46 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



necessary for the well-being of future generations to preserve the for- 

 ests and plant trees to take the place of some of those which hart been 

 removed by the woodsman's axe. 



The subject you have given me is ''What forestry means to the Michigan 

 Fruit Growers." The subject is a splendid one, but I am afraid it is 

 one so thoroughly understood by every member of this Society that any 

 elaboration I might make upon it or an}' statement would be both old 

 and uninteresting. 



The tendency of clinmtes in latitudes far removed from the control- 

 ling influence of the oceanic bodies of water is to tropical heat in sum- 

 mer and arctic cold in winter, and it is absolutely necessary that we 

 have some agent which will control the power of the one and moderate 

 the rigor of the other. It is doubtful if there is a person engaged in 

 any line of fruit growing in the State of Michigan who does not realize 

 the important etlect forests have upon the three great elements of 

 climate: heat, moisture and wind. It is also doubtful if there is a 

 person in the State who has given the matter any serious attention 

 who will not admit that if forests have the proper effect upon the 

 equalization of heat, the distribution of moisture and the modification 

 of winds, forests are a good thing, not only for the fruit business in 

 this Peninsula State, but for all other crops produced from the land. 

 I might go on and state the fact that the heat of the sun is moderated 

 chiefly by three causes: radiation, evaporation and aerial currents of 

 the wind. I might discuss what you already know about how the absence 

 of trees transforms the country into a prairie Avhere the winds sweep 

 here and there at will; how the forest growth retards evaporation, pre- 

 vents erosion and otherwise affects conditions, but as we are all agreed 

 upon the fact that forests have a wholesome effect upon friTit trees and 

 all other things belonging to the vegetable and animal kingdoms, I 

 think it would be entirely propier for us to turn our attention and de- 

 vote our time to the discussion of what has been done and what is being 

 done in the interest of forestry in Michigan. 



In the early days the southern ])art of Michigan was covered with 

 hardwood, while the northern jjart was in the great white pine belt, 

 which includes Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania on the 

 east and stretches across the lake region to Minnesota on the west. 

 This great white pine belt, including a small neck of white pine running 

 south through \'irginia. West Virginia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, 

 constitutes the only white pine region in North America. 



Long before any white man had touched the coast of Avhat is now 

 the State of Michigan, or had gazed with covetous eyes on its magnifi- 

 cent forests, wandering tribes of Indians loitered along its shores and 

 lived on the white fish with which its crj'stal waters were teeming and 

 the deer which filled its forests. Beginning in the early part of the seven- 

 teenth century when the two French traders, lured by the game which 

 filled the forests of Michigan, landed on its shores and followed by the 

 landing of Father Marquette in 1G72, and by Cadillac, in 1701, the 

 foundation of futnre settlements in Michigan was laid. Owing to the 

 fact that farther west lay the great prairie country ready for the plow, 

 Michigan's population continued to be very small, and the census of 



