"Look for a moment at the vast region depending upon the pineries of Michigan for its supply of lumber for building purposes of every kind--houses, fence and shelter of every description. The great States of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, and the Territory of Minnesota, depend almost solely upon Michigan, and must do so. The present season, lumber has been taken from the forest of southwestern New York and northern Pennsylvania, and sold in the market of St. Louis, so urgent is the demand and so entirely inadequate are the present or prospective rates of supply for that demand. We have before us the statistics of the lumber trade of the different States and the principal markets in the country, but of what use is a parade of figures when a simple fact will show that the value of the pine forest of Michigan _must_ be? Take the State Iowa alone. If every quarter section were to be enclosed with a common post and board fence, it would take every foot of pine on the soil of Michigan! Leave out of sight the great Territory of Minnesota, which can find but a mere drop of supply from the pineries of the Upper Mississippi. Leave out of sight the great State of Illinois, which depends upon us wholly. Forget entirely that villages are springing up like magic all along the lines of a dozen railroads running from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi; that cities are growing and spreading with unprecedented rapidity--and that every town and village, and city, and farm, must have its dwellings, and that the cheapest and best material for construction is pine. Leave all these out of the calculation, and remember only that one of these States would consume all our vast forests of pine in _fence boards alone_, and the dullest comprehension can perceive, with all these other demands of which we have spoken, in all those other regions, the value of the pine region is as certain as though it were a gold mine. And when we consider the pressing need for material whereof to build over all the western prairies, the wealth of northern Michigan cannot be put at any low amount. It must be immense--untold.