American Forest Congress 107 



After the pine lands had been surveyed and settle- 

 ment had developed a general demand for lumber, pine 

 holdings began to have a specific value — but at first it 

 was a acreage price at Government figures. It was 

 cheap property and so esteemed. The main thing with 

 the lumberman was the expense involved in building 

 mills, in cleaning out streams for the floating logs, 

 putting in camps, and all else that was involved in 

 logging, milling, and marketing. 



As to pine stumpage, the mill operators from 1850 

 to 1880 thought there was no limit to it. Its possible 

 exhaustion was considered so far in the future as to 

 be a negligible quantity in the equation. The location 

 of a mill at an advantageous site for floating logs 

 down to it and for shipping lumber when produced 

 was the prime consideration. The investment was in 

 these things; the value of the raw material on the 

 stump was the minor factor in the problem. 



And yet with stumpage worth but $1.25 an acre 

 lumbermen found it difficult to make profit in their 

 business from 1850 to 1857, and, in the latter disastrous 

 year and the several years following, hundreds of them 

 in Michigan, Wisconsin, and along the Mississippi 

 River went to the financial wall. After the civil war 

 there was a revival, with some few successes and some 

 slight increase in timber values. In 1873 came another 

 financial revolution and more depression in the lumber 

 business, accompanied by many bankruptcies. 



Not until 1879-80 did the northern pine business 

 reach a plane of commercial activity where stumpage 

 values began to be considered. At that time the pine 

 owners who had hung on to their stumpage despite 

 hard times, low prices, and meager profits in lumber 

 production began to realize that they possessed wealth 

 in their pine trees. Then standing pine began to be 



