Forestry and the National Forests 3 
forest was his enemy and he fought it with every means at his com- 
mand. The forest provided material for his house and warmed it, 
it is true, but once his improvements were made and his fuel supplied 
he had no use for what was left. The forests kept crowding back 
upon his farm land. They harbored the savage and the beast that 
preyed upon his progress. With ax and fire he finally won the 
battle, but he helped to cripple one of the best resources of his 
country. 
First sawmills —With the settling of the country it was not con- 
venient for each man to go into the forest and cut the logs for his 
house. There was a demand for lumber and sawmills were started. 
They were small and crude affairs and turned out but little lumber, 
enough, however, for the needs of the times. These first mills were 
close to the settlements. All along the Atlantic coast each com- 
munity had its mills. Logs were brought from the near-by woods, 
Western yellow pine—the most important timber tree of the Southwest 
sawed into lumber, and the product hauled direct to the building 
sites. 
Development and expansion.—As the population increased and 
spread out, greater and greater demands for lumber arose. Larger 
mills were built and lumbering became a trade. Ships that brought 
commodities from Europe carried lumber back. Shipyards in which 
wooden merchant vessels were constructed were established close 
to growing material. Railroads were thrust westward and lumber 
sent to prairie homesteads. 
Millis compelled to move.—The history of the American lumber 
industry is a story of the depletion of forests and the migration of 
sawmills. This began on the coast of New England; then New York, 
Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes region, and the Southern States were 
included. The scene is at present “shifting from the Southern States 
to the Pacific coast, and in this move we are nearing the closing 
