STATE FORESTRY CONVENTION. 205 



acres are in farms, of which 4,452,306 acres, or thirty-two per cent are wood- 

 lands. 



Competent authorities state that, for the best agricultural results in a 

 country where the average rainfall is even more than it is in Michigan, at 

 least one-third of the farm lands should be covered with trees. 



UTILIZING THE BARREN KNOLLS. 



L. D. Watkins, of Manchester, Michigan, advocated the planting of barren 

 and waste places to rapid growing trees, as a matter of farm economy. He 

 said the common locust was a rapid growing tree, and there was no reason 

 why the poor spots on farms could not be made fairly profitable by planting 

 to trees and at the same time the earth rendered more attractive. 



J. Austin Scott, of Ann Arbor, a veteran tree planter, gave valuable illus- 

 trations of the rapidity of tree growth under proper management. Trees 

 that he planted in his boyhood in Connecticut and in early manhood in Ohio 

 are now two feet in diameter. Twenty years ago he purchased a place in 

 Ann Arbor covered with saplings, and now many of them are eighteen and 

 twenty inches in diameter. He advocated the American elm as a tree for 

 street planting. 



Benjamin Hathaway related his experience in making and managing a 

 farm wood lot. He set maples in 1859 in considerable quantity that are now 

 a foot in diameter, and have been utilized for five years in the manufacture 

 of syrup and sugar. White pines set the same year have grown to the same 

 height as the maples, but do not average quite so great a diameter. His 

 reserve wood lot was planted with small maples — say an inch in diameter, 

 white pine, blue and white ash, spruce, cedar and other evergreens. These 

 trees were grown in the nursery four years along with rows of chestnut, walnut, 

 butternut and hickory grown from the seed. These trees, when planted in 

 the wood lot, were set thirty feet apart and well planted, with abundant root, 

 and well formed top. Not more than one per cent of the plantation failed. 

 The pine and spruce have made the largest growth. He described minutely 

 the management of an eight acre and twelve acre plantation, mentioning, 

 incidentally, that one of these he had cultivated continuously since planting, 

 and in it were now growing raspberries and blackberries which thrive in the 

 shade of the trees. Mr. Hathaway described his method of planting trees 

 along his fences and highways to be utilized for posts upon which to string 

 wire. Wagener apple trees planted seven years ago and headed high are 

 already large enough to support such a fence. 



He strongly advocated that each farm should have a half acre devoted to 

 growing forest trees to be used in planting where and when they were needed. 

 Mr. Hathaway was of the opinion that from a money point of view the 

 investment in trees on his farm had been a valuable one; that his farm 

 today, if put on the market, would bear him out in the opinion. 



Arthur Hill, of Saginaw, presented a paper on 



FOREST FIRES — PREVENTIVE LEGISLATION. 



From the U, S. census for 1880 he quoted the record of a specimen year 

 in which 267 forest fires were reported, originating as follows: 



