72 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



present population is less than 3,000 for the entire county. Otsego 

 county on the north of Crawford, has gained sixty per cent. Ogemaw on 

 the east of Roscommon, has more than doubled its inhabitants in the 

 time mentioned, Clare and Gladwin on the south have increased, Clare 

 fifty-five per cent and Gladwin three hundred per cent, while Missaukee 

 on the west of Roscommon, has increased her population from 3,.386 to 

 9,308 or about two hundred per cent, and Kalkaska on the west of 

 Crawford has increased fully seventy-five per cent. All these counties 

 were stripped of their tracts of pine at about the same time as Craw- 

 ford and Roscommon. That these conditions are not brought about by 

 the location of the Forestry Reserve in the vicinity of Houghton and 

 Higgins Lakes is shown by a comparison with counties which have been 

 stripped of their pines during the same period and which show relatively 

 the same condnitions in s'oil, Jack pine plains, and small clumps of good 

 farming lands as do Crawford and Roscommon counties; and in Oscoda 

 and Iosco counties we find these relative conditions. No tracts have 

 been set aside for Forestry purposes, in these counties, yet we find many 

 abandoned homes the same as are found near the Reserve. During the 

 last ten years Iosco county has lost nearly 5,000 residents, or about one- 

 half of its present population, while Oscoda has only 1,468 residents, 

 as against 1,904 ten years ago. The shrinkage in population in the 

 counties which contain our Reserve, therefore, cannot be charged to the 

 location of the Reserve, but rather to the fact that much of the land 

 taken by homesteaders for agricultural purposes is entirely unfit for the 

 production of the necessities of life, and those who remain must depend 

 upon the extra fertility of some small, isolated nook, sheltered by trees 

 from the dry winds, or gain their livelihood by their labor provided by 

 the increasing resort business, or other newer industries which incorpor- 

 ate themselves within this territory. 



Of such industries is the Michigan Forestry Reserve. In order to pro- 

 tect our holdings from fire we must build fire bnrriers, such as roads; 

 nurseries must be established and the cultivated strips used for this 

 purpose can be so situated as to protect choice locations where young 

 timber is growing. These nurseries and the plantings must be fenced 

 and, at critical periods of drouth, fire wardens must be employed to de- 

 tect and extinguish fires before they have time to spread. All this 

 means labor for the people who reside nearest the Reserve and none 

 are better fitted for this work than some of the young men who are our 

 near neighbors. Their knowledge of the country and their desire for 

 something to do makes them the best of assistants. In the work already 

 done the Forestry Commission has found these people very apt and 

 convenient. The Commission has made as good a start at this work as 

 their small appropriation would allow and all the labor was performed 

 by these residents and the cash paid out by the State was paid to these 

 people and by them to the business firms of the nearest village. As the 

 work goes on, and the Forestry Commission extends its work, the amount 

 of cash distributed to the resident population will be necessarily gov- 

 erned by the appropriations of the legislature. We see no reason why 

 the county and population contiguous to the Michigan Forestry Reserve 

 should not receive as much pecuniary benefit in proportion to the money 

 appropriated as does the immediate vicinity of any other institution 

 fostered by the State. The present winter has brought the matter of 

 fuel strongly before the people of our State. We saw last w^eek, in Che- 



