Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-04-29
Annual Dim mutton OF Timber Lands.

In connection with the reported pur-
chase of 100000 acres of timber land
in New Hampshire by company,
composed in part of Boston capitalists,
the Boston Herald gives an interesting
account Of the annual consumption of
sawed lumber and of hewn timber in
the United States. This account de-
rives its value from the fact that it
embodies not only official statistics on
the subject, but shows, from various
sources, how steadily the depletion of
our forests is going on, because of the
multifarious uses to which our lumber
and particularly white pine. il put.
The argument of the Herald j. that.
from the incessant and constantly in
creasing demand for sawed lumber,
and for the timber required by rail
roads, mines and telegraph lines, the
era of low prices must come to an end
before long, and a speculative move
ment in heavily wooded forest lands
set in. AT one time all the New Eng
land States were heavily wooded. Now
the nearest large tract Of forest is more
than two hundred miles distant from
Boston. Pennsylvania, which derives
her name from the forests which in the
colonial period covered the larger por-
ton of the State, manufactured, in the
year 1870, according TO the statistics
of the last census, 100000, 900 feet
of lumber, and the axe Of the lumber
man has been actively at work ever
since. At such a rate of slaughter a
rapid decline in her timber resources
is inevitable. In Michigan, great
lumber region, the Saginaw Herald
of September, 1879, called attention to
the steady depletion of the pine lands
of that State, and the demand that had
sprung up for them, in block, at prices
ranging from SO to sl12.50 per acre.
In New Hampshire and Maine there
are still remaining some large tracts of
pine timber; but in the latter State
they are being cut into at the rate Of
500, 100000 of feet of sawed lumber a
year. In the other Eastern, and in all
the Middle States with the exception
of Pennsylvania, there is no longer any
pine lumber of good quality. "West
and Northwest, up to the Rocky Noun
tains, we have Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska,
Dakota, Eastern Montana. Illinois,
Iowa, the west half of Missouri, that
part of Minnesota west OF the Missis-
sippi, and the southern part of Wis
consin, oil of which is chiefly prairie,
and almost treeless territory" The
western slopes of the Rocky Mountains
are being denuded of their timber for
mining and railroad purposes. The
Comstock lode mines in Nevada use
from 40,000,000 to 50,000.0O0 feet
of timber annually. The mines near
Virginia City are stripping that region
of available timber; sawed aud hewed
lumber selling at that point from $50
to s25 per thousand feet, while the
40, 900 cords of tlre-wood annually con-
sumed there sell at an average price
of s16 per cord. The supply in Cali.
fornia has fallen off so much that she
is drawing heavily on the timber re-
OF Oregon and exploring parties
of lumbermen have even pushed north
ward as far as Alaska. There Is no
doubt that We are cutting into our
forests on every side and using their
timber for innumerable purposes. Next
TO iron, II enters into our manufacture
ing industries more largely than any
other native product. In Canada the
is also made that "what
with the axes of the lnmbermen and
the settler and the demands of the
railroads, the forest wealth Of that re-
gion i rapidly disappearing" A
Canadian lumberman of prominence,
who Is also a member Of the Provincial
Parliament, has given II a. his opinion
that the supply Of white pine lumber
In Canada and in the United States,
east Of the Rocky Mountains. Is not