128 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



conduct the prosecutions if made. Few people in the southern portions of our 

 state fully understand the conditions of this problem. First, it is almost impossible 

 to impanel a jury in the northern counties, the majority of whose members have 

 not themselves some day trespassed upon public lands. Second, in sparsely settled 

 counties, the legal talent available for prosecuting attorney is limited to one or two 

 persons, who are wholly unable to successfully cope with the attorneys which the 

 trespasser will always employ, and the state is the loser thereby. Third, the tres- 

 passers and generally the representatives from these northrn districts raise the plea 

 that these timber thieves are poor men of family, who are starving and are forced 

 to enter upon these lands and steal to support their families. We challenge this 

 statement, for in an investigation which has extended over the last four years, we 

 have noted that in nearly every instance the trespasser was a man who had a good 

 bank account, and was not forced to steal for a living, but finding it a lucrative 

 business with no risks or taxes, kept at it. He is still at it and still will be until 

 more stringent measures are taken to stop this business, or until the grand old 

 State of :\lichigan has not a tree for him to steal. Our suggestion, then, as to 

 the maintenance of our present forest areas are entirely along the lines of legis- 

 lation. We can do nothing with public property without laws governing the same — 

 laws which are so plain and concise that there can be no quibbling or doubt as to 

 their meaning. 



These laws should cover, first the matter of trespassers upon state lands, and 

 by trespassers we mean malicious trespassers. There are always some few who 

 by mistaken lines or corners get over the true line, but these are usually willing to 

 settle and are already well provided for, but we want in addition to the good law 

 we now have for malicious trespassers, a clause compelling the Attorney General 

 of the State to prosecute in arrests made by the authority of the Commissioner of 

 the State Land Office, or a clause authorizing the Land Commissioner to procure 

 competent attorneys to so prosecute without the sanction of the Attorney General. 



Second, legislation to prevent the destruction of our present forests by fire. It 

 seems to us that the only solution of this matter is by the selection and appoint- 

 ment of efficient wardens by the State for the purpose. No system which depends 

 upon the township or county officers for its execution will ever be successful. 

 These wardens must have the sovereign power of the State back of them and in 

 their pockets, and must be entirely removed from political influences. Game 

 Wardens. Fire Wardens and Trespass Agents should all be State agents with full 

 power to make arrests and to prosecute in justice courts as the Game Wardens now 

 do. There is no Game Warden but that knows of trespass upon public lands, and 

 there is no Trespass Agent but that often sees flagrant violations of the game laws, 

 and these men should all be vested with as strong authority to do anything to pre- 

 vent the destruction of our forests and game as can be given them by any law 

 that can be devised. The duties of the wardens should be to prevent the use of 

 fir' s wherever there is danger of damage resulting to the surroundmg territory, 

 whether owned in private or by the State. We all know the difficulties which at- 

 tend the fighting of fires in our cities where we have all modern appliances for their 

 subjection, but none of these fires can compare with the genuine forest fire where 

 great blazing brands go whirling, whizzing, hissing, ten. twenty, and in high winds, 

 even forty rods through the air, spreading fire so swiftly that no human power can 

 stop it. The only place to stamp it out is before the match is lighted. Proper 

 legislation along these lines will, we believe, do more to maintain our forest areas 

 than any other method. If our land owners in both the southern and northern 

 portions of Michigan would plant the sides of gulleys, hills, and rough, stony and 

 unusually valueless ground for agricultural purposes, to forest seedlings, we would 

 soon have an abimdance of growing timber, and to bring this about the State should 

 furnish seedlings or seeds of the ash, basswood. butternut, elms, maples, oaks, pines, 

 walnuts and other valuable timbers to those who will use them, and also set aside 

 similar places in its own holdings which are yet covered with forest or which have 

 been denuded of forest by lumbermen or flres, and plant forests and properly care 

 for them. 



This brings us to the consideration of the stump lands, and by the stump lands 

 we mean those lands which, within the memory of man, liave been covered with 

 timber, but which now are divested of everything of value and are patiently wait- 

 ing for something to make them again valuable. We do not in any sense include 

 the Jack pine plains. There are, however, oases in every desert, and we find them 

 on the plains w'herever the clay sulisoil comes near enough the surface to retain the 



