THE STATE REVIEW. 



supervisor in the upper peninsula, for the pur- 



- >me for' 



town-hip. 1 asked the-c officials to do what 



can in their respective districts and to 



the township meetings. 



y literature. 



'.d-time lumbermen 



and - 1 in their districts. A num- 



and encouraging repi 

 thes 



Mr 'ling this 



pled by the recent report of 

 Mr. ; sire warden, who plai 



from the great confla^ 

 in the upper peninsula this year at about 



on the destruction 



of the mature stuff, while no attention what- 



the babies, and all 

 mi; - think most of the baby tr 



Mr. r.i>sell "In coming over to Grand Rap- 

 "day I r ;e distance with a 



prominent railway oifcial. who told me he had 

 been opening ome 1>K1- on white pine, pattern 

 lumber, and the price quoted wa- | 

 thousand. He told me that this inade him sit 

 up and take notice of the rapid appreciation 

 of timber values." 



"In those German di- - are 



r the forest regions, forest and farm, 

 farm and fort le everywhere. 



: and this diversity is an important point. The 

 better soil i- tilled and the farme 1 

 partly through th. and the work re- 



quired in their care. You will rind there local 

 industries. manufacturers, small mer- 



chants and thriving communities. It -eems to 

 me this ought to appeal to us in Mic! 



of the i northern Michigan 



have been contending that they didn't want 

 to be in the back r, but where 



could they be surer of greater prosperii 

 their sections of country than in the preserva- 

 tion of these fore- aers for factories 

 and the varied industri 



"Central Europe has forests that yield a 

 permanent revenue, a public sentiment that 

 backs up its fire laws, and prosperous people 

 : whose very existence depends on the forests 

 : themselves. When Michigan comes to realize 

 i that its non-agricultural lands should be grow- 

 i ing trees, that every industry of the state 

 would be affected thereby, she will have found- 

 ed her future prosperity on a rock, not in loose 

 sands." 



Prof. MulforcTs Experience. 



HE DESCRIBES THE CONDITIONS IN THE 

 STATE FORESTS OF GERMANY. 



Prof. Walter Mulford. of the University of 

 Michigan, was the next speaker, and he gave 

 ;i very clean-cut and happy presentation of the i 

 subject. "What I Saw of Forestry in Ger- i 

 many." Prof. Mulford said in part: 



"Germany and central Europe have forests 

 wherever there are waste lands. In the eastern 

 part of Prussia is located a large area of sand 

 plains, with patches of better soil, the land 

 being analogous to parts of Michigan. The 

 climate is no better than here and the soil is 

 no better. Indeed, it is not so good, for Prus- 

 sia has soil that will never make agricultural 

 lands. The population of Prussia is far more 

 dense than here, therefore the temptation to 

 <ut and the tire risk is greater. 



Similar to Michigan. 



ilar to Michigan we find in Prussia 

 forests that are young, middle-aged and old, ; 

 and they are coming on in regular procession. 

 its which regulate the stream-flow, which 

 furnish water-power. .supporting thriving i 

 populations and yielding good incomes to their 

 owner-. The net income of the forest land 

 ranges from Si to ?5 an acre annually, accord- 

 ing to circumstances, in Pr nd plains, 

 and you can readily figure what this would 

 mean to Michigan if such an income were ob- 

 tained from her waste land-. The Zurich for- 

 gave been managed since the ninth cen- 

 tury, and yield at least six per cent income 

 on the investment. These soils are better than 

 they were I.I 1 ago. 



Now, as to fires in German forests. I in- 

 quired of many people as to what special 



-'ires are taken, and the almost tin: 

 reply was that no special measures are taken, 

 and that they have no fires. Records show- 

 that an average of only 191 acres in an area of 

 a million acres has been burned over in the 

 fifteen years. Public sentiment is against 

 fires. The .people realize that their v 

 depends on the welfare of the forests. They 

 have good fire laws, and they are backed up 

 by strong public feeling. 



Question of Fires. 



"To refer for a mynent to conditions in our 

 own country. In a pine township in Connec- 

 ticut they have not suffered from forest fire 

 in 20 years while I know of another township 

 there that is half burned over every year. In 

 the pine township the timber is the people's 

 bread and butter, and is carefully looked after, 

 while in the other section tobacco-growing is 

 the leading industry, and the people pay no 

 attention to the timber. We must develop a 

 public sentiment in Michigan that will give 

 strong support to its fire laws. 



Prof. Filibert Roth. 



At the close of the Tuesday morning s; 

 President Bissell appointed a committee on 

 nominations as follows: H. X. Loud. Au 

 Sable; Prof. Filibert Roth. Ann Arbor: H. I. 

