TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 223 



don't expect to make any impression on these older heads, who have 

 looked upon trees as their enemies, to be cut down to make room for 

 wheat and barley, but I am talking to the young men who will be hunting 

 some day for a quiet spot in the forest where they may go and study na- 

 ture. These spots are coming to be very rare in this state, in the south- 

 ern part especially. As we go north, where they have cut off so much 

 pine and hemlock, and other forest trees, man}^ of these kinds are dis- 

 appearing. The railroad comes in, and the fire from the locomotive 

 throws sparks into the young growth, and it is swept off in almost no 

 time. One point I want to make is in regard to this young growth. It 

 is left often in an exposed condition, with rubbish all around, and after 

 having gained perhaps twenty or thirty years' growth it is swept away 

 by fire. What I am pleading for is some scheme by which these young 

 groves may be preserved for future use. A large percentage of the fires 

 spring from the railways, and this is one of the hardest things we have to 

 contend with — to see what can be done to prevent the locomotives from 

 setting fire, in dry times, to the forests. At the last meeting of this soci- 

 ety, at Traverse City, I offered a resolution something like this : ''We, as 

 a society, should not be satisfied until the state has a forestry commission, 

 somewhat like the one of 1886-1890." The society voted unanimously 

 to sustain that resolution. I call your attention to it today, because 

 we have some new members here, two new members of the executive 

 committee, and I wish to remind them of what the society has committed 

 itself to, and I trust you will sympathize with the sentiment, and do all 

 possible in urging this matter upon the next legislature. A forestry com- 

 mission would cost but little, five or six hundred dollars per year. Voii 

 don't realize, perhaps, that one third of the wealth of the state is coming 

 each year from the trees of the state. Is it not clearly worth while, then, 

 with such a vast amount of wealth in question, when it is such a vast 

 interest in this state, to look after it? We spend considerable money in 

 the protection of game. We have our game wardens, and that is popular 

 enough. Can not we do the same thing for this industry of for- 

 estry? I mention this much more freely than I should if I had an axe to 

 grind; than if I expected to push this bill through and get to be commis- 

 sioner and receive a salary , I held this office once for four years, and the 

 newspapers said that the only reason for having this office was on account 

 of the salary received. The fact was that there was no salary accom- 

 panying it, and I had to do lots of work. Germany and many of the 

 European countries have been through this same wasteful process that 

 we have in the United States, and they have learned to husband their 

 resources and try to save what is left. I hope every time this society 

 meets it will discuss this question and get the sense of those present. 

 Any one who has travelled through our state and seen the immense 

 amount of barren land, that for years is not likely to be of use for agri- 

 cultural purposes, will see that it might, by a little care, be retimbered, 

 greatly to the advantage of the state. I never travel through the north- 

 em part of the state without feeling a little indignation at the destruc- 

 tion created by a good many lumbermen. I remember that one of the 

 pleasantest calls I made, while at Los Angeles, was spoiled by a state- 

 ment made by a friend whom I had known in childhood. He probably 

 took out of this state somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five mil- 

 lions of dollars. He lives in a palace at Los Angeles, and he made this 



