'62 SURVEYS OP FOREoT RESERVES. 



and 80 to 100 years old; and the time which must elapse before what 

 is now too small can be used in mines or for sawing is easily calculated. 



Cutting began in the Black Hills about twenty years ago, and has 

 increased rapidly since the advent of the railroad. There are forty -two 

 sawmills in South Dakota and seven in Wyoming, within the bound- 

 aries of the hills. These mills are usually small, with a cajjacity of 

 from 8,000 to 10,000 feet per day, but their total output of sawed lum- 

 ber is not believed to exceed 20,000,000 feet per annum. The merchant- 

 able limit for saw logs is now about 14 inches on the stumiD, and 10 

 inches at the small end of the log. The trees will yield, on the aver- 

 age, one and one-half logs apiece. The cutting for these mills is waste- 

 ful in the extreme. Quantities of logs have been left on the ground to 

 rot, and on the average not over 50 per cent of each tree is taken. So 

 far as could be discovered none of the sawmill men attempt to follow 

 the regulations prescribed by the Department. This neglect is to some 

 extent forced upon them by the competition of other mill men, and it 

 has been invited by the fact that the interrupted and consequently 

 inefficient supervision of the General Land Office have been wholly 

 unable to secure compliance with the law. So far as known the Home- 

 stake Mining Company is the only concern which makes a definite 

 attempt to carry out the regulations of the Department concerning 

 cutting. 



Considerable quantities of lumber have been illegally shipped out- 

 side the State, chiefly to Omaha, and other points in Nebraska. Great 

 numbers of young and growing trees, which would soon produce mine 

 timber or saw logs if protected, are being cut for fuel in the northern 

 hills, while not less than 30,000 cords per annum, wasted in lumbering 

 in the southern hills, lie rotting in the woods. Means should be taken 

 to bring together supply and demand. The high freight rate on cord 

 wood is one of the principal obstacles. 



In addition to the 20,000,000 feet of lumber manufactured in the 

 Black Hills, the consumption of mining timber is estimated at 4,500,000 

 linear feet, of which the Homestake Company uses 1,750,000 feet. The 

 mining tim'bers included in this statement are classified under two 

 general heads, llinch flats, which must show a thickness of 11 inches 

 when hewed flat on two sides, and 6-inch flats, of which the Homestake 

 Company uses about 1,000,000 linear feet. Smaller timbers, called 3- 

 inch flats, are extensively used in prospect holes, and to some degree in 

 the larger mines. It is estimated that 25,000 cords of wood are used 

 for fuel in various mines throughout the hills. 



The reproduction of the yellow pine in the Black Hills is unequaled 

 in my experience by the same tree in any other locality. It is most 

 successful on north slopes and moist ground, and where the soil is 

 exposed but not impoverished. Where a sufficient number of trees 

 are left in such conditions over comparatively small open patches, it is 

 as good as that of the lodge-pole pine, the tree of the United States 

 most prolific in young growth. On larger clearings, where seed trees 

 are scarce or wanting, reproduction is poor. The present method of 

 cutting is admirably calculated to bring this result about, for its ten- 

 dency is to remove all the old trees that are not unsound, and so hinder 

 the seeding up of the devastated areas. It is often said that the forest 

 is reproducing itself on the cut-over lands. In its just sense this is not 

 correct. Scattered young trees of yellow pine are indeed coming up, 

 but they are full of limbs and stand far apart, and their product will 

 be coarse, knotty material, instead of the clear lumber and mine tim- 

 bers furnished by the original crop. Right methods of cutting, which 



