150 FORMATIONS OF THE INTERIOR 
On the Chippewa and its tributaries there are five mills and seven saws, which 
manufacture five millions three hundred and fifty thousand feet of lumber; three 
millions one hundred thousand laths; one million three hundred thousand shingles, 
and fifty thousand feet of square timber; there are also sent to market about two 
thousand logs, say— 
5,350,000 feet of board and plank, at $8 per M., . . ‘ $42,800 
3,100,000 lathing, at $2 per M., . , . , . 6,200 
1,300,000 shingles, at $2 per M., . ; . “ ‘ 2,400 
50,000 feet of square lumber, at $30 per M., : : : 1,500 
2,000 logs, at $2 each, 4,000 
On the St. Croix and its tributaries five mills and twelve saws are in operation, 
which cut, during 1848, seven million seven hundred thousand feet of boards and 
plank ; six million laths; one hundred thousand shingles; besides fifteen thousand 
logs taken to market without sawing ;* say— 
7,700,000 feet, at $8 per M., : : , i $61,600 
6,000,000 laths, at $2 per M., : : 12,000 
100,000 shingles, at $2 per M.,_ . ; : , : 200 
15,000 logs, at $2 each, . : ‘ ‘ , 30,000 
By the time this reaches the St. Louis market, its value is nearly doubled, so 
that the actual income to the inhabitants, in 1847, was upwards of half a million of 
dollars. 
According to the calculation made in the pine regions of New York and the New 
England States, of the quantity of lumber which one acre of ground will produce, 
five thousand acres of land must annually be denuded of its timber to furnish the 
lumber sent into market from the Chippewa Land District. A portion of this land, 
when deprived of its timber, is almost worthless. 
The Chippewa Land District is the country which must ultimately supply, with 
pine lumber, the whole Mississippi country below the Wisconsin River, and north 
of the mouth of the Ohio; for, south of the Wisconsin, there are no pine lands of 
any extent. The future importance and value of the trade can well be appreciated 
by those who have witnessed the rate of immigration into these vast and fertile 
plains of the United States, particularly when they consider the preference given 
to wooden buildings in the West, and the immense consumption of building material, 
not only in the larger cities, but also for the construction of those numerous towns 
and villages which spring up, as if by magic, along the shores of the Mississippi and 
its tributaries. 
* The steamboat War-Eagle towed out of Lake St. Croix, at one time, a raft of logs and sawed lumber 
which covered, by measurement, eleven acres. 
