THE FORESTRY BUILDING.— None among the many department structures on the Fair grounds was built with more regard for what was symbolic of its uses than the Forestry Building. It stood very near the southeastern corner of the grounds and its eastern frontage was upon Lake Michigan. Its dimensions were five hundred by two hundred feet, and it had a central height of sixty feet. It was made entirely of wood, not even a nail being used but wooden pegs substituted instead. The roofed colonnade surrounding the building, which shows well in the illustration, was upheld by pillars each composed of a group of three tree trunks, lopped of their branches, but with the bark still on them, these trunks all contributions from different States of the Union and Canada and other foreign countries. The walls of the edifice were of slabs and the roof was thatched with various barks. The main vestibule was of white pine, polished to show the uses of this wood for interior decoration and was made at a cost of $10,000. The graining was something very beautiful. The States and various foreign countries displayed their woods and other forest products inside, and the variety shown was something to astonish the average visitor, all parts of the world, from Japan to Paraguay, being represented. Michigan had in her showing a single load of pine logs weighing three hundred thousand pounds, and Paraguay sent three hundred and fifty varieties of timber. A slab of a mulberry tree which was planted by Shakespeare was one interesting exhibit, and a washtub fifteen feet across was a curious one.
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