352 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



estimates of White Pine, although its quality is quite 

 different. 



So important a part does the White Pine play in 

 our timber supply that speculation as to the amount 

 available has occupied the mind of the lumber 

 world for many years. The census of 1880 at- 

 tempted to secure an estimate of timber standing 

 at that time ; the estimates then pubHshed indicat- 

 ing twenty years' supply at once showed their 

 influence upon price for stumpage and upon stand- 

 ards of merchantable material. 



By reduction of this standard, by increase of 

 means of transportation, by more careful cutting, 

 sawing, grading, and handling, and partly by new 

 growth, the supplies have been considerably length- 

 ened, so that in 1897 the writer, compiling later 

 estimates,^ could still find in the three main white- 

 pine-producing states nearly 40,000 million feet, 

 which with a greatly reduced cut will last a few 

 years longer, when the king of the woods will 

 have been reduced to an inferior rank. 



In the same document the supplies of all conif- 

 erous interchangeable material, standing ready 

 for the axe in the Northern states, was estimated 

 at a round 100,000 million feet, while the annual 

 cut at that time was placed at round 18,000 million 

 feet. Since then the conception of what is mer- 

 chantable timber has greatly changed, small-sized 



1 See Senate Document, No. 40, 55th Congress, 1st session, 1897, 

 " White Pine Timber Supplies." 



