It is a matter of lasting pride to Mr. Holt, and a monument to the character of his father, that the company's relations with its people have been such as to imbue them with a sense of loyalty and confidence that has kept them in the employ of the company for long periods of service, often through their entire working lives. Reference to the timekeeper's books as the company closed its doors shows that out of 218 men 27 have been with the concern from 5 to 9 years; 25 from 10 to 15 years; 18 from 16 to 20 years; 15 from 21 to 25 years; 18 from 26 to 30 years, 15 from 31 to 35 years, 10 from 36 to 39 Years; 7 from 40 to 45 years; one 47 years; and 3 from 50 to 52 years. The President heads the list with nearly 57 years of service. Summarized, these figures show that employees who have been with the company more than 25 years total 1,910 years of combined service, while employees who have been in service from IO to 25 years total 961 years of service. 

Until the Wisconsin forest crop law was passed in 1927, selective logging was impracticable. Timber was then taxed on its value each year, thus providing an incentive for "cutting out and getting out," if not indeed making such a practice almost necessary. The longer the timber stood, the heavier the taxes levied on it. The new law made it possible, economically, to cut off large trees and leave smaller ones for later cutting on land entered under the law. Under the law, ten cents tax a year an acre is paid until the timber is cut. Then ten percent of the value of the harvested crop is paid to the State. 

Three years before the passage of the law, the Holt Lumber Co. made its first experiment in selective logging. One-third of the merchantable timber was taken from the experimental tract with the idea that another third would be taken in fifteen years, the span required to replace the first cutting. Growth, however, was accelerated so greatly by thinning that much less than the estimated 15 years was required for regrowth. Another truth demonstrated by Mr. Holt's experiment was that faster growth and improved lumber more than compensated for loss of repeated logging operations over the same tract. Had the law which followed the experiment been passed a quarter of a century earlier the Holts would today be in the third and lasting era of logging in northern Wisconsin. 

Archibald Lake, surrounded by Holt acreage, is perhaps the only lake left in Wisconsin with a completely wooded shoreline. Entrance to it from a public road is over two private lanes. One of these passes through something more than a quarter-mile of beautiful dense woods to the edge of the lake. Out in the lake is an island of about five acres on which are two large cabins. On the west side of the island is a level sand beach, ideal for bathing. The woods leading to the lake were a favorite spot with Mrs. W. A. Holt, and on a point on the island, remote from the cabins, she had constructed a retreat for herself. Here, she was to be found in the cool of many summer afternoons, reading, writing and reflecting on the wooded fairyland around her.

Seventy-four 

The  Maker  is  near  in  this  Cathedral of 
stately pines reaching gracefully to the sky above with tufted offerings of scented verdure that form webbed domes through whose narrow interstices the sun's rays can peep only intermittently. Even a man of almost completely dormant religious consciousness could not fail to be impressed with the over-awing majesty of this work of God. 
 

The tract is one of two left by Mr. Holt for public use, and is reached by the second of two lanes leading to the lake from the public road. The second tract is on Chain Lake, a mile away. This is a mixed stand of pine, hemlock and hardwoods. It has an entrancing sylvan beauty all its own, but is in no way comparable with Cathedral Woods. 
 

"Methods of logging have changed," said Mr. Holt, while walking through the woods. "During the first era of lumbering in this country when pine was cut, oxen skidded the logs to the logging roads where they were piled on sleighs and hauled by horses to the river banks, and there decked for the spring drive. Many of these quiet little streams we pass here were the scenes of tremendous activity during the spring drives. It is hard, looking at them now, to realize the millions of feet of logs they have carried down to the mills. 
 

"The oxen went out during the panic of 1893. They were killed and eaten by the crews and never replaced. Horses are still in use doing much of the skidding once done by oxen, but even the horses are going rapidly in favor of tractors. A tractor can do the work of three teams on the skidding trails. A tractor with a bull-dozer on the front is a mighty useful machine for making roads. The passing of the pi@es spelled the end of driving logs down the river. Hemlock rides low in the water, and hardwood  will  not  float.  Railroads 

Seventy-five