EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS 127" 



helping to retain moisture and produce shade and protection for the remaining 

 timber .srowth. But here we furnish fuel for the forest fire, and upon the proper 

 control of this one element almost entirely depends the future of Michigan forestry. 

 Wherever we find stump lands that have not been burned and burned over again, 

 we there find that Nature has done and is still doing her best to restore the condi- 

 tions which existed before lumbering commenced. 



Our government surveyors in the original surveys of the State some sixty years 

 ago, noted numerous windfalls. The small mounds of earth fallen from the roots 

 of the trees which went down before the great tornadoes still mark the route taken, 

 but the valuable growth of timber which has since sprung up is a more substantial 

 tracing. 



Sections three, four and nine of Town 23 N., R. 13 W., in Manistee county are 

 good examples. The United States Survey in the early forties noted an extensive 

 windfall "grown up to brush." Wo find the early settlers avoiding this tract, 

 because of the light timber growth, which today is covered with a fine forest of 

 young basswood, white ash and maple and was recently sold at a good price to a 

 Michigan manufacturing concern. Had this tract been burned over repeatedly just 

 as 'the seedlings were in their young growth, we should now find the area covered 

 with an inferior growth of Avorthless stuff, if needed there were humus enough to 

 support any vegetation at all. 



The 10 per cent of the tiiubered lands still remaining in the hands of the common- 

 wealth is subject to the same management as is the 90 per cent in the hands of 

 large owners. Most of these public lands are well timbered and would have been 

 purchased long ago except for the fact that they are for the most part isolated and 

 too far away from transportation facilities to become of use to manufacturers. 

 They are fast passing from the control of the state, however, and it will not be 

 many years before Michigan as a state will have very little timber to dispose of. 

 Much of the timber belonging to the public is ripe and should be harvested. 



If there were some manner in which the public could authorize selected agents 

 to pick out and sell off this timber which is ready to cut, and thereby retain the 

 title in the state, we might consider the plan, but past legislatures have not taken 

 kindly to this idea and always look with suspicion upon any plan which has for 

 its object the disposition of the timber upon public lands, even though the trees 

 are blown or burned down, and fast spoiling in decay. This is to be regretted, as a 

 considerable income might have been derived from a saving made along this line- 

 enough to have paid competent wardens for looking after these tracts of woodland. 

 Until some such system of legislation can be had, the maintenance of the present 

 forest areas must be at a loss of much of the valuable timber now standing, as the 

 only method by which the value can be saved is by selling to parties who will 

 cut it. 



The maintenance of our present forests has two foes to combat.viz.:— timber 

 thieves and forest fires, and destructive as the latter may be and have been, they 

 must bow in insignificance to the pirates who have preyed upon the forests of 

 Michigan ever since there was sale for any of the products. It may seem a broad 

 assertion, but it is a fact, that more than double the amount of timber is stolen 

 from state lands annually than is destroyed by fire. Tlie reason for this lies in tlie 

 policy pursued in the settlement of trespass committed by these vandals. The 

 state has a good law which should be enforced against this class of people, yet we 

 find thai in the hundreds of cases of trespass upon public lands none of the tres- 

 passers have ever been prosecuted. Why is this? If one of tliese people were to 

 go upon the grounds of any of the state institutions and cut down and take away 

 a tree, or commit any other felony, he would be at once puninshed as any thief 

 should be. Yet the same person can trespass upon the forest lands of the state and 

 run no fear of prosecution whatever. If caught, he will be called upon to pay the 

 stumpage value, which really means that he is buying timber and paying no taxes. 

 One reason why prosecutions have not been had, is the fact that the Attorneys Gen- 

 eral who have held office from time to time, hold tliat only the prosecuting at- 

 torneys of the county wliei'eiu the offense is committed can commence suit against 

 trespassers upon public lands (yet we find the same Attorneys General flying to the 

 aid of the Game Warden whenever he has occasion to request their services. We 

 assume that it would be quite as reasonable to protect the forests, which will 

 surely become extinct under the present system, as without the forests we can 

 have no game.) This protection can never be effectual through township or county 

 officials, as they are too often implicated in the trespassing, or not competent to- 



