er 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.

"After the timber shall have been removed in obedience to the pressing
demands of a cash market and high prices, the value of northern
Michigan will just begin to be developed. The soil possesses riches of
which the heavy growth of timber is the outcropping. Rich as any
prairie land, even more substantial in the elements of fertility, with
a genial climate, southern Michigan, itself a garden, we predict will
have to yield the palm of productive wealth to this portion of the
State. Any one who will take the trouble to examine a map of this half
of the State, projected on an extended scale, cannot fail to be struck
with the superabundant water privileges that exist. It is literally
covered with navigable rivers, and their tributaries, large streams,
like the veins in the human system. These waters reach the remotest
part and thread every portion, affording unfailing supplies and
thousands of valuable sites for mills of every description and of all
magnitudes. The St