374 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



in forest decimation, might be reckoned ; it came 

 as gradually or as fast as railway systems de- 

 veloped, and made accessible the vast fields of 

 supply in the northwestern Lake states just as the 

 supplies of the Eastern states began to weaken.^ 



By 1882 the Saginaw Valley had reached the 

 climax of its production, and the lumber industry 

 of the great Northwest, with a cut of eight billion 

 feet of white pine alone, was in full blast. South- 

 ern development began much later to assume large 

 proportions, but by the present time the lumber 

 product of the Southern states has grown to pro- 

 portions equal, if not superior, to those of the 

 Northern states. 



No wonder that those observing this rapid deci- 

 mation of our forest suppUes and the incredible 

 wastefulness and additional destruction by fire, with 

 no attention to the aftergrowth, began again to 

 sound the note of alarm. Besides the writings in 

 the daily press and other non-official publications, 

 we find the reports of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture more and more frequently 

 calling attention to the subject. 



In the report issued by the Patent Office as early 

 as 1849, we find the following significant language 

 in a discussion on the influence of forests on water- 

 flow and their rapid destruction : — 



" The waste of valuable timber in the United 



^ See "American Lumber," by B. E. Fernow, in "One Hun- 

 dred Years of American Commerce," D. O, Haynes & Co., 1895. 



