546 BOAKD OF AGKICULTUKE. 



But the third body of timber lands is the body that concerns us most. 

 It is the old pinery lands. Some of you have traveled over this country. 

 I know that quite a number of Indiana people come up to our country 

 to hunt and fish, and so some of you liuow perfectly well what these 

 lands look like. Some may not know, and I can not tell you, because 

 I am not eloquent enough to tell you how they 'look, for they look like 

 "all possessed." There are a lot of blackened, fire-charred stumps. This 

 comes as near as anything I can say to describe how they look. YOu 

 might travel there for a day and night and not even meet man or beast. 

 It seems as if the wild beasts of the forest have deserted the land. Our 

 land has not been treated properly. I was speaking with a commercial 

 man the other day, and he told me that he didn't believe that ten per 

 cent, of the land was covered with timber like it was even twenty-five 

 years ago. It is almost inconceivable what changes have been made in 

 these lands. The story is one about Hke this. You have a sandy soil, 

 an immense level country, although, by the way, you are on top of one 

 of the highest water-sheds of Michigan; one from which the water goes 

 in all directions. We have one large river which we regard as of great 

 importance, and we will prove this to the world. You know the character 

 of our country. Its history is like this. We once had a magnificent 

 forest, with trees from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in 

 height, and so large in diameter that they were large enough to drive 

 through with a team of horses. But the lumberman came with his 

 saw and axe, and along came the fires, and now there is a blackened 

 mass of ruins and the forest is gone forever. This is at least the im- 

 pression the land makes upon you. Nature is just as kind with you here 

 in Indiana as she is to us. At the end of six or eight or ten years you 

 will find that she has tried to re-roof the grounds. You will find 

 a gx'owth of poplar, birch and oak sprouts six or eight feet high. 

 This growth will be all over the country, and it will be a pretty 

 tolerable growth. But by tliis time there is just enough dry foliage on 

 the ground so that when the man comes along who is forever smoking a 

 cigar or a pipe and happens to drop the burning ashes from his pipe with- 

 out stopping to see what has happened", this foliage is set on fire, not once 

 in a hundred times on purpose, but from mere carelessness. It doesn't 

 occur. to the one that sets it on fire that these pieces of timber could 

 ever be of any value. It never dawned upon them when they were 

 setting fire to the woods that that timber could come into market. We 

 then have another fire, and whatever nature has produced in the six or 

 eight or ten years is gone. She does the same thing over and over 

 again, and we have now stretches of country of thousands of acres 

 whicli were in the first fire. We have charred conditions of all stages. 

 This will indicate to you what the pinery lands are. And, mind you, we 

 have a great deal of this. Some of you who have gone on the Michigan 

 Central will remember when you leave Pine Creek, just north of Bay 



