14 
cent is cultivated, the rest forming one continuous body of forest and 
waste land. From this area there have been cut during the last sixty 
years more than 85,000,000,000 feet B. M. of pine lumber alone, and the 
average annual cut during the past ten years has exceeded 3,000,000,000 
feet. 
The lumber industries alone exploiting these resources represented 
in 1890 one-sixth of the total taxable property in the State, paid to over 
50,000 men more than $15,000,000 in wages, and the value of their prod- 
ucts was worth over $35,000,000. To this amount $25,000,000 per annum 
of wood manufactures must be added as relying on forest products pro- 
duced in the State. Of an original stand of about 130,000,000,000 feet 
of pine about 17,000,000,000 feet are left, besides about 12,000,000,000 
feet of hemlock and 16,000,000,000 feet of hard woods. The annual 
growth, which at present amounts to about 900,000,000 feet, and of 
which only 250,000,000 is marketable pine and 500,000,000 feet hard 
woods, is largely balanced by natural decay of the old overripe timber. 
In almost every town of this region logging has been carried on, and 
over 8,000,000 of the 17,000,000 acres of forest are ‘‘cut-over” lands, 
largely burned over and waste brush lands, and one-half of it as nearly 
desert as it can become in the climate of Wisconsin. 
The wooded area proper is steadily being reduced by logging and to 
a smaller extent by clearing. At present nothing is done either to pro- 
tect or restock the denuded cut-over lands, of which fully 80 per cent 
are now and will likely remain for a long time unproductive waste land. 
This policy causes a continuous and ever-growing loss to the Common- 
wealth, which at present amounts to about 800,000,000 feet per year of 
useful and much-needed material, besides gradually but surely driving 
from the State the industries which have been most conspicuous in its 
development, depriving acold country of a valuable factor in its climatic 
conditions, and affecting detrimentally the character of the main drain- 
age channels of the State. 
PERMANENT FORESTRY COMMISSIONER OR COMMISSION. 
It would clearly appear that it is the interest as well as the duty of 
the Commonwealth to adopt such measures as will tend to prevent 
further decrease and deterioration of its productive area and to engage 
in the work of recuperation. Such measures are adaptive; that is to 
say, they may be applied with a variable degree of thoroughness and 
consequent outlay. In the first place,it is shown that the interests 
involved are large enough to deserve a definite representation in the 
Government departments. Until a permanent forest commissioner 
or commission is created, who represents the interests of the Common- 
wealth in this matter, not much progress can be expected in having the 
interest of the community taken care of. 
The first step to be taken by such an officer or commission would be 
to organize a service for the protection of forest property against fire. 
