42 FOBESTS OF WISCONSIN. 



places haye not reverted to swamp timber. The ground is too 

 dry, the hardwood thickets have come to stay. These things 

 are well known, especially to the woodsmen of the region; they 

 are in all cases referred to the removal of timber, and there is. 

 probably no locality in the world where this subject could bet- 

 ter be studied than in ISTorth Wisconsin. A drive with some- 

 old resident through the settled parts of Shawano, Marathon,. 

 Taylor, and other counties and the rehearsal of his memories pre- 

 sent matters of the utmost interest in this connection, and will 

 hardly fail to convince even the most skeptical of the decided 

 changes in drainage and soil moisture which have occurred here 

 and are still in progress. 



THE OUTLOOK FOB THE PTJTXJRE. 



It is impossible to foretell how long the pine is likely to last> 

 As stumpage increases in price and the opportunity to buy it 

 decreases, one mill after another drops out. Half the mills of 

 20 years ago are no longer in existence, not because they failed 

 to pay but because their pine supplies gave out, and this same 

 process will continue. The output^ already on the decline, will 

 grow smaller, and the exploitation of the 17 billion feet of stand- 

 ing timber is likely to be drawn out over a period far greater than 

 would seem possible with the present rate of cutting. Never- 

 theless, the experience of parts of Michigan and also of Wood, 

 Portage, and other counties in Wisconsin indicate that cutting- 

 will go on without regard to the end, and its rate depends 

 merely on considerations of market conditions and facilities for 

 handling timber, so that the end of the greater part of pine lum- 

 bering is likely to be quite sudden, and its effect correspond- 

 ingly severe. 



The cut of hemlock, though still small, may at any time take 

 on considerable dimensions. There are several good reasons 

 which make this desirable. The wood is much better than is 

 commonly assumed, and it is mere prejudice — and more the 

 prejudice of the carpenter than of the consumer — which pre- 

 fers poor pine to good hemlock. For some time the old hem- 



