192 North American Forests and Forestry 



without having ever seen the land. What attracts 

 these people is the apparently low price for which 

 these lands can be had, but in reality even one or 

 two dollars an acre is far too much to pay if the 

 land is to be used for farming. For a year or two 

 the new settler gets a fair crop, because the humus 

 accumulated during the standing of the forest 

 nourishes the plants. But very soon this is ex- 

 hausted, and then the most that can be done is to 

 raise a few potatoes and other sand-loving crops in 

 the depressions of the soil, where the wash from the 

 sides makes the latter a little more fertile. Proba- 

 bly by an elaborate application of fertilizers these 

 lands could be rendered fairly productive, but the 

 settlers have neither the means nor the skill to do 

 this. Most of them, after a few years of struggle, 

 either abandon their ill-chosen homesteads or if 

 they stay resign themselves to a hopeless poverty. 

 This and the demoralization consequent upon such 

 conditions make such people an exceedingly unde- 

 sirable element in any community. 



The conditions here described apply in the first 

 place to the lumber districts of the Lake region, 

 especially to the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and 

 Minnesota. But with slight local variations they 

 are also found in much of the southern forest zone 

 between the Appalachians and the western plains. 

 It is easily apparent that this scattered manner of 

 holding timber-lands makes the proper policing of 

 their holdings by the owners themselves exceedingly 

 difficult and costly. Such policing is necessary 



