250 



dead pines, bleached in the weather and blackened by fire, destitute of limbs, and looking 

 at a distance not unlike the masts of some great harboui*. Thousands of such acres, 

 repellant alike to botanist and settler, can be seen in any of our northern counties."* 

 While there is good soil to be found in this region, much of it is light and sandy, 

 altogether unfit for farming purposes, but it has raised one of the finest forests that ever 

 clothed the surface of the earth, and if it can again be covered with such a forest it will 

 become in the future, as it has been already, a source of almost unlimited wealth. 



Another portion of the State will soon force itself upon our attention, unless it is cared 

 for. All along the eastern coast of Lake Michigan sand-dunes extend, precisely similar in 

 their nature, though of less extent than those of the old world, wliile these dunes are covered 

 ■with vegetation they keep, for the most part, within their limits, but indications of what they 

 may do, when free from such control, may be seen at Grand Haven, Michigan City, and 

 other places along the shore, where piles of fine, drifting sand are covering railroad tracks, 

 and fences, and some trees, and, in some localities are encroaching upon cultivated fields, 

 to the dismay of their proprietors. The experience of Western Europe is conclusive 

 upon this point, and it is the manifest duty of the State, and of the people, to absolutely 

 prohibit and prevent the clearing away of trees, or even excessive pasturage of such lands, 

 and to encourage, by every suitable means, their reforesting. 



The farming lands in the southern portion of the lower peninsula all need a fair pro- 

 portion of woodland for fuel and shelter, and the great majority of these farms would be 

 rendered much more valuable in a few years by judicious plantations of trees ; so, also, the 

 northern peninsula, though still heavily wooded over large areas, already has extensive 

 regions that have been stripped of their forests, and that can be turned to better 

 account for this than for any other purpose. We may safely conclude, therefore, that 

 the State of Michigan requires fully as great, and probably a greater proportion of its 

 area to be kept in wood-land than has been estimated as necessary for other countries ; in 

 other words, more than twenty-five per cent, in this State, rather than less, may properly 

 be covered with timber. 



(2) What kinds of trees shall we plant? 



To answer this question we must know something about the different species of trees, 

 the soil and climate to which they are adapted or to which they can be induced to adapt 

 themselves, what kinds will endure unfavourable conditions best, what trees will grow 

 rapidly, and what sorts are most valuable for timber or other products. 



Without attempting to decide all of these questions in detail — many of them requir- 

 ing not only careful study but long experiment, for which the State makes no adequate 

 provision, as yet — there is one very important question suggested at the outset, and that 

 must be met, whether it can be settled at once or not. The question is. How much 

 significance must be attached to the principle of rotation 1 It has been commonly noticed 

 that forests of oak succeed those of pine, and vice versa. Oak and hemlock forests have 

 been succeeded by those of elm, beech, and maple. When the pine woods in the northern 

 part of Michigan and Wisconsin are cut off, poplars, birches, and the wild Red-cherry 

 spring up, and so, as in many cases, this succession seems to be pretty uniform and con- 

 stant. There has grown up a half popular, half scientific notion that it must be so, and 

 that, if we are to succeed in reforesting our denuded pine lands, we must follow the order 

 of nature. We have no right, however, to follow nature blindly, and sometimes we can 

 take a short cut while nature is going round a corner. No one has ever formulated an 

 order that governs the succession of forest trees, nor has it ever been shown that there is 

 any such unvarying order of succession. On the contrary, it is one of the most variable 

 things with which we are acquainted, and there is every reason for believing that it 

 depends more upon what the ground is seeded with than anything else. The reason why 

 birches, poplars, and wild Red-cherry trees spring up on our wasted pine lands is that the 

 seeds of these species are carried there by the wind and by the birds, and there is no doubt 

 whatever that other and better trees may, with suitable pains, be made to take their 

 place. When we plant trees about our houses, or along the highway even, if it happen 

 to be new land, we do not stop to make a critical inquiry into the laws governing the 



* Erwin F. Smith, " Flora of Michigan." 



