FARMERS' IXSTITUTES. 209 



to supply tlic timber which tliesc vast and varied industries will require. It 

 will not be safe to assume that the needs of Michii^an can be supplied in the 

 future from other localities where a more bountiful supply of timber exists. 

 It has been the pride and boast of our State that her forests bore a larger per- 

 centage of timber trees to the acre than any other section of the Union except 

 the heavily-wooded regions of Oregon and Wasliington Territory. The census 

 of 1870 showed that the value of the lumber products of Michigan were greater 

 than that of any other State in the Union, by more tiuin §3,000,000. If, 

 then, our timber resources are now larger than those of neigliboring States, 

 liow can we expect tliem to supply our deficiency in the time of need, when the 

 same destruction of forests is going on within tlieir borders as in our own. 

 Michigan occupies a central position as regards the density of its timber growth, 

 lying as it does between the well cleared lands of tlie States east and south, 

 and the treeless prairies of the west; and unless some measures are taken to 

 preserve and renew the forests which are annually being cut to supply the 

 wants of adjoining States, I venture to predict that a generation hence Michi- 

 gan will not furnish good timber enough to satisfy the requirements of its own 

 industries. That this account of the rapid destruction of our forests is not 

 overdrawn, I quote from a report made in 18G7 to the Legislature of this State 

 by a special committee appointed to consider the injurious destruction of forest 

 trees, and the means of checking the evil, of which committee Professor K. C. 

 Kedzie of the Agricultural College, and John J. Woodman, our recent Com- 

 missioner to the Paris Exposition, were members. In the course of tiieir re- 

 port, which was carefully drawn, and shows an elaborate study of the question, 

 the committee say: "With an abundance of valuable forest trees, such as has 

 blessed no other State east of the Rocky Mountains, our people have been dis- 

 posed to regard this legacy of the slow-paced centuries, not as a blessing to be 

 prized and cherished, but an enemy to be destroyed. Before this blind impulse 

 of destruction, nothing is regarded as worthy of protection. The trees which 

 should adorn the farmer's lawn, shade his home, border his lanes and roads, 

 and afford a grateful shade in his pastures, are all made to })ass under the ax. 

 Even trees which would soon bring him wealth, as lumber, are often sacrificed 

 to that insatiate monster, 'improvement.' Thus the black walnut and cherry 

 in many parts of the State have been split into rails or burned in log-heaps. 

 Pines are cut down for a few bolts of shingles, or a single saw-log, and the bal- 

 ance left to rot. Oaks fit for the ribs of mighty navies are burned up to rid 

 the ground of an encumbrance, and to-day the exquisitely beautiful ' birds-eye 

 maple,' fit to adorn the palaces of kings, is burned as fire-wood, or thrown 

 into the log-heap, an unconscious burnt offering to the god of folly. Instead 

 of preserving in any proper measures these blessings of God's own planting, 

 man seems to take delight in wasting Iiis fair heritage, and as tree after tree 

 falls beneath his blows, he exclaims, 'one enemy less in the land I' Thus 

 tields and homes, highways and byways are smitten with one common treeless 

 doom, and the dreary monotony of tiie desert threatens a land that was once 

 like the Eden of old, where 'God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to 

 the sight and good for food.' We have forgotten that the bountiful Father 

 has declared that ' the tree of the field is man's life.' * * * But rich as 

 we are in this treasure, when we see how rapidly we are parting with it, when 

 we learn how vast is our market, that the Government buildings at Chattanoo- 

 ga and Nashville weie built with pine lumber taken from Saginaw, when we 

 see that the Chicago market has become the first lumber market in the world, 



