Читать книгу The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier - Charles E. Flandrau - Страница 30

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A large portion of Minnesota is covered with exceptionally fine timber. The northern section, traversed by the Mississippi and its numerous branches, the St. Croix, the St. Louis, and other streams, was covered with a growth of white and Norway pine of great value, and a large area of its central western portion with hard timber. At a very early day in the history of our state these forests attracted the attention of lumbermen from different parts of the country, principally from Maine, who erected sawmills at the Falls of St. Anthony, Stillwater and other points, and began the cutting of logs to supply them. Nearly all the streams were navigable for logs, or were easily made so, and thus one of the great industries of the state had its beginning. Quite an amount of lumber was manufactured at Minneapolis in the fifties, but no official record of the amounts were kept until 1870. An estimate of the standing pine in the state was made by the United States government for the census of 1880, which was designed to include all the standing pine on the streams leading into the Mississippi, the Rainy Lake river, the St. Croix, and the head of Lake Superior; in fact, the whole state. The estimate was 10,000,000,000 feet. When this estimate was made, it was accepted by the best informed lumbermen as approximately correct. The mills at Minneapolis and above, in the St. Croix valley, and in what was called the Duluth district, were cutting about 500,000,000 feet a year. It was expected that there would be a gradual increase in the consumption of lumber made by Minnesota mills, and it was therefore estimated that in about fifteen years, all the white pine in the state would be cut into lumber and sold; but such has not proved to be the case, although the production has rapidly increased as was expected. But this difference between the estimate and the result is not of much consequence, as there is nothing more unreliable than an estimate of standing timber, and especially is such the case when covering a large area of country. Since 1880 the production of lumber in the state has increased from year to year, until it is at the present time fully 1,629,110,000 feet of pine logs every year. The cut made by the Minneapolis mills alone in 1898 was 469,701,000 feet, with a corresponding amount of laths and shingles. But this pace cannot be kept up much longer, and apprehensions of the entire destruction of the forests of the state are becoming quite prevalent among the people. These fears are taking the shape of associations for the promotion of scientific forestry, and the establishment of large forest reserves near the headwaters of our streams, which are to serve also the purpose of national parks. In assigning a cause for the lowering of our streams, and the drying up of many of our lakes, in a former part of this work, I attribute it to the plowing up of their valleys and watersheds, and not to the destruction of the forests, because I do not think that the latter reason has sufficiently progressed to produce the result, although it is well known that the destruction of growing timber about the head waters of streams operates disastrously upon the volume of their waters and the regularity of its flow. Minnesota is the best watered state in the Union, and every precaution should be taken to maintain this advantage. From the extent of the interest displayed in the direction of forest reserves and their scientific administration, we have every reason to hope for speedy and final success. The state and interstate parks already established will be noticed hereafter.

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