THE PROBLEM OF OUR LOGGED OFF LANDS 



By J. J. Donovan 



DUE nation-wide interest in con- 

 servation of our resources has 

 caused special attention to be 

 given the great areas of stump land 

 lying idle in every lumber producing 

 State. 



Lumbermen have been condemned 

 unheard or unheeded as destroyers of 

 a great resource and putting nothing 

 in its place, by well-meaning men and 

 women who have only superficially ex- 

 amined the situation or view it from 

 the standpoint of the muckraker and 

 sensationalist. 



The land owner, after the trees are 

 cut, has had to face archaic tax condi- 

 tions, poor soil or heavy drainage or 

 stump removing expense so that un- 

 less he had large capital and was will- 

 ing to wait long for returns it was im- 

 possible to utilize the land. Choice 

 spots near the cities and along the riv- 

 ers have been cleared up, usually by 

 industrious men of foreign birth who 

 were not hunting a short cut to wealth, 

 but many of whom now have fine 

 farms and comfortable homes as a re- 

 sult of their struggles with the stumps. 

 This method of reclamation has been 

 slow and unnecessarily wasteful of 

 labor and time. 



Dynamite, donkey engines, gasoline 

 and electric blowers, car pitting and, 

 for all stumps save those of the Pa- 

 cific Coast, horse machines greatly re- 

 duce cost when intelligently used. 



When all excuses are made, the fact 

 remains that there are many millions 

 of acres of this cut over land lying 

 absolutely useless in the United States 

 today in spite of the land hunger that 

 fills the waiting lines for weeks prior 

 to any oflrering of land by the govern- 

 ment and sends one hundred thousand 

 American citizens each year to the Ca- 

 nadian Northwest. What is the mat- 

 ter? Some answer, "high taxes"; 

 others, "poor soil" ; others, "expensive 

 labor, lack of markets, need of drain- 

 age." and so the story goes. There is 



some truth in all these claims but there 

 is room fur millions of people on these 

 lands and certainty of good returns if 

 there is intelligent co-operation and 

 direction. 



I am fairly familiar with conditions 

 ni the northern half of the United 

 States, and realize fully that the lum- 

 bermen are not wholly blameless but 

 the legal and economic conditions are 

 such in most cases that they have had 

 little choice. The same men who de- 

 mand that for every tree cut one be 

 planted, object to changes in systems 

 of taxation which make it possible to 

 reforest with any chance of profit. 

 Therefore much land reverts for non- 

 payment of taxes to counties which 

 continue the do-nothing policy of the 

 original owner. When the States are 

 owners and have sold the timber, they 

 generally make no use of the logged- 

 ofif land until some settler finds a 

 choice piece of agricultural land which 

 is then sold. 



Whether the owner is the State or a 

 private company or individual, we need 

 a revision of our laws and awakening 

 of interest so that land will be used : 



First. Agriculturally wherever soil is 

 suitable that our citizens seeking homes 

 may remain under our own flag. 



Second. For grazing if conditions 

 do not warrant removing stumps and 

 bringing under the plow. 



Third. For reforesting such tracts 

 as are not available for better uses. 



How shall this be accomplished? 

 For bringing stump land under the 

 plow some advocate assistance from 

 the vState analogous to that given in re- 

 claiming desert lands by irrigation, or 

 by improvement districts similar to 

 those under which swamp-lands have 

 been reclaimed. Miimesota has a law 

 of this character. In Washington 

 many good men advocate State aid on 

 one of the above plans. I doubt the 

 wisdom of this policy and believe pri- 

 vate enterprise can solve the problem 



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