2 
FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 
During the first part of the journey the writer was accom¬ 
panied and greatly assisted by Prof. L. S. Cheney, of the State 
University. 
Hearty thanks are due to J. T. Cleveland, Land Commis¬ 
sioner of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, W. H. Killen, 
Industrial Commissioner of the Wisconsin Central Lines, and 
especially to L. Jackson, Industrial Commissioner of the Chi¬ 
cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, whose courteous assist¬ 
ance did so much to facilitate this work. 
Physiography of the Area. 
The territory covered is that part of the State lying north of 
a line from Green Bay to the mouth of the St. Croix river, 
with the counties of Portage, Wood, and Jackson as southern 
projections; it involves 27 counties with a total land area of 
about 18.5 million acres or about 53 per cent, of the entire 
State, and contains almost all of the present supplies of lumber 
sized timber of both pine and hardwoods remaining in Wis¬ 
consin. 
Topography .—Over 90 per cent, of this territory is a broad 
slope, which rises gently from the southeast, south, and south¬ 
west to a flat divide running near to and parallel with the south 
shore of Lake Superior; about 9 per cent, is occupied by the 
more abrupt slope from this divide to the lake. 
In going from east to west, the divides between the several 
large rivers which drain the larger slope, are very gradual, al¬ 
most imperceptible, and in some cases are entirely lost in laby¬ 
rinths of lakes and swamps. Hills over 300 feet high from 
their base are scarce; a few “mounds,” or isolated steep hills 
with extremely narrow bases, rise out of the sandy plains of 
Jackson and Clark counties and a few larger, more massive 
hills occur in the valleys of the Wisconsin, Chippewa, and St. 
Croix rivers and a range of low, broad hills form the crests 
of the Iron and Copper ranges. On the whole, however, the 
hills and hilly tracts do not occupy over 5 per cent, of the total 
area, while about 45 per cent, is level upland, and about 50 per 
