 the United States Government. These 

 lands should be administered on forestry 

 principles; by which is meant that the 

 mature trees should be cut and marketed 

 as rapidly as practicable and the young 



trees left to grow, and all protected from 

 fire. The tops and branches would not 

 be left as now a menace in dry weather 

 to the safety of the remaining forest. 

 There are plenty of young Americans al- 

 ready trained in theoretical and practical 

 forestry and who would be glad to take 

 charge of these forests and would take 

 professional pride in managing them in 

 an economical manner. The government 

 could do nothing better to inspire the re- 

 spect and good will of the Indians than 

 to place these pine lands under scientific 

 forestry management. 



^ 



Diminution 

 in Cut of 

 White Pine. 



"The permanent de- 

 cline in the pine lumber 

 product of the sawmills 

 of Michigan, Wisconsin 

 and Minnesota is graphically portrayed 

 by the report of the output of these mills 

 for 1900, the comparative table giving 

 the product by districts and the grand 

 totals for a series of years. These sta- 

 tistics have now been compiled for 

 twenty-eight consecutive years, and form 

 the only complete and reliable figures ex- 

 isting in regard to any grand department 

 of the lumber industry. They have been 

 secured from the mill men themselves 

 and their completeness of detail is con- 

 vincing. 



" The last year the product passed the 

 eight billion mark was 1892, and now it 

 has dropped below five and a half billions. 

 The grand totals for the last eleven years, 

 in round numbers, are as follows: 1S90, 

 8,597,000,000; 1891, 7,8So,ooo,ooo ; 

 1892, 8,594,000,000; 1S93, 7,326,000,- 

 000; 1S94, 6,821,000,000; 1895, 7,050,- 

 000,000; 1896,5,726,000,000: 1S97, 6,- 

 233,000,000; 1898,6,155,000,000; 1S99, 

 6,056,000,000; 1900,5,485,000,000. The 

 exact total for last year is 5,485,261,000 

 feet. 



"During the last two years there has 

 been every inducement for the mills to 

 turn out a heavy product; and yet there 

 was a slight falling off in 1S99 as com- 

 pared with 1898, and a heavy decrease in 

 1900. Every resource was strained to 

 make a heavy output, but without result, 



