TIMBER DEPLETION, PRICES, EXPORTS, AND OWNERSHIP. 



17 



for which the State was once famous, now furnishes little but 

 the poorer grades. Of the total forest area 62 per cent con- 

 tains material which is suitable neither for lumber nor pulp and 

 furnishes only fuel or acid wood. While the area of lands com- 

 pletely denuded is comparatively small, the original forests 

 are being followed by stands of decidedly inferior quality, both 

 as to species and grades. The damage by fire is being steadily 

 reduced by systematic fire protection, but the methods of cutting 

 in private lands are such that an increasingly large area is left 

 partially or wholly devastated. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



The forest history of Pennsylvania has been similar to that of 

 New York. Once practically covered with a heavy timber stand, 

 Pennsylvania for many years exported large quantities of lum- 

 ber. In 1860 it stood first among the States in lumber produc- 

 tion. As early as 1870, however, the stand of white pine, the 

 most valuable species in the State and formerly one of its prin- 

 cipal export woods, had diminished to such an extent that im- 

 ports from Michigan began. The depletion of the white pine was 

 followed by an increasing cut of hemlock and later of hard- 

 woods, and the State reached its maximum lumber production 

 of 2,440 million board feet in 1889. To-day it occupies twentieth 

 place in lumber production, and its annual cut of 530 million 

 board feet constitutes less than 2 per cent of the cut of the 

 country. 



The present forest area of Pennsylvania is estimated at ap- 

 proximately 12,000,000 acres, with a stand of 11 billion board 

 feet of timber. Of this 70 per cent is hardwoods, chiefly oak, 

 chestnut, and northern hardwoods, and 30 per cent softwoods, 

 one-half hemlock. In addition to the stand of material suitable 

 for the manufacture of lumber, it is estimated that there are 

 380,000,000 cubic feet of wood suitable for railroad ties and 

 mine props. The total stand, including fuel wood, is 5,200 

 million cubic feet.' 



Depletion in Pennsylvania has already progressed so far 

 that the complete cessation of large-scale logging operations, 

 of which only a few are now left, may be anticipated within 

 a decade. It has reached a point where the annual lumber 

 production is only 60 board feet per capita, or about one-fifth 

 of the average per capita consumption for the United States. 

 The Pittsburgh district alone uses more lumber than is cut in 

 the whole State. Williamsport, which once had an annual 

 output of 300,000,000 board feet of lumber, now has not a 

 single sawmill. In those parts of the State where the forest 

 constituted the sole resource the trail of the lumber industry 

 is marked by abandoned mills and practically deserted vil- 

 lages. 



The steady decrease in the amount of standing timber has 

 been accompanied by a deterioration in quality. Virgin stands 

 are practically gone, old-growth white pine, for example, being 

 reduced to some 10,000 acres, practically all in a single tract 

 which will be cut out In the next five years'. Only about 50 

 per cent of the total volume of wood now standing is suitable 

 for manufacture either as lumber, pulp wood, ties, or props. 

 The average area burned over annually is 500,000 acres, and 

 much of this has been burned over again and again. In addi- 

 tion to the damage from reckless cutting and fires the State 

 has suffered severely from the chestnut bark disease. Nearly 

 one-seventh of the entire State, once richly wooded, Is said 

 to be practically barren. Several counties that were once rich 

 in forest and prosperous are now almost bankrupt because 

 the timber is gone. 



THE LAKE STATES. 



GROWTH AND DECLINE OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY. 



White pine. The history of lumbering in the Lake States 

 during the greater part of the past century is substantially the 

 history of white-pine exploitation. Lumbering began in Michi- 



* Equivalent to about 16,600 million board feet. 

 18621220 3 



gan and Wisconsin about 1835. Pine in enormous quantities 

 drew lumbermen from the East, and before 1870 these States 

 captured the lead in lumber production. They held it until 

 superseded by the southern pine region, between 1900 and 1910. 

 The peak of production was passed in 1892, when the reported 

 output was a little more than 8,900,000,000 board feet largely 

 white pine. This was an increase of 123 per cent over the cut 

 of 1873. In 1899 Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, in the 

 order named, were still the leading three States, with a total 

 production of 8,700,000,000 feet, two-thirds pine; but in 1918 

 they had fallen to eighth, thirteenth, and eleventh, respectively, 

 and their total output had fallen to 3,220,000,000 board feet, 

 of which only 35 per cent was white pine mostly from Minne- 

 sota. Wisconsin now produces less than the second-growth cut 

 of either Maine or New Hampshire, and Michigan, from lead- 

 ing the country from 1870 to 1895, now actually cuts less than 

 half as much as Massachusetts. 



As the Lake States forests dwindled, white-pine lumber went 

 down, both in quantity and quality, and Norway and jack pines 

 and even tamarack were admitted as lower grades of " northern 

 pine lumber." The fine quality timber which gave white pine 

 its reputation is now nearly all gone. In Minnesota two-thirds 

 or more of the Cut is box lumber. Only small, scattered rem- 

 nants of the old-growth white-pine forests remain in Wisconsin 

 and upper Michigan, and in lower Michigan the most widely 

 known tract covers about 100 acres. 



Hemlock. As the higher grades of pine grew scarce and ex- 

 pensive, hemlock, once left in the woods as worthless, began to 

 compete with the successively lower grades of pine introduced. 

 Hemlock production reached its peak 1,600,000,000 feet about 

 1906. In 1914 the cut had fallen to little more than a billion, 

 and in 1918 to 800,000,000. This does not, however, include the 

 cut for pulp, which would increase the total volume by about 

 one-third. By affording a market for cordwood, pulp manufac- 

 ture is taking the small hemlock timber along with the large 

 and thus delaying or preventing the renewal of the supply of 

 large timber. 



The northern hardwoods. Maple, birch, beech, basswood, and 

 elm form at least 85 per cent of the total stand of hardwoods 

 and furnish over 92 per cent of the total hardwood cut In the 

 Lake States. As with hemlock, the logging of hardwoods began 

 as an aftermath of the white-pine logging. Hardwood produc- 

 tion progressed gradually from culling operations taking only 

 the best trees of the preferred species to cuttings such as those 

 made at present for chemical distillation and charcoal, in which 

 even tops, limbs, and saplings are utilized. Beech was one of 

 the latest species to come into commercial demand; less than 

 two decades ago it was a common practice to leave all the 

 beech, which fires later destroyed. Now, the hardwood-using 

 industries absorb not merely the upper grades but anything 

 which will make lumber, and in some cases even cordwood. 



The veneer industry makes a constant demand for high- 

 grade logs. Such logs supply also the bulk of the upper grades 

 of lumber. There has been a constantly growing demand for 

 both veneer and high-grade hardwood lumber, expressed in the 

 pronounced growth of such industries as the musical instru- 

 ment and toy trades. For a considerable part of this demand 

 lower grades ought to be acceptable;' but so long as the demand 

 for upper grades exists manufacturers will attempt to fill it, 

 and the stand will dwindle the more rapidly. 



ORIGINAL AND REMAINING STAND AND RATE OF CUT. 



The original forests occupied practically all the land area 

 of Michigan, Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota not natural 

 prairie a total forested area of approximately 112 million acres. 

 Lumbering and the clearing of land for cultivation have re- 

 duced the merchantable forest cover to little, if any, more than 

 24,000,000 acres, about 58 per cent in farm woodlots of relatively 

 small timber, commonly second growth, and 42 per cent in com- 



