﻿WHITE PINE UNDER FOREST MANAGEMENT. 5 



pressed in New England that the timber would soon be exhausted. 

 For more than two centuries, however, the white-pine forests of the 



Eastern States yielded an ever-increasing output of lumber. The 

 Louisiana Purchase in 1803 opened up in New Orleans a profitable 



market for the white pine of southwestern New York and northwest- 

 ern Pennsylvania, and immense rafts of logs were floated down the 

 Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from the region about the headwaters 

 of the Allegheny. 



White-pine lumbering began in Michigan and Wisconsin in the dec- 

 ade between 1S20 and 1830, but it was not until after the latter date 

 that any considerable quantity was cut. By 1840 enough was known 

 of the extent of the Lake State pineries to bring lumbermen from the 

 Eastern States, where a shortage of supply was already imminent. 

 For over 40 years the white-pine industry of the Lake States continued 

 to increase in volume until the annual production in Michigan alone 

 reached a total of nearly four and one-half billion feet. 



In Minnesota active lumbering did not commence until about 1875, 

 5 or 10 years before the high mark of the output of Michigan was 

 reached. By 1899 Minnesota stood second to Wisconsin in point of 

 production, while Michigan had dropped to third place. Five years 

 later Minnesota, with a cut of less than 2,000,000,000 feet, was first, 

 and Wisconsin second, a relative position which they have since 

 maintained. With the depletion of its forests Michigan rapidly lost 

 importance as a pine-producing State, and now stands sixth in the 

 list, with an annual cut not one- twentieth as great as in 1883. 



In America, with its immense natural forests, the cost of raising 

 timber has not been a factor in determining its value. Heretofore the 

 supply has been relatively large as compared with the demand, and 

 stumpage prices have been correspondingly low. More recently, 

 however, the demand for some kinds of lumber has equaled and 

 sometimes exceeded the available supply, and in some cases stumpage 

 values now even exceed the total cost of raising the timber artificially. 

 An example of a marked rise in stumpage is that of the Wisconsin 

 pine lands purchased by Ezra Cornell in 1866 for 60 cents per acre or 

 equivalent to from 5 to 10 cents per thousand board feet. : Of the 

 500,000 acres thus bought one-fifth was sold in 1873 for $4 per acre, 

 or about 30 or 40 cents per thousand feet. By 1905 practically all 

 the land had been disposed of at a clear profit of nearly $5,500,000. 

 Some of the last sales of stumpage were at prices ranging from $10 to 

 $12 a thousand. Virgin white-pine stumpage ma,j now bring as much 

 as $20 a thousand, and in Wisconsin a stumpage price of $65 per 

 thousand has been paid for selected trees. (See PI. II.) 



Repeated rises in the price of stumpage often led to undervaluation 

 of white-pine stands. In Minnesota, for example, a stand purchased 

 for $30,000 was within a few years refused for lump sums of $50,000, 



