548 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. ^ 



acres of land were offered for sale In one county, and out of this eighty 

 thousand acres of just such pinery land as I have described, eight thou- 

 sand were sold, and I suspect most of that was on account of the cedar 

 SAvamps, and it brought the magniticenr sum of $1.25 per acre. The 

 United States Government refused to take less than $2.50 for the arid 

 lands in Wyoming. Montana, and the bulli of the lands out there, and 

 we in the State of Michigan have sold lands at one-half that. We do 

 not neglect our duty by not putting the lands on the market. We have 

 done Our best and failed. It is interesting to know that the State of 

 Wyoming has a standing fund and lots of forests to buy up, and the 

 maximum price is $25. What does that mean? It means that these 

 people are willing to pay for their land, and that they have not lost any 

 money at it yet. 



To come back to what we have been trying to do. We tried to get rid 

 of the lands, but at last the State has decided it is time to do something 

 else besides getting rid of them, and has established a Forest Reserva- 

 tion, and has set aside as a starter all the lands that belong to the 

 State Mithin three certain townships, and has tm-ned this over to the 

 Forest Commission. This leaves the problem to the Forest Commission. 

 They have complete authority over these lands. They can sell any of 

 these lands if it suits them, and can buy any of the land within any 

 of the three townships if they are considered worth the buying. 



Prof. Latta: Does the State provide quite a fund for that purpose? 



Prof. Roth: Yes, the State provides $7,500 per year for the care of 

 the Forest Reservation. 



Prof. Latta: They may use this money to purchase new land if they 

 care to? 



Prof. Roth: They can use that money in any way they like. They 

 can plant trees, hire men to guard the land, etc. Now this little forest 

 reserve, for it is certainly a mere baby compared to what we Ought to 

 have in our State, is regarded as the nucleus of the State Forest. This 

 land is something like the land I have tried to describe to you before. It 

 is on the JMuskogon River. We all know the geography of our neighbor 

 States very well. I will say that his river is one of our biggest rivers. 

 It extends away up to the middle of the peninsula, which is Upper Mich- 

 igan, l)ut looks as if it didn't ))elong to us at all. but wo claim it. There 

 used to be a lumber town on this river that supported in the neighbor- 

 hood of some eighty millions of acres, and got out six or eight hundred 

 million feet of timber in a year. The land is level land dotted with 

 swamps. The greater part of this has been run over by flres. All the 

 dry land has been burned. There is not one single acre of the whole lot 

 that has any semblance to the old forests. A man who has not been 



