30 
FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 
fire, and involve in all old stands a heavy per cent, of defective 
material. 
Present stand of hardwood saw timber. 
Kind of wood. 
Million ft. 
B. M. 
Per cent of all 
hardwoods. 
Percentage. 
Oak. 
- . • 1,400 
8.6 
75 per cent red oak. 
Basswood. 
4,600 
29.0 
Birch. 
4,150 
26.0 
Yellow or red birch. 
Elm. 
2,650 
16.5 
30 per cent, rock elm. 
Ash. 
900 
5.6 
Mostly black ash. 
Maple. 
2,300 
14.3 
Total. 
16,000 
The hardwoods are cut in all parts of this territory* they are 
generally logged in a small way and most of the lumber is cut 
in small mills, with a yearly output of 1-2 to 5 million feet. 
According to a masterly canvass conducted by the Northwest¬ 
ern Lumberman of Chicago, the results of which are published 
in its issue of January 22, 1898, the total output of hardwood 
lumber amounts to about 275 million feet B. M. To this must 
be added large quantities of mining timber used in the mines 
of Florence, Iron, and Ashland counties, railway ties, piling 
and construction, and ship timbers; and also considerable quan¬ 
tities of cooperage material and wagon stock, which in the ag¬ 
gregate probably bring up the total cut of hardwoods to about 
500 million feet. 
The most valued and therefore the most culled of the hard¬ 
woods is the oak, particularly white oak, the exploitation of 
which was begun in Wood and Clark counties more than 25 
years ago. Of the ' other hardwoods, the basswood is most ex¬ 
tensively cut and finds the most ready market, followed in this 
respect by elm, particularly the fine rock elm. Birch, though 
the prettiest wood of the region, is much underrated, owing to 
fashions which prejudice the market. Nevertheless, large quan¬ 
tities are cut every year and the same is true of maple, which is 
