The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-06

i
In the midst OF a lumber famine. It IS
safe to say that there are about zoo, 900
people employed In numbering today
We sold timber to the abount of $780,,
e00,000 in 1888, and the product Of lunl--
Der Of that year was estimated at 3d.,
100000, 600 cubic feet. This. would Make
a solid beam a foot-gduare, more than
o,5uO Q0e- iiniies long, or long enough to
make a solid roadway more than 200
feet wide and a foot thick clear around
the world.
At present the best timber of the
North, namely, the white pine Of the
Northwest and the New England pine.
is practically gone, and everywhere l
have travelled In the South I find the
lumber men by hundreds at work Our
average loss of lumber by fire annually
amounts to more than l2,0000 900. Some
years 1t is more than double this, anu
in 1879 more than 10000. 600 acres OF
forests were burned and more than
SIS, 090. 0ee worth of lumber was de-
Stroyed.
FOREIGN LUMBER TRADE.
Our foreign lumber trade is increas-
ing enormously. We sent $40, 900. 9e0
worth of wood to Canada and England
last year. The chief foreign demand
row seems to be for Southern pine, and
great quantities of it are being shipped
to Germany and England. Our furni-
ture goes everywhere, and great deal
of lumber is used for making furniture.
There are 1000 establishments in Mich
igan which consume the products OF
the saw mills, and that state turns out
more than Sic, 000, 900 worth of furni-
ture every year. West Virginia is de-
veloping a large wood pulp business.
and the Southern shingles now compete
with the red cedar shingles of the Pa
cific coast. An enormous amount of
lumber is used by the railroads. more
than 500, GOO 600 cubic feet being annual-
ly taken for ties, etc. Five hundred
million cubic feet are used yearly for
fences, and we consume for fuel the
enormous amount of Is, 90G,e90, 009 cubic
feet annually. The most OF the mines
of the United States have to be tim
bered, and 80, 900 0e0 cubic feet are
eaten UP by our COAL iron and gold
and silver regions, while ESQ, 600, GEO
cubic feet are burned to make char
| coal. In addition to this there are littIe
businesses that use up a great deal
of wood. A toothpick is not large, but
the aggregate amount used by the TO-
o9e,000 people Of the United States re-
quires many logs. There is a single
factory in Michigan which makes $780,
coo toothpicks every day. The material
used is white birch, and the logs are
sawed up into strips twenty-eight
inches long and the machines run these
out into toothpicks at the rate of hun,
dreds a minute.
CHAIN GANG CONNECTS.
/ find the chain gang convicts still
used in Georgia. I saw convictS at
weIk breaking stone in Spartanburg,
S. c., and | am told that the system
prevails generally in the states OF the
South Georgia has passed laws which
viii soon do away with the leasing out
of the iconyicts, but a present not only
the state convicts, but those of some
of the counties are so managed. At
Brunswick I met Capt. Wright, the
head of the poor farm, near here, a
man who has some new ideas as to
the use of convict labor. He is employ
ing the prisoners of this county in the
cultivation Of an experimental poor
farm, upon which he is raising cab
bageS and other vegetables for the
Northern markets. He is now planting
his cabbages and he has already one
hundred thousand plants in the ground
III chatting with him about the work
ing of the farm, he told me that the
prisoners worked in chains, and upon
my asking him whether there We're
no additional guards to keep them in
order, he replied:
Yes, we have white men with police
mems clubs to watch over the differ
ent gangs. Our prisoners are not hard
to control, and they do not often get
away from u.s.
| But, captain, suppose they escape,
how do you catch them?"
That is easy enough was the re-
ply We start the hounds after them,
and they soon bring them to. bay. I
/ have seven bloodhounds on my farm,
any one of which will track q negro
for twenty miles or more Ii a man es-
capeS we give the dogs a piece Of his
/ clothing to smell and put them on 1.-The
! track. They will at once start off, ra1la-
ming along with their noses to. sthe
! ground. One or two officers follow on
| horseback, and we soon find the run
! away"
Such hunting must be exciting, .
said T.
1T is,' was the reply. "the cenvicts
know that they are almost sure to be
caught"
DO the dogs hurt them?" I asked.
They do so if they can reach them,
put the men climb trees, and thus get
out OF their way. AS. soon as a dog
has freed its game, it sits down and
/ howls until we come up"
Where do you get such dogs, cap
! tain?' l asked
We train Them, was the reply. I'VE
begin when they are pups. We have
negroes TO tease them. They steal their
meat and bother the pups when they
are eating. The dogs soon get to hate
them, and, after a time, we have the
teaser run off and send the dogs after
him. Then we take piece of the coat
OF the negro who has been doing the
teasing and let the pup smell it and
put him on the negroes trail 1t does
not take long for the puppy to under
| stand what We want He will rim
! after the negro for a short distance AT
| nrst, the next day he will go further
and, after short time we find thai
! the dog has caught on and will follow
any man he is sent after, eolored Oh
1 white. 1t is wonderful the uuickness
which such hounds display. I have had
4 pups which would follow a negro
across one stream after another taking
up the trail on the opposite bank and
! finally picking out the man from a
crowd OF eonyicts and hanging onto
j ms pantaioons leg until / came up"
/ Frank G. Carpenter.
OVERCOME BY GAS.