HARVESTING THE FOREST CROP 121 
east is found the fringe forest composed of oak, cotton- 
wood, elm, sycamore, basswood, etc., which gradually 
merges into the regular hardwood forest, composed of 
hickory, ash, black walnut, etc., of the territory which 
is now Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. 
The spruce and pine forests of Maine and northern 
New York and the hard pine forests of the Southern 
coastal plains complete the list of forest regions, 
differing in density and kind but all valuable. 
So much for the kinds of timber that awaited the 
ax; a storehouse containing, it is estimated, 5,200,000,- 
000,000 board feet, exceeding in amount any like 
area upon any part of this globe. Since the first 
sawmill was erected in Virginia in 1608 more than 
half (2,700,000,000,000 board feet) of the original 
supply has been consumed by fire and commerce com- 
bined. 
Early Lumbering.—The first sawmills erected in this 
country were exceedingly crude; water furnished the 
power and the daily output was from 1000 to 3000 
board feet a day. The development of the saw- 
mill by the American lumberman to its present per- 
fection, with a daily maximum output of from 750,000 
to 1,000,000 board feet, is a triumph of Yankee 
ingenuity. The history of the lumber industry is a 
story of a struggle against big odds and one con- 
taining much romance and many soul-stirring epi- 
sodes. At first only the best logs were taken by 
the Colonial lamberman. The pine trees of New Eng- 
land furnished many a mast for the sailing ships of 
the world, and those that were stamped with the broad 
arrow were reserved for the English Navy. Maine was 
the center of the lumber industry of the New World 
for a long time and the “pumpkin” pine was the great 
