Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/297

Rh The Portland mills manufacture jointly 7,600,000 feet per annum, which is all consumed by the home demand; besides large quantities of planking for streets, which is furnished by the St. Helen mill, on the Columbia River. The amount manufactured all over the country, for home consumption, can hardly be correctly estimated, yet must amount to 75,000,000 more. This seems an enormous sum total for a comparatively new country; and suggests the possibility of sometime exhausting even the great timber supply of Oregon and Washington. The amount manufactured by the mills of the Oregon and California Railroad, for the construction and equipment of that road, can hardly be estimated. One of their mills is capable of cutting 400,000 feet per week.

The kinds of timber adapted to lumbering purposes are known as the red, white, and yellow fir, cedar, hemlock, and, in some localities, pine and larch. The red fir constitutes the great bulk of common lumber; the yellow fir is used where strength and elasticity are required, as in spars of vessels, piles, wharves, bridges, and house-building; and cedar for foundations of houses, fence-posts, and inside finishing of houses.

The cabinet-woods are maple, alder, and arbutus. There is oak for staves, and other purposes; but nothing that answers for wagon-making grows on these mountains. Hemlock becomes valuable as furnishing bark for tanning leather. Ash is used for some mechanical purposes; and makes excellent fire-wood.

The red fir is very resinous, and might be made valuable for its pitch. The quality of Oregon turpentine is superior; but owing to the high freights and high rates of labor on this coast, has not heretofore proven profitable as an export. It is common to find a