THE STATE REVIEW. 



Forestry Commission's Work. 



The Michigan Forestry Commission met at 

 Lansing October 31. The greater part of the 

 meeting was taken up with matters concerning 

 the Michigan forest reserves in Roscommon and 

 Crawford counties. In his preliminary report 

 Warden Roth discussed the work of the past 

 season and the present condition of the reserves. 

 The principal items of work reported were : The 

 protection, especially against lire, of the entire 

 tract of three townshios ; the surrey of over 36 

 sections of land ; the construction of some much 

 needed roads, and the clearing of over 30 miles 

 of fire lines. 



The protection of these lands, though they are 

 in the ordinary cut and burned-over condition and 

 therefore difficult from the fire-protection stand- 

 point, has thus far been accomplished at a yearly 

 cost of less than one cent per acre. This proves 

 conclusively what may be done in this the most 

 important direction in our forestry work in the 

 state. It shows how utterly indefensible it is to 

 allow many millions of dollars' worth of forest 

 property without any protection of any kind, es- 

 pecially now when every kind of wood material 

 is valuable and growing more and more so every 

 day. Surely the state should be able to bring 

 about some change in this situation for most 

 owners of wood lands would gladly co-operate 

 and do their share. 



The survey work which has been carried on for 

 three seasons was done mostly by students of 

 forestry from both the University of Michigan 

 and the Agricultural College. In this work all of 

 the old section lines are re-located, blazed and 

 supplied with monuments, and the interior of 

 each section is examined, mapped and described 

 each section beiner treated as made up of eight 

 lots (2 forties each). This work is done in parties 

 of two or three, every forty is traversed along 

 two lines, and both a tooographic map and a full 

 land and timber description results. These field 

 notes are worked up lately by the students at 

 'the university under the direction of the warden. 

 This work is now practically completed, a small 

 corner, largely outside holdings, remaining still 

 undone. The necessity of this work is commonly 

 underrated. A single illustration will serve to 

 make this necessity clear. In many narts of the 

 reserve there are quantities of old charred pine 

 stubs and dead cedar which were killed by fires 

 years ago. Much of this material is still suffi- 

 ciently sound, so that the neighboring farmers 

 make wages by getting it out. At the same time 

 the material is reallv a menace to the reserves, 

 since fires are more liable to occur in such places 

 and are very difficult to combat. For this reason 

 chiefly, the Commission sell this dead timber when- 

 ever applications are made for it. 



Suppose the application reads for the dead pine 

 and cedar in a certain part of a certain section, 

 how is the ranger, who looks after the reserve, to 

 know exactly where this is? There are no lines, 

 no roads, no fences, no neighbors ; and yet if he 

 allows careless cutting, the man may cut on 

 lands which do not belong to the reserve at all 

 and the state would be guilty of trespass. To 

 avoid this, he must survey; but this requires outfit, 

 and help and time, and costs money. A few years 

 later these same lines need to be looked up for 

 reasons of a trespass and later on again, because 

 of some fire which should be properly reported. 

 In short, every time the ranger has something to 

 do with these lands he must survey and spend 

 time and labor and money to do it. At the same 

 time the warden and the commission never know 

 really what they have. For this reason the law 

 creating the reserves very properly prescribed 

 that these lands shall be examined or surveyed, 

 and it is in keeping with this provision that the 

 work was done. If work of this kind had to be 

 done by regular land surveyors the cost would be 

 considerable, (yet still well worth the doing) but 

 in this case where well informed, active young 

 men are willing to do it for sake of the experi- 

 ence and practically no pay ($20 per month) the 

 cost of this work is small, its value great and 

 permanent. 



The road building done by the commission is 



restricted to such enterprises as insure more ready 

 access of all parts of the reserves in the patrol 

 and protective work. 



1 he fire lines, while nothing new in themselves, 

 are new for this region and are the first syste- 

 matic effort in Michigan to "fight fire before fire 

 exists," as one of the workmen apply spoke of the 

 work. 1 hese lines, so far built, are located on the 

 section lines, a few, on "quarter lines" ; they are 

 strips of land about one rod wide cleared and 

 plowed like ordinary plow land. That these lines 

 are not continued through swamps is self evident. 

 So far over 30 miles of these lines have been 

 constructed, and they form a fairly complete 

 barrier around all lands in the Northern Reserve 

 near Higgins Lake, besides dividing a portion of 

 this district into smaller blocks. It is evident 

 that any ordinary surface fire will stop at any of 

 these lines unless a heavy wind during especially 

 warm weather drives the fire. But even in this 

 case (always the exception) the fire can readily 

 be fought without any great crew of men, by 

 back-fires started along one of these fire lines. A 

 boy can do more work with these lines, than 

 could a dozen men without them. 



Another subject of discussion which came be- 

 fore the commission, was a number of applica- 

 tions for the purchase of green tamarack timber. 

 Since no green timber of any kind has thus far 

 been sold on the reserves the matter called for 

 special deliberation and it was finally decided to 

 refuse all applications thus far submitted on the 

 ground that the price offered (about $2 per 1,000 

 ft. p. m.) was entirely below the real value of the 

 material. 



The warden also reported the continuation of 

 the co-operative work with the United States 

 Forest Service and the willingness of the forest 

 service to supply seeds of different species of trees 

 for further experiment in re-stocking bare lands. 



