The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-04


 shores of the North American conti- nent.
 While pine and fir form the bulk of the trade, other American woods are
 much in demand. Even the tree-cloth-i
 ed islands of far off Australasia de-
 pend upon our forests for their sup
 ply of commercial timber. It. is esti-
 mated that half the spool stock used
 in the thread manufactories of Eng land Is birch wood that comes from Maine, a State that has been turning
 out on an average 15o,00o.000 feet of
 lumber per annum for the last fifty years. Southern cypress, for many years regarded as fit only to furnish
 shade for alligators, is now the stand-'
 ard shingle wood of the world. Cali fornia redwood, which half century | ago was practically unknown, is today | eagerly sought for in all the markets | of Christendom. One of the best ex- | amples of the demand for certain American woods is found in the prices | paid for walnut, which comes chiefly | from the Middle Atlantic States. Ger man agents have been known 10 pay | from .s250 to $400 each for fine logs ! of Pennsylvania walnut
 Notwithstanding the enormous out | put of lumber from the United States | there Is enough left to furnish food for the hungry teeth of the great sawmills ' for many generations to come. It was | estimated by government experts in 1 1900 that the standing supply Of tim 1 Der in the United States amounted to | more than two trillion feet. board measure. With such supply. togeth- | CT with the scientific methods of fores- | try that are coming more and more into use, there is little fear that the United | States will have to 20 ou utside her boun- daries to procure lumber. The very | magnitude Of modern enterprise is a | guarantee that measures will be taken | to preserve the forests. A sinxle cor poration. operating in the State of Maine. has invested nearly s16,000. 900 in mills and machinery, dams and for-
 est land. With such an amount Of cap | ital tied up. it is evident that. the fu- | ture prosperity of the undertaking de- pends upon the preservation of It's sup | ply of raw material. The lurnber-prodncinG territory. of | the United States may be divided into
 six geograp phical sections, each of which is commercially. distinct from | the other. The lake region, with its
 white pine and hefnleek. includes the | States of Michigan, Minnesota and
 Wisconsin and parts of Missouri and | Illinois. Practically ali the States south of Mason and Dixon's line, and as far west as the Rocky Mountains, | comprise the section from which comes
 principally the long and short leaf | pine and all the expresses. Of the va
 rious groups. that which furnishes the | greatest variety of woods includes the | New England and North Atlantic
 States. Their forest products range from the spruce and birch of Maine | to the hickory, oak and walnut of the
 Middle States. Ohio, Indiana and part | of Illinois form a district whose con tribution to the worlds supply of lurn- ber Is practically all hardwood. Red
 wood Douglas fir, cedar and spruce | flourish in almost unlimited quantities | in the Pacific States. and the Rocky Mountain States supply: pine. aspen, | cottonwood and spruce.
 That the American lumber trade has long since passed the days of it's in fancy and is now one of the foremost industries of the country is plain to
 every one who glances at the statis- | tics prepared by governmentA experts
 American railways have had much to do with the development of this great | business. In accordance with the American method of adjusting freight 1 rates, the charges for transportating
 lumber have been so fixed and made so low that every numbering section of the country is put on an equality with all the others in placing its product
 
 States and in foreign countries. Had
 not the railroad traffic managers. un- der the compelling force of compet1- tion and the desire to build up traffic for their roads. adopted the course
 which has been so successful, the American lumber trade would be To- calfzed and not national as 1t is to- ! day. But for this policy each section
 would be dependent upon it's own sources of supply, and in the treeless States of the Middle West purchasers of lumber would not enjoy the Row prices that exist today as the result of competition between the yellow pine of the sSoIth, the white pine of Min
 nesota and the spruce fir and pine of Oregon and. Washington. With the growth Of the industry log
 ging has been transformed from
 crude operation performed by hand | labor, helped out by oxen and horses, into a business conducted as skilfully and with the same attention to careful l organization and detail as are seen in | other great enterprises In the all
 most inexhaustible forests of Wash ington a single company often has hun
 dr .ds of men. on its payroll, and works
 a score of logging engines on it's own
 railroads. some of which are more than 80 miles in length. Companies of this size are capable of turning out 800, ,000 feet of logs daily during the entire year. The logging railroad has also penetrated the forests of the lake | regions and is used. though less ex- tensively. in the numbering operations of New England.
 Unlike other industries which have been rapidly developed from small be- ginnings, numbering has not lost all it's picturesque features. The -shirted
 river drivers still guide the great
 drives down the rivers. but now mas
 sive dams control the flow of the wa
 ter and the logs float to market with
 a regularity unknown in the early days.
 To the old-time picturesqueness has
 been added a show of discipline not
 unlike that belonging to an army. Of
 this legion the manager of the com
 pany is the commander-in-c chief. who
 selects what may be called the battle
 ground and maps out his plan of cam
 paign.
 First to be dispatched to the scene
 of operations Is the advance guard of
 woodmen and carpenters, who make
 clearing and put up a couple of rude
 but serviceable shacks, one to serve as
 barracks for the rank and file and the
 other as headquarters Then q kitchen
 goes up: and if, as the Frenchmau said
 the way to reach a mans heart is through his stomach, then the lumber man is at the mercy of the cook--or vice versa. Above all else, the lumber man must have what he bluntly calls good grub" A blacksmith shop and stables complete the settlement Then the bulk of the army marches In and takes possession.
 An up-to-d date logging crew consists of foreman, engineer, two "fellers' tvvo sawvers a skid maker, a couple of