THE LUMBER DEALERS' INTEREST IN 

 FOREST PRESERVATION 



BY 



GEORGE W. HOTCHKISS 



Lumber Secretary's Bureau of Infortoation 



TTHIE very interesting papers to which we have 

 listened this morning may well give me some 

 excuse, in the lateness of the hour, for cutting my 

 remarks short, and I request the chairman to call me 

 down in ten minutes at the outside. Representing the 

 retail lumbermen of twenty-four States which were 

 gathered in the early part of December, and about 

 40,000 retail lumbermen, I come to you to bring their 

 greetings and to say something about the interests of 

 the retail lumber trade in connection with the preser- 

 vation of the forest. In order to arrive at an adequate 

 realization of the interests of the retail lumberman, 

 which means the interests of the nation at large, it is 

 necessary to take a hasty glance at the progress of the 

 lumber business. 



The first saw mill in this country was built in 1643 

 in the forests of Vermont. In 1763 we began to 

 import lumber from Canada, and we have custom 

 house figures to show that 623 feet were brought to 

 Oswego in that year. The center of the lumber trade 

 progressed west to the straits of Mackinac, and the 

 island of Mackinac was for a time the center of the 

 industry; from that point to the St. Clair River and 

 to the Saginaw River and to Lake Michigan points in 

 Michigan and in Wisconsin, with several different 

 points of production. In the early settlement of Mich- 



