Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and FiresideVarious
Science
Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Various
Agriculture -- United States -- Periodicals; Farm life -- Periodicals; United States -- Rural conditions -- Periodicals
The white pine lumber product of the Northwest last year was according to
latest returns, 7,624,789,786 feet against 3,993,780,000 in 1873, and more
than double what it was in 1874. In 1882 the production was nearly
100,000,000 feet less than last year. The smallest product of the decade
was in 1877--3,595,333,496 feet. What is termed the Chicago District,
including the points of Green Bay, Cheboygan, Manistee, Ludington, White
Lake, Muskegon, Grand Haven, and Spring Lake, and a few scattering mills
gave a product in 1883 of 2,111,070,076 feet. At Ludington and Grand Haven
there has been a decline in the product since 1873; at all the other
points the increase has been considerable, amounting to a total of nearly
800,000,000 feet. The largest cut is on the Mississippi river in what is
known as the West of Chicago District. Here in 1873 the product amounted
to 650,000,000 feet; last year it reached 1,290,062,690 feet. The Saginaw
Valley gives the next greatest yield 961,781,164 feet. The total Saginaw
district gave last year 1,439,852,067 feet against 792,358,000 ten years
ago. The total of the West of Chicago District was 3,134,331,793 against
1,353,000,000 in 1873. The Railroad and Interior Mills District has
increased something over 200,000,000 feet in this period.
In shingles we have the grand product in all the Northwest of
3,964,736,639 against 2,277,433,550 in 1873. The greatest increase was in
the Chicago District as given above, and here Ludington and Grand Haven
come in for an increase at the former place of over 33,000,000, and the
latter of more than 100,000,000. The total production of shingles in 1882
was larger than last year by about 130,000,000, but with that exception
was the largest ever known.
The census of 1880 placed the annual lumber product of the United States
at 18,000,000,000 feet. The Northwest then produced 5,651,295,000 feet or
nearly one-third the entire product of the country. If this ratio has been
uniform since we must now have a yield of over 20,000,000,000 feet. These
are figures of enormous magnitude and of varied import. They mean
employment to an army of men, a large shipping interest, vast investments
in mills and machinery, and vast incomes to owners of pine lands; they
mean houses and barns and fences to a new and populous empire; they mean
numberless farms and millions of live stock. They also signify a rapid
destruction of our immense forests from the face of the earth, enormous
prices for lumber to future generations, and possible floods to devastate
our river bottoms, and drouths to scourge the highlands. They should
impress us all with the necessity and the profitableness of timber
planting on the unsettled and newly settled prairies and in thousands of
places in all the older States.
FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account