 Armstrong. Detroit: C. S. Udell, Grand Rap- 

 its; John Ihlder, Grand Rapids. 



PROF. ROTH'S PLEA. 



WHY CERTAIN LANDS SHOULD BE DE- 

 VOTED TO FOREST RENEWALS. 



Beautiful chrysanthemums loaned f:>r the 

 occasion by local florists adorned the presid- 

 ing officer's desk at the opening of the after- 

 noon session. The attendance had materially 

 increased since morning, and was representa- 

 tive of the best thought and culture of the 

 1 state. 



President Bissell appointed as committee on 

 resolutions the following: Arthur Hill. Sagi- 

 naw: Henry G. Stevens. Detroit: Thos B. Wy- 

 man, Munising: Mrs. I. C. Sharp. Jackson. 



Prof. Roth was the first speaker, the topic 

 being "The Situation in Michigan." 



"I have always felt," said he, apologetically, 

 "that there should be more doers than talkers 

 in meetings of this kind. The life of a nation 

 of people runs very much like the life of the 

 individual. Opportun li;s for good and bad 



come to every people, just as they con. 

 every person, and. as with the individual, it is 

 the wise I perhaps the lucky, too) who seize 

 the opportunities for good and succeed. A 

 young nation like ours, like the child. ch> 

 the glitter of today, and with child-1: 

 ifality, uses up and wastes what it 

 with an utter indifference to consequence and 

 future. A- '.he child, it often fails to 



see th .nity for good and mistakes the 



opportunity for evil, and glories in deeds which 

 later on prove serious error. 



An old people, such as the Chinese, like the 

 old man, tired of his struggles and reluctant 

 to change, allows all opportunity to pass along, 

 progressing in a slow senile degeneration. 



e opportunities for good come to a peo- 

 ple everj- day, but the great opportunities, 

 those which shape the future of a people for 

 centuries, are rare and far between, and to 

 mi>s them becomes historic error. Besides 

 being engaged in their private, corporate and 

 municipal affairs, the people of Michigan are 

 busying themselves today with primary re- 

 form, with questions of control or ownership 

 of public service corporations and other semi- 

 public enterprise, what is perhaps more im- 

 portant, we are on the eve of a revision of our 

 organic law. Here we have a number of im- 

 portant opportunities for good or evil; and 

 yet, if we fail in any one of these, it is merely 

 a matter of delay; if the Constitution of 1907 

 does not suit, we revise it in 1910. 



Opportunity of Forestry. 



But the opportunity which interests us to- 

 day is that of Forestry. It has been recog- 

 nized for the nation by several of our presi- 



! dents, and notably President Roosevelt. This 

 opportunity, in other states, has led New York 

 to spend millions in buying back what she 

 threw away a century ago; it has led Pensyl- 

 vania to start a campaign of buying her de- 



, nuded lands at prices up to $5 per acre, and 

 it has led our neighbor state, Wisconsin, to 

 declare all her state lands F'orest Reserve, and 

 even Indiana to establish forest reserves and 

 a state forestry system. 



The opportunity for forestry in our state is 



| not only by far the greatest opportunity before 

 the people, but, like real great opportunities 

 generally, it is one which will not return soon. 

 if ever, and the use of which will in part de- 

 termine the progress yes, the very life of our 

 people for centuries to come. 



This great opportunity for good, in the di- 

 rection of forestry, is a combination of circum- 

 stances. The principal factors in this com- 

 bination today are: First, a large area of 

 lands well suited by climate and soil and pres- 

 ent ownership to the growth of forest, and yet 

 not well suited to other forms of agriculture. 



' Second, a large home consumption, the best 

 of near-by markets, and the choicest system 

 of waterways to guarantee a steady and rising 

 market for all the forest can produce. And 

 the last but, perhaps, most important an 

 appreciation and a sentiment in favor of im- 

 mediate action in the direction of forestry 

 among all classes of our people. 



Some Considerations. 



regards our climate, nothing need be 

 said: nature has tried faithfully and p. 

 ently to heal over our fire-scarred waste 

 lands, and it is only through man's and the 

 -tale's perversity that all her kind efforts have 

 been set at naught. 



The question of the lands is different. It 

 needs to be considered from two standpoints, 

 natural condition of the land and that of own- 

 ership. 



Xo doubt many a Michigan man envied 

 Iowa her 95 per cent of excellent plow land; 

 but the story of Iowa is not yet finished, and 

 the day may come when most farmers in 

 Iowa wish that more of their land were forest 

 land and forest and they had a little home- 

 grown timber to use. 



In discussing this matter of land, much un- 

 necessary error and consequent feeling creeps 

 1 in and confuses the issue. The man who 



