36 FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 



pine, red (ISTorway) and jack pine, also tamarack and cedar (ar- 

 borvitse) in Wisconsin, nearly half tlie present growth takes 

 place in young, immature timber, since this largely prevails. 

 With pine in the hardwood forest and still more with hemlock, 

 decay proceeds faster than growth; for spruce and balsam an 

 increase is doubtful, and with the hardwood forests in general, 

 growth and decay seem in a condition of equilibrium. This 

 growth is of course reduced by all operations reducing either 

 the forest area or the growing timber; by clearing, by logging 

 sapling or growing timber, and most of all by fires. 



COMMUNAL INTERESTS IN FOREST CONDITIONS. 



Forest and Wealth. 



The importance of the forest to the State of Wisconsin as a 

 factor of wealth is very great. The statement that "the wood 

 industries have built every mile of railway and wagon road, 

 every church and schoolhouse, and nearly every town, and that 

 in addition they have enabled the clearing of half the improved 

 land of North Wisconsin," is by no means extravagant exagger- 

 ation. Between 1873 and 1898 more than 66 billion feet of 

 pine alone were cut, from this forest and even then the lumber 

 industry was in a flourishing condition on all the streams and 

 had built up La Crosse, Eau Claire, Chippewa Tails, Grand Eap- 

 ids, Wausau, Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Green Bay, and many 

 other places. The output of the lumber industry alone for the 

 year 1897 is( illustrated in the following table, taken from the 

 Northwestern Lumberman, whose excellent canvass has before 

 been referred to: 



