76 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is to provide for a protection and improvement of these lands, and then 

 if an actual hona-fide settler wants an 80 acres, he can still get it. 



The second argument is sound and there is no answer to it. If the State 

 of Michigan expects a new and sparsely settled county to keep up schools 

 and roads and i)rotect a man in his life and property, the State ought not 

 to deprive the county of the possibility of getting the needed funds which 

 make this possible. Every German state pays taxes on its forest lands; 

 why not Michigan?" 



But the State has made a beginning and the people have agreed to 

 support it with a will. However, this affects but a small part of the 

 State tax lands. The State still has a law which requires that these lands 

 be offered for sale ; it forces a sale, and that the lands be sold at prices the 

 minimum of which is discretionary with the officials in charge. A recent 

 sale where about eight thousand out of eighty thousand acres were sold 

 brought about $1.25 per acre and generally these lands are disposed of at 

 from 10 cents up. Within all the vast area of the railway grants of the 

 west, the United States accepts no less than |2.50 per acre, and this for 

 lands a goodly part of which are nothing but sagebush and cactus deserts, 

 and here in Michigan we sell lands at one-half that price. 



Now, the friends of forestry believe that Michigan has no desert lands ; 

 that its lands need not and should not be forced on the market at desert 

 prices; that such an offer does not help to settle the lands with real farm- 

 ers and only gives State and county a bad name. We believe that the 

 law of Michigan should have a minimum price of certainly not less than 

 |2.50, preferably |5.00 per acre for the land alone; that the timber, if 

 there is any, should be sold separately at a price not below a fixed mini- 

 mum; and above all, we believe that these lands should have adequate 

 protection against the ever-recurring fires and thus have a chance to 

 reclothe themselves with forest; and that the State should aid in this 

 re-stocking as far and as fast as its funds permit. When that is done, 

 Michigan will be able to raise all the timber it needs and more besides, 

 and land which is now waste and idle and if uncared for is likely to 

 remain so for many years, will grow a useful crop. Will it pay? The 

 State forests of Baden, W^iirtemberg and Saxony bring over |4 a year net. 

 If ours bring only a tenth of this they Avill be worth .f20 an acre. 



Moreover, we should not forget that when a State owns a forest, it gets 

 something besides the mere stunipage. For every dollar of stumpage or 

 direct revenue, the State gets at leasi another dollar in indirect revenue 

 by having mills and shops going, and by avoiding exorbitant charges for 

 a material so necessary to human welfare. If the State as a common- 

 wealth has a duty of importance, it is certainly that of seeing to the wel- 

 fare of the people. Here is a chance to do a great deal of lasting good, 

 here is an opportunity for a yearly income of millions of dollars to the 

 people of Michigan. Let the people see this, and demand that the State 

 do its duty ! 



The discussion was led by Hon. Chas. W. Garfield, Grand Kapids. 

 President of the Michigan Forestry Commission, who said, substantially : 



The immediate duty of the State of Michigan, in connection with its 

 land holdings, it occurs to me, is to put this whole matter upon a business 

 basis; that is, the same basis that a business man would use in handling 

 a like area of real estate as an investment. Michigan is not so 

 desirous of securing imminra'-its as to offer such extraordinarv induce- 



