88 



yet 60 or more years are required to produce such trees as are demanded for 

 sawing into lumber ; and even at that age, years continue to add value to the 

 timber in increasing proportions. 



The evergreen forests of Wisconsin have been and still are more valuable 

 than placers of gold in the gulches of the Rocky mountains, if we simply 

 count the dollars which the lumbermen have extracted from them by the aid 

 of toil and machinery. 



The pines of this state have contributed materially to build cottages and 



palaces, not only in this state, but in all the states washed by the Mississippi 



and Lake Michigan. Scarcely a dwelling, church, school-house, public or 



private building can be found, to which they have not contributed more or 



less. The plentifulness of the timber has hitherto kept down the price, and 



it has not been appreciated. Great forests have been robbed of their best 



trees, for the sake of a single log, or a few shingle-bolts ; other trees and forests 

 ■fe 

 have been wantonly destroyed. The young trees, designed by Providence to 



replace the old, have been ruthlessly cut away to make a place for an experi- 



mentj in growing corn on sands so destitute of vegetable matter, that corn 



could not grow, until the pines had for ages more shed their needly-shaped 



leaves on the barren surface. 



It would seem as if the woodman, axe in hand, had found himself in the 

 midst of the dense evergreen forest, and forgetting all of earth beside, and 

 because his vision was bounded by the trunks and branches of large trees, he 

 believed all the world was pine ; and that fate had placed him there to hew 

 out an opening, and let in the light of the sun ; that the quantity and extent 

 were what they appeared to his limited vision — infinitely large and there- 

 fore inexhaustable. His vision could not extend just over the tree tops, 

 within the day's flight of the pigeon, where was spread out a region far 

 greater than his forest, on which no tree rears its head ; and where all and 

 more thai all, the trees which surround him, are wanted for its use. 



The time has already arrived when we begin to feel that there is a 

 scarcity of pine timber ; where it was but a few years ago, sold for $10 for a 

 1,000 feet, it now readily brings thrice its former prices, with no prospect of 

 being any cheaper. 



This increase is not owing to a scarcity of labor, as some tell us, or to an 

 increase of currency, as others say. Although these causes may have some 

 effect at present, yet it is mainly owing to the difficulty in getting the trees 

 from which the lumber is made, which has raised the price. In a. few years 

 more, if lumber continues to advance, and there is no reason why it should 

 not, it will be beyond the reach of the poor, or even the middle classes, and 

 these must resort to other materials from which to construct their abodes ; 

 and as in Europe with no intermediate material between mud and stone 

 walla, the rich will live in this, the poor in that. 



The rapid strides which we have made in advancement, may be attributed 



