42 
FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 
places have not reverted to swamp timber. The ground is too* 
dry, the hardwood thickets have come to stay. These things 
are well known, especially to the woodsmen of the region; they 
are in all cases referred to the removal of timber, and there is 
probably no locality in the w T orld where this subject could bet¬ 
ter be studied than in North Wisconsin. A drive with some 
old resident through the settled parts of Shawano, Marathon, 
Taylor, and other counties and the rehearsal of his memories pre¬ 
sent matters of the utmost interest in this connection, and will 
hardly fail to convince even the most skeptical of the decided 
changes in drainage and soil moisture which have occurred here 
and are still in progress. 
THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE. 
It is impossible to foretell how long the pine is likely to last.. 
As stumpage increases in price and the opportunity to buy it 
decreases, one mill after another drops out. Half the mills of 
20 years ago are no longer in existence, not because they failed 
to pay but because their pine supplies gave out, and this same 
process will continue. The output^ already on the decline, will 
grow smaller, and the exploitation of the 17 billion feet of stand* 
ing timber is likely to be drawn out over a period far greater than 
would seem possible with the present rate of cutting. Never¬ 
theless, the experience of parts of Michigan and also of Wood, 
Portage, and other counties in Wisconsin indicate that cutting 
will go on without regard to the end, and its rate depends 
merely on considerations of market conditions and facilities for 
handling timber, so that the end of the greater part of pine lum¬ 
bering is likely to be quite sudden, and its effect correspond¬ 
ingly severe. 
The cut of hemlock, though still small, may at any time take- 
on considerable dimensions. There are several good reasons 
which make this desirable. The wood is much better than is 
commonly assumed, and it is mere prejudice—and more the 
prejudice of the carpenter than of the consumer—which pre¬ 
fers poor pine to good hemlock. For some time the old hem- 
