Lewiston evening teller. [volume] (Lewiston, Idaho) 1903-1911, 1907-11-16
THE WASTED TREASURE OF THE
FORESTS HAS TURNED OUT
MORE GOLD THAN ALL THE
ROASTED MINES.
But FORESTS ARE PASSING
Idaho One of the Few States That
Have Any Considerable Stand of
Pine Forests That Have Paid a
Kings Ransom.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16.-The !
position which the United States
has held as a lumber-producing ma |
ton has, perhaps, been due more
to white pine than to any other
wood The timber of this valuable
tree which has played the most i'm
pOrtant part in the material de-
velopment of the nation is fast dis
appearing and now is as costly as
the finest American hardwoods.
Rev. Edward Everett Hale, the
chaplain of the state who has al
ways taken an interest in forestry,
deplores the passing of the white
pine as our foremost wood, and tells
how in his own lifetime he has seen
the day when the masts of every
vessIe that sailed the Seven Seas
were made from New England grown
pine; while today very little white
pine is cut in New England big
tllOuSll W lul lnSll a EOOu oILSu Opdl.
He tells also, to illustrate the in
creasing cost of the wood. that he
ordered a set of book shelves on
which the cabinet maker made
price, and then asked whether they
,ishould be of mahogany or white
pine
The white pine production has
suffered from New England to the
Lake states, and Michigan was the
leading lumber producing state Of
the Union for twenty years, from
1879 10 1890 with supremacy
based on white pine. In these two
decades the cut was 100 billions of
dollars, or nearly half as much again
as the value derived from all the
gold fields of California from their
discovery in the late fOrties to the
present The rich forests of Michi-
gan were once thought. inexhausta-
Bile and numbering continued in a
most reckless manner for years
Suddenly the people awoke to the
fact that thoughtIess destruction of
the trees had thrown 6,0O0,00 acres
on the delinquent tax list. These
white pine barrens point to the ter
rible penalty of wasting the forests
resources which should have been
the heritage of all future genera
items
An idea Of the increasing scarcity
of white pine timber is given by the
New York f. 0. b. quotations on a
basis of car load lots. "Upers" of
the best grades cost $97 to $114
thousand board feet and the Sc
lects, or next lower grade cost $97
to $99.50. Men who are not yet mid
die aged remember the time when
these grades could be purchased for
SIS to $25 a thousand feet. The
present quotations on quartered
; white oak, which are from SIS to
$50, offer another basis for compari-
sui NnlCh lHulCdIeo Tie tOnulIlon "
the market for white pine.
The best stands of this timber now
l in this country are in scattered sec
: tions of Minnesota, New England ant
parts of Idaho. The species in idaho
q is sometimes called silver pine. Som
of the country's best white pine i
found on the Indian reservations 0
. Minnesota and Wisconsin and scat
. tered stands are found in the state
of Wyoming, Montana and ColorRd
and one or two other states.
the present rate of cutting the tire
= will soon be thing of the pas
The small stands in the forest re
serves are considerable, but they wi
= be managed with the greatest cor
. servatism by the government throug
= the forest service and through thi
= method and practice of reforestrs
= ton it may be hoped that the fin
old tree will furnish timber for othe
generations