102 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



have been preserved, and in many cases notes have been made concerning 

 new localities for certain species, and the discovery of those new to the 

 State; also, the advent of weeds and other plants from other countries. 

 A considerable number of these inquiries have come from teachers and 

 others who have been induced to make collections and send to the College. 

 The planting at the College of an arboretum, in 1S75 and later, induced us 

 to make strong efforts to represent every tree and shrub to be found in 

 the State. These are now fine object lessons in Michigan forestry. Be- 

 sides this, about 200 acres, mostly in native forest trees, are managed in 

 the most approved manner to secure a good growth of trees. The same 

 is true in a more extended way regarding all the native and introduced 

 herbaceous plants selected and grown in the botanic garden of three acres 

 for many years past. 



The Report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1894 contained an 

 illustrated article giving data regarding the points of difference between 

 sugar maple and black sugar maple of Central Michigan. A similar re- 

 port for 1893 contains a popular account of the trees of Michigan, their 

 distribution, relative abundance and uses. 



In Garden and Forest, in 1890 — and later copied by the Report of the 

 Michigan Board of Agriculture — may be found an account of the forests 

 and other interesting native vegetation of Central Michigan. 



Beginning in 1888 and continuing for four years, the writer was a 

 member of the State Foresty Commission, in connection with Hon. C. 

 W. Garfield. Some work was done in the study of our trees. A forest 

 convention was held at Grand Rapids, and a report was made in 1888. 

 The report deals with forest fires, the succession of forests, methods of 

 lumbering, list of trees and shrubs of the State, and questions answered 

 by numerous experts living in various parts of the State as to why the 

 jack pine is so admirably adapted to succeed itself after fires have de- 

 stroyed the trees. 



For three years the writer made some experiments of a limited na- 

 ture concerning the growing of forest trees and grasses on the jack pine 

 plains. For this work he made three visits a year, at different times 

 during the growing season, to five different counties north of the cen- 

 tral portion of the Southern Peninsula — in all occupying three to four 

 weeks of each year. Many observations and notes were made concern- 

 ing the country adjacent to these five stations and numerous short ex- 

 cursions were made in various directions. A considerable collection of 

 plants was secured and placed in the College herbarium. 



D. Cooley, in 1S53, completed his list of plants found growing spon- 

 taneously within ten miles of Cooley's Corners, Washington, Macomb 

 county, in Michigan. The large herbarium verifying this list has long 

 been the property of the Agricultural College, where the specimens are 

 well mounted. 



L. H. Bailey, later a graduate of the College and still later professor 

 of horticulture, made a list of plants collected at South Haven, in 1880, 

 and records of these plants are preserved at the College. 



Charles F. Wheeler and Erwin F. Smith, in 1881, prepared a catalogue 

 of the phsenogainous and vascular cryptogamous plants of Michigan. 

 indigenous, naturalized, and adventive. This list was verified by a col- 

 lection of 1,700 flowering plants and 100 moses collected during a 

 period of twenty-three years. This collection belonged to the Agricul- 



