56 THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



cussing- the matter, that wood in this case has a uniform value of one. 

 dollar per cord, the 4,508,000 acres of unimproved lands might be yield- 

 ing each year that number of dollars to our farmers, where now it is 

 only yielding from 1,522,606 to 1,820,400, a net loss in income of from 

 12,789,000 to 13,045,000, a sum, which, if it w^ere proposed to add to it 

 directly to the tax levies upon the farms of the ir^tate, Avould be con- 

 sidered a very important figure indeed. But, someone will say, and 

 perhaps justly, that in a large part of the State the farms have been 

 settled so short a time, they are not yet fully cleared and developed, 

 and hence any method of treatment looking towards keeping the unim- 

 proved farm lands permanently in woodlot condition would be unwise. 

 Let that be granted and only the older part of the State, the southern 

 four tiers of counties be taken into account. Here there are 2,208,476 

 acres of land which are, or ought to be, woodlot, since the land is unim- 

 proved. This should be producing something more than two and one- 

 half millions of cords of wood, but here it is that Ave find the average 

 condition of the woodlot the lowest and one-third production is quite 

 sufficient to allow for it ; on the other hand it is a region where there are 

 abundant demands for wood, for all purposes, and where the popula- 

 tion is dense enough to require large quantities of wood for fuel, so 

 that the price per cord for wood is always more than one dollar, even 

 on the stump. In fact in this region within the past year firewood 

 stunipage has been as high as |4.00 per cord for oak coppice, or small 

 second growth stuff and good hard wood sells readily in the markets 

 as high as '|0.50 per cord, so |3.00 stunipage for fire wood is jn'obably 

 not too high an estimate to make, if we are making fire wood the basis 

 of our discussion. This valuation makes it evident that the unimproved 

 lands of this older portion of the State, where, in general, the condi- 

 tions are pretty well settled, are, because of wrong handling, causing 

 their owners a loss of four and one-half millions of dollars each year, 

 and aside from this, the same owners are, many of them, buying posts, 

 and other forms of forest products to the amount of thousands of dol- 

 lars, Avhich the}^ might better be raising at home. 



If the above figures have any value at all, they show, even at the 

 lowest estimate, that the unimproved farm lands of the State in the 

 aggregate may be a great source of loss or gain to their owners and 

 to the State, and as they are now managed, they are the source of 

 millions of dollars loss annually to that part of our commonwealth 

 which can least afford to bear such a loss, and especially when the 

 mone}' might be piling uj) with little labor and expense, after once the 

 work was started. 



Since the woodlot may become such a valuable adjunct to the farm 

 it is worth while to consider what may be done to improve the average 

 conditions so that every farm woodlot may reach something like a 

 thrifty condition and approach the highest production. Immediately we 

 are in difficulty, for we have such varied conditions to contend with that 

 it is not possible to make a general prescription to fit them all. 



First it is necessary to consider that there are four well marked 

 regions, fairly differentiated by the statistical information quoted at 

 the outset of this discussion, in each of w^hich the status of the farming 

 lands is unquestionably different from all the others. Considering only 

 the lower peninsula, there are three of these regions which in slightly 

 different nomenclature may be considered as southern, middle and north- 



