WHITE PINE UNDER FOEEST MANAGEMENT. 5 
pressed in New England that the timber would soon be exhausted. 
For more than two centuries, however, the white-pine forests of the 
Eastern States yielded an ever-increasing output of lumber. The 
Louisiana Purchase in 1803 opened up in Xew Orleans a profitable 
market for the white pine of southwestern Xew York and northwest- 
ern Pennsylvania, and immense rafts of logs were floated down the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from the region about the headwaters 
of the Allegheny. 
White-pine lumbering began in Michigan and Wisconsin in the dec- 
ade between 1820 and 1830, but it was not until after the latter date 
that any considerable quantity was cut. By 1840 enough was known 
of the extent of the Lake State pineries to bring lumbermen from the 
Eastern States, where a shortage of supply was already imminent. 
For over 40 years the white-pine industry of the Lake States continued 
to increase in volume until the annual production in Michigan alone 
reached a total of nearly four and one-half billion feet. 
In Minnesota active lumbering did not commence until about 1875 ; 
5 or 10 years before the high mark of the output of Michigan was 
reached. By 1899 Minnesota stood second to Wisconsin in point of 
production, while Michigan had dropped to third place. Five years 
later Minnesota, with a cut of less than 2,000,000,000 feet, was first, 
and Wisconsin second, a relative position which they have since 
maintained. With the depletion of its forests Michigan rapidly lost 
importance as a pine-producing State, and now stands sixth in the 
list, with, an annual cut not one-twentieth as great as in 1883. 
In America, with its immense natural forests, the cost of raising 
timber has not been a factor in determimng its value. Heretofore the 
supply has been relatively large as compared with the demand, and 
stumpage prices have been correspondingly low. More recently, 
however, the demand for some kinds of lumber has equaled and 
sometimes exceeded the available supply, and in some cases stumpage 
values now even exceed the total cost of raising the timber artificially. 
An example of a marked rise in stumpage is that of the Wisconsin 
pine lands purchased by Ezra Cornell in 1866 for 60 cents per acre or 
equivalent to from 5 to 10 cents per thousand board feet. Of the 
500,000 acres thus bought one-fifth was sold in 1873 for $4 per acre, 
or about 30 or 40 cents per thousand feet. By 1905 practically all 
the land had been disposed of at a clear profit of nearly $5,500,000. 
Some of the last sales of stumpage were at prices ranging from S10 to 
$12 a thousand. Virgin white-pine stumpage may now bring as much 
as $20 a thousand, and in Wisconsin a stumpage price of $65 per 
thousand has been paid for selected trees. (See PI. II.) 
Repeated rises in the price of stumpage often led to undervaluation 
of white-pine stands. In Minnesota, for example, a stand purchased 
for $30,000 was within a few years refused for lump sums of $50,000, 