The warden further submitted a set of beau- 

 tiful photographs, representing seed bed, nursery 

 and general forestry work in Germany. These 

 photographs were taken by Mr. A. Knechtel, for- 

 sster to the New York Forest, Fish and Game 

 Commission, who was sent to Germany for the 

 special purpose of gathering information and il- 

 lustrations. They are one of the finest sets of 

 the kind and were donated by the' Forest, Fish 

 and Game Commission to the Michigan Forestry 

 Commission for the purpose of spreading infor- 

 mation on this subject. A vote of thanks to the 

 New York Commission was taken. 



SECOND GROWTH VALUABLE. 



In the vicinity of Toviola station and running 

 through Ongie, Brock and other homesteads in 

 Houghton county, are forests of hemlock, maple 

 and other woods, which would give a source of 

 timber supply for some years to come. A good 

 portion of the pine has already been removed from 

 these lands, but of the other woods alone there 

 are hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth pro- 

 curable. Millions of feet of fine logs could be 

 secured with little trouble. 



In some places where lumbering operationr, 

 were conducted years ago a second growth of 

 timber has reached a stage of development which 

 greatly enhances the value of the land. The land 

 has never been visited by forest fires and conse- 

 quently the timber is in the finest possible con- 

 dition. 



FOR THE SWEET TOOTH. 



Ten years ago American imports of chocolate' 

 and cocoa, crude and manufactured, were valued 

 at some $3,000,000. They are now worth nearly 

 $10,000,000. About 85 per cent, of the entire sup- 

 ply comes in a crude state. Much the larger 

 part of the cocoa import is used for the manu- 

 facture of chocolate, which is only cocoa mixed 

 with sugar and some flavoring extract like cinna- 

 mon or vanilla. 



The world's crop of cocoa, or cacao, is 150,000 

 tons a year, and the United States takes more 

 than one-fifth of it. South America and the West 

 Indies are the chief sources of supply for both 

 Europe and the United States. Ecuador leads as 

 a producer ; Brazil is second and St. Thomas 

 third. Trinidad, Santo Domingo and Venezuela 



are also large -purveyors to the world's sweet 

 tooth. 



1 he use of cocoa and chocolate as table drinks 

 is growing, but the long jump in imports is due 

 mainly to the increased sale of chocolate in the 

 form of candies and confections. A few manu- 

 facturers maintain their prices for superior prepa- 

 rations, and there are many more persons than, 

 there were ten years ago who can afford to buy 

 the choicer grades. The cheaper qualities are now 

 made at prices which put them within the reach 

 of millions, and the millions evidently reach. 



LUMBERING IN MENOMINEE. 



In spite of the difficulty in securing the neces- 

 sary labor for the operations in the woods, the 

 output of timber for the season of 1900-07 in :vjt- 

 nominee county will be larger than that of the 

 previous winter. 



The mills of Menominee rely for their timber 

 upon individual jobbers. These as a rule have 

 men that the larger jobbers can not get, their 

 relatives, sons and others that would not go into 

 a large lumbering camp. The Spies Lumber Com- 

 pany, as well as the J. W. Wells and the Penin- 

 sula Box and Lumber Company, are buying all 

 of their timber from these small jobbers and will 

 secure as much of their timber for their next 

 season's run as they ever did. 



Crawford & Sons at Cedar River are the largest 

 operators in the country outside of the city of 

 Menominee. The firm has been logging all sum- 

 mer and its skidding is well under way at the 

 present time. The annual output of Crawford 

 & Sons is about -Jo Oim.ooo feet of lumber, besides 

 a large output of shingles from their shingle mill. 



The transfer of the Cedar River Land and 

 Lumber Company's holding in the northern part 

 of the county to the Oliver Mining Company, will 

 bring renewed activity to the village of Spalding- 

 where the mill is located. 



The Mashek Lumber Company will also opei- 

 ite extensively this winter having extended the 

 logging railway several miles during the last sea- 

 son. 



Nadeau Bros, and Ira Carley will put in or 

 Hermansville, will put in the same amount of 

 timber this winter as formerly. 



Nadeau rBos. and Ira Carley will put in or 

 buy all the timber that is on the market in their 

 territory, but will have some competition from 

 Pefrizo & Sons of Dagge'tt, who will stock the 

 mill of the old Lillie Lumber Company purchased 

 by them, at Talbot. 



FARM LANDS GOING UP. 



Farm lands in the United States have risen in 

 value more than 38 per cent, since 1900. This is 

 the average rise for the whole country. 



In the South Central States the increase has; 

 been 40 per cent, in the Western States 40 per 

 cent, in the South Atlantic States, 30 per cent, and 

 in the North Atlantic States 13 per cent. 



Cotton land showed the greatest increase, 

 amounting to 48 per cent. Hay and grain land 

 advanced 35 per cent, and stock farms 34 per 

 cent. 



The Department of Agriculture gives the fol- 

 lowing reasons for the increase : 



Rural free delivery, electric railways and good 

 roads. 



The movement of townspeople to the country. 



The pressure of population and the scarcity of 

 free land. 



Better and cheaper transportation and market 

 facilities. 



Better cultural methods, resulting in improve- 

 ment of the soil itself, by draining, fencing, bet- 

 ter fertilization, etc. 



VALUABLE LOG. 



A big black walnut log was recently fished from 

 the bed of an old mill pond near the North Amer- 

 ican Chemical Co.'s plant, at Bay City, and was 

 sawed into lumber at Hargrave's mill. The log 

 produced a small fortune, as black walnut is at 

 a big premium. Considerable amounts used to be 

 cut up by some of the Bay City mills handling 

 hardwood, one being located at the pond in ques- 

 tion. There arc undoubtedly thousands of dol- 

 lars' worth of walnut still in the river. 



