FORESTS OP WISCONSIN. 143 



waste. About 8,000,000 acres are cut over and practically exhausted for the present. Of available 

 timber supplies a round 30,000,000,000 feet B. M. of coniferous material and some 14,000,000,000 

 feet of hardwoods, besides 100,000,000 cords of cord wood, are to be found on the 9,000,000 acres 

 remaining. 



The present consumption of saw timber alone may be set down as over 3,000,000,000 feet, not 

 including railroad ties, pulp wood, posts, poles, and other bolt-size material, while the cut of 

 coniferous material alone for the year 3897 may be placed at 2,500,000,000 feet B. M. The wood 

 consumption altogether equals in value one-third the products of agriculture in the State. The 

 lumber and wood-working industries relying upon this crop represent a capital of over $100,000,000, 

 the lumber mills alone paying half the State taxes, and in wages and running expenses over 

 $25,000,000. Hot less than 20,000,000,000 feet of pine timber have been wasted by fires since 

 lumbering began, about sixty years ago. The detrimental influence of forest destruction on 

 waterflow of rivers is unmistakable. 



As to the condition of the forest and cut over lands, it may be stated that there are no entire 

 townships which remain unculled and in virgin condition. Of the 8,000,000 acres of cut-over land 

 not one-tenth is stocked with growing timber, and this whole acreage has become unproductive. 

 About 500,000 acres comprise the really promising young pine growths in parcels of any extent. 

 While pine reproduces wherever fire does not prevent, the great mass of pine slashings have 

 remained and will continue to remain barren wastes under the present policies. 



WASTE LAND AND AGRICULTURE 



The injunction that this land is needed for agriculture, that it soon will all be settled, and 

 that even the sandy soils produce potatoes and are profitably farmed by improved methods may 

 well be answered by a concrete case: The old settled counties of Waushara, Adams, and 

 Marinette have an aggregate area of 1,144,000 acres, their improved land amounts to 340,000 

 acres, leaving fully 70 per cent, or 804,000 acres, in brush and waste lands. In 1895 these counties 

 supported wood industries whose products amounted to the pitiful sum of $13,000, and probably 

 the material for these was imported, instead of having 80,000,000 feet of pine to sell, which, under 

 simple methods of care, might have been derived from these brush and waste lands. 



How soon the 17,000,000 acres of wild land in northern Wisconsin will be settled and improved 

 no one can tell. The likelihood is that at least 10,000,000 acres, and among these much of the 

 best lands, will remain unproductive brush land for fifty years to come. 



Remedies. — What advantage it is to the county and State to have unproductive sand lands 

 settled by poor and ignorant people and support farms " without barns ,? can not here be discussed. 

 In the same way it is not here contemplated to enter into the question of communal property, i. e., 

 whether it might not be well for a county, which can get land fbr the mere taking, to hold a few 

 townships as county forest, and have these county forests at least defray the county expenses, 

 giving at the same time work to many people. 



What can be done to save the enormous loss to the State is clear — the land must be restocked 

 and young timber must be given a chance to grow. What the fire has done to the pine supply is 

 apparent from the conservative figures of original stand of pine. 



This same work of destruction continues during this very fall (1897),* many hundreds of acres 

 of young sapling pine were ruined by fire, and it will require many years before the opening up 

 of settlements and roads suffices to suppress the fire fiend. From this it is clear, and the fact is 

 fully conceded by all persons conversant with the conditions of these woods, that the first and 

 most important step in the right direction consists in the proper organization of an efficient fire 

 police. 



That a diversity of opinion as to the methods and even the possibility of suppressing the fires 

 should exist is but natural. To most people the entire subject is foreign, the problem too large? 

 to many even well-informed and experienced men the forest fire is an enormous affair, a calamity 

 which man is entirely nnable to combat. Nevertheless, the best informed men, nearly all woods- 

 men (" cruisers " and loggers), whose opinions were sought in this connection expressed themselves 

 in favor of such a policy and certain of good results. The beginning of a tbrest-fire protection by 

 the State is laid, but it requires further organization to be successful. 



