66 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



REFOKESTING CUT-OVER LANDS. 



BY J. J, HUBBELL^ MANISTEE. 



I am requested to tell how to reforest cut-over lands in Michigan, in 

 ten minutes, and am reminded of- the monogram of a patent medicine 

 consisting of three large S's. I shall borrow this monogram and tell 

 you that, 'as applied to this problem, the three S's stand for soil, seed 

 and supervision. With good soil, plenty of seed, and proper supervision, 

 the problem is easily solved, but, unfortunately, these three favorable 

 conditions are seldom found in conjunction; either the soil is very poor, 

 or the seed is scarce, or the management bad. 



The soil. — Much of the soil of the cut-over lands, especially the hard- 

 wood lands, is of a good quality, suitable for farms, and will grow fine 

 crops of corn, wheat, potatoes, etc. The reason these lands are not 

 being converted into farms is because the demand for lumber is greater 

 than the demand for additional farm lands. Nature is doing much to 

 reforest this class of lands, but they are liable to be disposed of at any 

 time and the young second-growth timber cleared away as so much over- 

 grown brush. There is also a large quantity of second-class lands, but 

 it is difficult to secure even these for forestry purposes. They may some 

 time be needed to make poor farms for poor men. There is also consid- 

 erable land of very poor quality. It has been made poor by excessive 

 burning, or it never was of sufficient fertility to grow a respectable for- 

 est. It is these lands, in particular, that it is proposed to devote to 

 forestry and if the advocates of reforestation cannot make two trees 

 grow where never a tree grew before, their efforts will be considered a 

 failure. Before leaving this subject of soil, I wish to say that much of the 

 poor land of Michigan contains elements of fertility not indicated by the 

 amount of humus or decayed vegetable matter. There is apparently a 

 large amount of soluble mineral elements in these lands. Tap a sugar 

 bush, and after you have secured and boiled down a sufficient amount of 

 sap to make a few gallons of syrup, strain it through a flannel cloth 

 and you will obtain a considerable quantity of a gray gritty substance 

 which is called ''lime." I have never seen an analysis to know posi- 

 tively what this material is, but it is a mineral substance taken up by the 

 sap and which would have been converted (if the process had not been 

 interrupted) into good, hard maple timber. 



The seed. — I once had a lady of superior intelligence propound the 

 question, "How is it that when a pine forest is cut away, oak trees imme- 

 diately spring up. Where do all the little oak trees come from?" The 

 reply was, "Acorns." She locked astonished, and said she had asked 

 that question of a number of men supposed to be well-informed and had 

 always been told that it was a provision of nature that when one variety 

 of timber was cleared away it would be succeeded by a different "variety. 

 How this was brought about by nature was 'something mysterious, bor- 

 dering on the miraculous. All trees grow from seed. When the origi- 

 nal forest is cut away, the seeds that lie dormant in the ground, or are 



