The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1880-05-26
Black walnut for England.
now OUR FEW REMAINING WESTERN FOREs
ARE BEING DESTROYED

y
ARE BEING DESTROYED.
From the Des Moines Qows) State Register.J
The lumber-dealers OF England are maxi
ing grand raid on Iowa and all the black
walnut States, and are fast taking from us
all that we have left of that timber. The
native forests i'm Ohio and Indiana were
rich with this now precious wood, and the
early settlers of those States, in clearir q
the land for agricultural purposes, de-
stroyed numberless Thousands OF acres
of the timber, little thinking that in
doing so they were destroying that which
i'm a few wears would have made their lands
more valuable than gold or lead.mines.
The havoc OF timber in Ohio and 1ndiana-
the settlers there spending nearly hundred
years in steadily destroying the woods with
which they found the surface covered, eir-
ding and killing the great forests one year
and burning them the neXt--is one OF the
queer things in American history as 1t is
now looked at. The magnitude OF it young
people now and all the people Of the fu-
ture will never realize. IL was an
enormous destruction of values, the
total OF which may be estimated at
hundreds of millions Of dollars. But 1t
was inevitable. For, although west oY
Ipdiana and Ohio there were the known
open fields and boundless prairies making
up the whole new Northwest, where the
land lay ready for the plow when the set
tiers irst set foot on II, there was then no
iron horse TO make it, in lis far-away loca-
tion from the markets OF the world, availa-
Bile. So it was ignored, and two genera
tions OF industrious people spent their
| lives and wore them out in the plllless toll
| or hewing farms out OF tho dense forests oil
Ohio and Indiana. To the people OF the
present time these seyenty-five years ol
steady assault on the forests seem almost
like a seventy-five-years war and havoc.
For, it is estimated by good Judges, thal
il the States OF Ohio and Indiana STOOD
covered now with their native forests they
would be worth more in actua! value than
they are as they stand to- day. The destruc'
tion has but lately stopped. The writer
here has seen in the last twenty years this
destruction going on in lndana-n the
great woods Of Jennings and Bartholomew "
counties. The eighty acres OF walnut and
poplar that the settler then spent six oil
eiobt wears OF hard labor TO destroy would
new make him rich, and be worth far more
than his cleared farmland that was cnly
twenty wears ago, when there was not this
one eXcuse. that there were no railroads tc
take settlers to the open land, where The
coil was still richer and there were no for
ests to fell. ,., ,s
Rnt we are writing OF this English raid
on Iowa. II is a raid to take from us whl
of black walnut we have left. The travel
ler along the railroads OF this State see:
now at nearly every important station III
] tle out-door steam saw-mill working away
like mad, ripping up black-walnut logs lntt
great slabs. All over the West, In the BLACK
walnut belt, these little saw-mills are cut
tjno I'm into certain form OF broad anC
thick slabs all the black walnut that can Dt
cot hold Of. A large and wealthy cor
1oration of Indianapolis men, cooperating
with company OF English capitalists, ar'
the nroprietors Of these mills. They have
their BUYERS out at every little station ant
in the rural districts, and wherever th'
smallest patch OF black walnut can D'
found. Two OF these little mills are nov
Tearing tearing away in the city OF De
Moines. another at Mitchellville, and al
that we have left OF this valuable timber II
Polk county and Central Iowa IS fas
passing under their saws, coming on
broad slabs, and going thence dlrect
ly on the cars on their way TO Eng
land, where, in their greater wisdom, th'
neople have come 10 know that black wal
nut wood is already as valuable, because o
IFS Durability, beauty, and growing scarci
tv. as mahogony. 1t is general raid al
over the West, and our farmers, II the!
knew OF the scheme, would not sell thel
walnut-trees, as they are selling them now
for a mere 1.-THE OF what they are reali.
| worth,