1901 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



2 39 



" Word has been received that the last 

 stick of lumber belonging to Knapp, Stout 

 & Co., of Menominee, Wis., was sawed to- 

 day and that the mills have closed perma- 

 nently, after being in operation longer than 

 half a century. This is considered by 

 lumbermen as another step toward the de- 

 sertion of Wisconsin by that interest. Not 

 many years ago this state and its neigh- 

 bor, Michigan, were numbered among the 

 largest lumber-producing states of the 

 Union. To-day the White Pine, which 

 first attracted investors, has been almost 

 entirely exhausted. 



" Company after company has deserted 

 these districts and sought new fields where 

 the forests are thick and where they can 

 be purchased standing at a nominal price. 

 Companies now operating north of Illinois 

 are either going far into the interior to get 

 White Pine, or else they have turned their 

 attention to Hemlock and hard woods 

 which can be found. Thirty years ago 

 when government land could be purchased 

 in this district for less than $ 2 an acre, the 

 White Pine was most in abundance and 

 Hemlock was spurned, as it did not bring 

 enough money when cut, sawed, and 

 shipped to the market. Now this is 

 changed, and even the Hemlock has been 

 cleared out to a large extent. In the north- 

 ern part of Wisconsin and parts of northern 

 Michigan, not adjacent to the lake, the for- 

 ests still flourish, but the monarch pine 

 has been slaughtered." 



The " inexhaustible timber supply " of 

 Alaska has furnished a theme for numer- 

 ous articles on how the rest of the world 

 would some day find a most abundant 

 supply of timber in the Alaskan forests. 

 But here are a few facts recently published 

 in the San Francisco Chronicle, which 

 tell the same old story : 



" Wherever commerce invades the tim- 

 ber lands the forest growth quickly disap- 

 pears. This is aptly illustrated in the 

 experience of the Yukon Valley in Alaska. 

 The steamer traffic of only three or four 

 seasons on that river has already created a 

 timber famine on its banks. Of course, 

 that section of Alaska is not heavily tim- 

 bered. Most of the commercial forests of 

 the Territory lie farther south and nearer 



the sea coast, where the climate is milder 

 and more favorable to the growth of conif- 

 erous trees. These forests have always 

 been spoken of as inexhaustible. But we 

 are learning in this state the sad lesson 

 that once the woodman begins to hew for 

 commercial purposes a time limit can be 

 quickly set on the life of the densest tim- 

 ber growth, particularly if nothing is done 

 for its conservation and renewal, as is 

 liable to be the case in Alaska. 



" The exhaustion of the timber supply 

 on the banks of the Yukon River will 

 create a serious problem in the navigation 

 of that stream. It is now a great com- 

 mercial highway, whose importance is 

 growing each year. All the boats plying 

 its waters have been drawing their fuel 

 from its forests. These are now failing 

 rapidly, and, unless coal or oil is discov- 

 ered in available quantities in the neigh- 

 borhood, river navigation will have to be 

 abandoned soon." 



The Fire Since the September For- 



Record. ester went to press the 



following forest fires have 

 been reported : 



Michigan. A few days ago near Port 

 Huron, Mich., during a squall on Lake 

 Huron, six vessels were wrecked on the 

 beach. The crews of all the vessels were 

 rescued by the life saving crew during the 

 night. A heavy smoke caused by forest 

 fires hung over the lake and caused the 

 navigators to lose their course. 



From Detroit comes the news that for 

 days the dense smoke from Canadian for- 

 est fires hung over Lake Erie, Lake 

 Huron, and the Detroit River and practi- 

 cally tied up navigation. Fully a dozen 

 excursion boats were unable t< return to 

 the city and hundreds of excursionists 

 who left Saturday afternoon were com- 

 pelled to spend the night on the boats. 

 The smoke from these forest fires was 

 carried across Lake Michigan to Chi< 

 where it hung in dense clouds. 



Colorado. On Sunday, September 22d, 



a forest lire broke out in the mountains 

 near Eldora. Boulder County, and at last 



