FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 71 



covered with the finest hard wood tract now left in the State. This 

 water-shed is not crossed by an}' streams, but its northern slope is gullied 

 and creased by the myriad of creeks and spring- brooks that unite to form 

 the Pigeon, Sturgeon^ Black, Rainy and Ocqueoc rivers that find their out- 

 lets in the Straits of Mackinac and Lake Huron. 



Some of the best portions of this territory are almost entirely owned 

 by the State as State tax or as tax homestead lands, and comprise 



AN IDEAL LOCATION FOR A FOREST PRESERVE. ' 



Within this area is found nine-tenths of the game yet left in the lower 

 peninsula, and every lake and stream abounds in the choicest varieties of 

 fish. These facts should enlist the sportsmen with us. for without the 

 forest shelter the game will soon disappear and the streams become slug- 

 gish or dried up entirely. 



IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUT THESE RESULTS 



we must have: 



First, Legislation to perfect the title of these tax lands to the State. 



Second, Legislation to set aside certain tracts for forestry preserves 

 and to provide for the care of the same. 



Third, Stop the stealing of the timber from these lands by rigidly en- 

 forcing the laws we already have for the protection of timber on the pub- 

 lic lands. 



With these suggestions carried out. Nature will soon cover these waste 

 3&»nds with another forest, which will in time become the pride of the 

 State and add greatly to its wealth. 



DESIRABLEFORESTRY LEGISLATION. 



HON. L H. BUTTERFIELD, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



In 1664 John Evelyn, in England, wrote a work on forest trees, entitled 

 "Sylva," in which he says: "Men seldom plant trees till they become 

 wise — i. e., till they grow old and find by experience the necessity of it." 

 This is true of states and of nations. The people of this country have 

 for more than one hundred years been employed in cutting and destroy- 

 ing forests and have given little or no attention toward preserving them. 

 As in the cultivation of the soil, the American farmer in New England or 

 Virginia exhausted the soil by continued cropping without proper fertili- 

 zation, and then moved on toward the west to other virgin soils to begin 

 the exhaustive process on them, so the Maine lumberman, when 

 the pine forests grew small under his ruthless hand, moved to Michigan, 

 then to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington and Oregon, successively. 

 The cutting and manufacture of timber for commercial uses is certainly 

 legitimate and proper, but while this has been gciing on v*e have, as a 

 people, forgotten that our forest area is being completely destroyed. The 

 cut-over lands on which much small and rapidly growing timber is left 

 from the first cutting remain in such condition that sooner or later fires 

 destroy the remaining timber and also the vegetable mold on the surface 

 which is needed for growing trees. 



