FOREST ECONOMICS. 243 



Tn the wood-working industries, the following men 

 were employed in the year 1900: 



Sash and door manufacturers 1,186 



Sawmills, shingle- and lath-mills 9,179 



Planing-mills 1,707 



Rattan and willow works 48 



Paper-mills 229 



Lumber-yards 276 



Wood-working shops 830 



Furniture and fixtures 1,405 



Cooperage 772 



Box manufacturing 356 



Total 15,988 



Making a total in the wood-working and lumbering 

 industries, besides carpenters and builders, of 31,874 

 men employes. The best authorities agree that the 

 normal annual increase on the 12,000,000 acres of forest 

 area in Minnesota should be about 2,000,000,000 feet board 

 measure, or a mean annual increase of 185 feet board 

 measure per acre. If this were true, it would leave a 

 wide margin to the present annual timber cut without 

 impairing the normal growing stock. In other words, 

 this great lumber industry, of so much value to that 

 State, would be continued indefinitely under normal 

 conditions. But there is practically no timber land in 

 that State under normal conditions, and there is little 

 or no increase on the far greater part of her cut-over 

 timber lands. On this account the continuance of the 

 lumber industry is not hoped for, by those engaged in it, 

 there. In other words, they are working their timber 

 resources as though they were a mine which could never 

 be restocked. 



The timber lands of all civilized countries have passed 

 through about the same wasteful conditions as those 

 which now prevail here. While this does not justify 



