i8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



sums In importing lumber and timber materials 

 which our state should grow in abundance : 

 large areas of our lands are in a cut and 

 burned-over wasteland condition, involving a 

 loss to our people of millions of dollars every 

 year ; the policy and laws of our state act in a 

 way to discourage the holding or reforesting of 

 these lands : the lack of proper protection of 

 forest property has prevented the conservative 

 management of the woodlot farm forest ; the 

 state neglects its own lands and thereby hin- 

 ders the improvement of lands by private ef- 

 fort : the present system of dealing with tax title 

 lands acts in the direction of further timber 

 denudation : and 



"Whereas, The Michigan Forestry Associa- 

 tion has for Its objects the promotion of for- 

 estry In all directions ; therefore be it 



"Resolved, That this association use Its best 

 efforts to secure 



"Modification of our laws, which will enable 

 the holding and reforesting of forest lands, 

 and encourage conservative management of our 

 farm forests as well as restocking denuded 

 lands. 



"Improvement and strengthening of our laws 

 for protection of forest property against fire 

 or trespass. 



"Modification of our laws dealing with the 

 disposition and management of our state lands, 

 so that correct principles of forestry may be 

 applied to all wooded areas not distinctly agri- 

 cultural. 



"Continuance and extension of the work of 

 the Michigan Forestry Commission, and that It 

 be provided with ample funds to carry on a 

 more extensive campaign of education among 

 the people. 



"That It be made a sromincnt Dart of the 

 work of the association to urge the establish- 

 ment and perpetuation of a general system of 

 farm forestry throughout the state. 



"That this association act In harmony with 

 the American Forestry Association and with 

 the National Bureau of Forestry, realizing that 

 In so doing we will further the cause of for- 

 estry everywhere. 



"That the newspaper editors and publishers 

 of the state be made honorary members of the 

 association." 



Officers of the Association. 



A word alniut the officers of the Michigan 

 Forestry Association will be timely. John H. 

 Bissell. elected president, is a prominent law- 

 yer and business man of Detroit. He has long 



resided in the state, and is a prominent mem- 

 ber of the American Forestry Association. He 

 is deeply interested in the responsibility of 

 the state with reference to the progress of the 

 forestry movement. He has spent years in a 

 careful observation of forestry matters, and 

 is altogether well equipped to fulfill the re- 

 sponsible office of president of the association. 

 Thornton A. Green, the vice president, is an 

 active and energetic young business man, as- 

 sociated and in immediate charge of the large 

 hardwood operations of the C. V. McMillan 

 Company of Ontonagon, Mich. Mr. Green is 

 an enthusiast on the subject of rehabilitating 

 the abandoned lands of Michigan with forest 

 growth, and has done yeomanlike service in 

 the preliminary work necessary for the for- 

 mation of the Michigan Forestry Association. 

 The secretary is T. M. Sawyer, who is sec- 

 retary of the Board of Trade of Ludington, 

 Mich. Mr. Sawyer has had considerable expe- 

 rience in work analogous to that which will 

 now come before him, but better than this, 

 he is deeply interested in forestry needs. 



John J. Hubbtll of Manistee, treasurer, is 

 the chief engineer of the Manistee & North- 

 eastern railway. He has personally laid out 

 one of the one hundred and fifty miles 

 of that line In the northwestern portion of the 

 lower peninsula and is thoroughly familiar 

 with the topography, soil, timber growth and 

 possibilities of that portion of the state. His 

 selection as one of the officers of the associa- 

 tion was a very wise one. 



These four officers, with six others, con- 

 stitute the board of directors. Among this 

 number are: Mrs. Louisa A. King of 

 Alma, a woman of discernment and wide 

 training in forestry matters, who is an enthu- 

 •n the subject; Hon. C. J. Monroe of 

 South Haven, who is a life-long forester; Dr. 

 Hubbard of Houghton, an eminent man 

 deeply interested in the subject; Walter C. 

 Winchester, the well-known lumberman of 

 Grand Rapids, who takes an active interest in 

 lining to the welfare of Michi- 

 gan; H. N. Loud of Au Sable, of H. M. 

 Loud's Sons Company, the extensive cedar 

 and hardwood operators of that city, who is a 

 public-spirited man who always Intel 

 himself in every movement that means 

 progress to his Hon. Geo. B. Hor- 



ton of Fruit Ridge, who is a practical 

 farmer-forester, and whose place on the 

 board of directors will contribute materially 

 to securing the interest of southern Michigan 

 re in the state forestry movement. 



A Lumberman's Letters to His Son. 



Chicago, Sept. 5, 1905. 



My Dear Son: Your brain may be one 

 luminous sphere, but it's got too many sun 

 spots on it. No, it won't do to soak a car- 

 load of white ash in the Chicago river and 

 try to fill youx Buffalo order for black ash 

 witli it. The next thing 1 know you will be 

 trying to persuade me to silver-plate $20 gold 

 pieces ami work them off for buzzard dollars. 

