Wednesday, October 9, 2013

My Posts Have Been Depleted... Now Rebirth!

I apologize for the limited posts in the past few weeks, maybe months. The Sawmill Museum has been very busy, and we hope that in the next six months to have some very exciting news to share. In the next four weeks, I would expect quite a few updates.

Lately, I've been reading about the depletion of the North Woods in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. The cries began in America in earnest in the 1860s and 1870s and reached its peak by the 1900-1910 era of Teddy, as the story goes. One of my favorite books on the subject is The Depletion Myth by Sherry Olson that sets out to examine whether the forests were really on their way out. Sherry allows for the fact that virgin timber has been greatly reduced and the monster trees of yesteryear are no more. Even more Sherry allows that a change needed to happen.  The book places the consumer at the heart of the change. The "saving" of the forests happened because of a change in the economy and consumer habits. Sherry's largest point was the changes in the economics and technology allowed for more farmland to be turned over to forests. The book is  a very interesting answer to the role of conservation in saving America's forests.

Just a quick story, more to come.



Sources:

http://books.google.com/books?id=hVyRyxyoOR0C&pg=PA209&dq=depletion+of+forests+wisconsin&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XfNVUuH0NIOBygH0sYDYDA&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=iowa&f=false

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