FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 45 



WHAT FORESTRY MEANS TO THE MICHIGAN FIUIIT GROWER. 



BY HON. A. C. CARTON, SEO'y PUBLIC DOMAIN COMMISSION. 



It is indeed fitting tliat the members of tlie organization wliicli first 

 pointed the way, blazed tlie trail and sowed the seed of the forestry 

 movement in Michigan should be desirous of knowing something about 

 what is being accomjdislicd along that line by their Public Domain 

 Commission, which has charge of the conservation work in Michigan at 

 the present time. 



It is not often that men who liave a vision and a hope of a State-wide 

 nature live to see that vision fulfilled or that hope realized, even to a 

 limited degree. We should rejoice thai (here are those among your 

 number who were instrumental in the starting of the forestry move- 

 ment in Michigan, wliose voices were ever lieard and whose strong arms 

 were ever ready in the interest of forestry, are with us today as active 

 members of this Society and have an opportunity to note the progress 

 that has been made in the movement which the}' started and the work 

 that has been dear to their hearts. 



In reviewing the records I find a host of able men who in years gone 

 by were connected either with the Michigan State Agricultural Soicety, 

 the Pomological Society or the Michigan State Horticultural Society; 

 men who have given honest and conscientious thought, wise counsel 

 and valuable assistance, not only to the Society with which they were 

 affiliated at that time but to the new movement for the establishment of 

 better forestry conditions in IMichigan. Among that host of able men 

 were: T. T.^Lyon, J. J. Wo(Klman, J. Webst^er Childs, H. G. Wells, 

 David ( -arpenter, Sanford Howai'd, Dr. R. C. Kedzie, William L. Web- 

 bei", Dr. W. J. Beal and (;. J. Monroe. 



Tiiere is one, however, whose name I have always found among those 

 not only interested in agriculture, horticulture and forestry, but all 

 other things that assist in the uplift movement in the State in which 

 lie lives; a gentleman who is a i)ioneer in the forestry movement in the 

 good State of Michigan; a gentleman who fanned the coals and kept 

 alive the fire while others slept, firm in the belief that later on men 

 would come to that fire to light their torches to show the way to a 

 better forestry condition in Michigan. The gentleman to whom I refer 

 is the Honorable Charles W. Garfield, of Grand Rapids, of whom I think 

 it can be truthfully said that he has done more in the interest of for- 

 estry in this State than any other man. 



We are told that twenty years is but a day in the history of a Nation, 

 but wonderful things take place in a National day. Forty years is not 

 a long time to look back over, but if we realize the conditions that ex- 

 isted in Michigan nearly forty years ago when the forestry movement 

 was definitely started, we will realize what a herculean task these men 

 had in trying to impress upon the people of a forest state that it was 