 Don't you know that it doesn't pay to fry 

 any subterfuge of this sort in commercial 

 transactionst It's wrong to be dishonest in 

 lumber dealing, and white ash is worth more 

 than black ash, anyhow. It's all right for 

 the furniture people to palm off ash and P. 

 elm for strictly Indiana oak, but such games 

 are to be frowned upon in the hardwood 

 business. 



Of course, I don 't mean to lay down the 

 above rule to you as an absolutely ironclad 

 proposition, because there are times when 



twenty-five to forty per cent of common can 

 "II on an order for firsts and sce- 



-bnt in stirh eases you must know your 

 customer. 



What about this last expense account of 



' I'll Maurice Wall, over at Buffalo, 

 git you mixed up in his night art school.' 

 tir .lid Prank Vetter or Orson Y eager lead 

 ynu astray 1 I know that Ike Stewart or Ga- 

 briel Elastic Elias would not take any un- 

 Bophisticated farm hand like you and get him 

 involved in the necessity of setting down a 

 "sundry" expense item of $47 in one day! 

 Just cut out this sort of thing. Vmir dad 

 didn't make his money by wild, subject-to- 

 arrest, midnight automobile trips along the 

 Niagara frontier. 



Your mother's getting onto some things, 

 and I have had to take to the tall timber 

 and do some remarkable tongue stunts to 

 quiet her suspicions. 



Get busy ! Don 't sell any plain oak unless 

 you soak 'em good and strong. 



Your Affectionate Father. 



P. S. — Humph ! You 'd look well as Daisy 's 

 meal ticket, wouldn't you? 



The Lumber Town of Wells. 



A fact not generally known is that the little 

 sawmill town of Wells, Mich., near Escanaba, 

 is the site of the largest lumber operation in the 

 state. This sawmill town is owned in its en- 

 tirety by the I. Stephenson Company, of which 

 Hon. ex-Congressman Isaac Stephenson of Mari- 

 nette, Wis., is president ; Hon. J. W. Wells of 

 Menominee, Mich., general manager, and R. E. 

 MacLean of Wells, secretary and treasurer. This 

 company produces the largest line of forest prod- 

 ucts of any house in the north country, including 

 white and Norway pine, white cedar, spruce, 

 tamarack, balsam, maple, beech, elm, birch, bass- 

 wood and hemlock. The company has two great 

 sawmills at Wells, which turn out annually ap- 

 proximately 75,000.000 feet of lumber, 50,000.000 

 cedar shingles, 10,000,000 feet of lath, 75,000 

 ties, 150.000 posts and 50,000 poles. At its 

 great flooring plant it manufactures 20,000,000 

 feet of flooring each year. In addition to this 

 the company conducts a large mercantile estab- 

 lishment, raises live stock and agricultural prod- 

 ucts, and has a very large and complete wood 

 chemical plant through which is produced char- 

 coal, wood alcohol and acetates. 



The company owns approximately 250,000 

 acres of timber land lying north and west of Wells, 

 Which Is bisected by a thoroughly equipped main 

 line of railroad, with many divergent branches. 

 This timber area Is about fifty miles In width 

 and seventy In length, and the railroad lines in 

 operation on Its boundary exceed 110 miles. It 

 Is estimated that the company has timber enough 

 to supply the immense consumption of its mills 

 for more than a quarter of a century. Its floor- 

 ing plant Is the largest in the world, and puts 

 out a product that is unexcelled in quality. 



The village of Wells Is a model sawmill town, 

 and In addition to its various manufacturing 

 plants contains the handsome residences of the 

 general manager and of the secretary and treas- 

 urer; also a great number of attractive houses 

 and cottages along regularly laid out streets, 

 which are leased to the numerous employees at a 

 very moderate rental : an attractive church 

 building; a very fine and complete schoolhouse ; 

 a comfortable and well conducted hotel, and a 

 large mercantile establishment. No intoxicants 

 are permitted to be sold here, although unfortu- 

 nately the neighboring city of Escanaba, only 

 five miles distant, and connected with Wells by 

 a trolley line, is a town In which, to the stran- 

 ger at least, It would seem that liquor selling 

 Is the chief employment. 



Old Trees. 



The distinction of being the oldest living 

 thing in the world undoubtedly belongs to some 

 one of the giant trees still standing. Many at- 

 tempts to locate this patriarch and to determine 

 Its age have been made. Some of the oldest 

 trees in the world are to be found among the 

 giant redwoods of California. 



A century ago, De Candollc found two yews — 

 one at Fortingal, Perthshire, Scotland, and ont 

 at Hiilsor, in Rucks, England, estimated to be 

 lively 2,500 and 3,240 years old. Both 

 are still flourishing, and the older tree has a 

 trunk twenty seven feet in circumference. A 

 gigantic baobab in Central America, with a 

 trunk twenty nine feet through, was found by 

 Humboldt to he not less than 5,150 years old. 

 Mexican botanists now believe that they have 

 discovered a life span even greater than this, 

 and from the annual rings of a cypress of 

 Chepulteper, whose trunk is 118 feet In circum- 

 ference, It Is assigned an age of about 0.200 

 years. 



