6 



THE STATE REVIEW. 



Devastation of Michigan Forests 



More than anything else, perhaps, the gigantic 

 scale on which the Stearns Salt & Lumber Com- 

 pany, of Ludintgon, is making preparations to 

 carve still greater fortunes from the hardwood 

 of the Stearns, Mitchell and Sands interests in 

 Kalkaska county alone are sufficient evidence 

 that the stirring tales of the Michigan "lumber 

 to be spoken of in the past tense. The operations 

 forests of the lower peninsula, shows that the 

 logging industry of lower Michigan is not yet 

 jack" are not soon to become mere traditions, 

 says the Grand Rapids Press. 



Instead of being a dead issue the elaborate and 

 expensive preparations of the Stearns company 

 teaches that lumbering in Kalkaska county has 

 settled from the feverish methods of earlier years 

 to a basis of conservative modern and almost per- 

 manent business. But in designing the most 

 unique and modern lumber camp equipment ever 

 introduced to the timber lands of the Wolverine 

 state the Stearns company has drawn from and 

 improved upon the methods of the southern lum- 

 bermen, who are already Michigan's greatest 

 competitors in the lumber field. Portable camps 

 ther.e have been in the timbered swamps of the 

 south, but no one ever before dreamed of rolling 

 a train of standard gauge railway sleepers, din- 

 ers, kitchen, sh^p, hospital and store cars into 

 the heart of Michigan's standing hardwood. No 

 camp ever before offered so many conveniences 

 and comforts to the hardy lumber jack. And this 

 fine portable camp, which was recently shunted 

 off the Pere Marquette Stratford branch at 

 Spencer and pushed into the heart of the cut- 

 tings along the company's own branch railroad, 

 was constructed for the exclusive operations in 

 three townships of Kalkaska county, where the 

 company will "fall" and "log" for a period of at 

 least fifteen years, and then discard and break up 

 the rolling stock that is the reigning novelty of 

 Michigan's lumber woods today. 



If Justus S. Stearns' logging experts followed 

 the southern idea of a portable camp, the similar- 

 ity ended there. For in no other way than that 

 the Michigan camp, like some of those of the 

 south, is on wheels, does the modern Stearns 

 camp resemble its prototype. The idea had been 

 found practical in the sotuh, but northern lum- 

 bermen long ago gave up the thought of adapt- 

 ing the portable t ;pe to , Michigan's requirements. 

 The tendency has been toward greater convenience 

 and comfort. Iron beds, springs and mattresses 

 replaced the old rough wooden bunks, and mod- 

 ern stoves took the place of the old boiler iron 

 heater in its box of sand, but the "walking 

 bosses" and owners were content that the men 

 should walk miles and miles between camp and 

 the "cuttings," with consequent loss of time and 

 needless exertion. 



It is in this regard that the new Stearns camp 

 excels. With its own right of way graded and 

 ties and rails laid to a point far beyond the pres- 

 ent center of operations, the portable' camp may 

 always be kept actually within sound of the 

 sweeping crash of the forest timber as it is 

 brought down by the woodmen's axes, saws and 

 wedges. Theic is no waste of time in getting to I 

 the scene of their labors, nor is there the long, 

 weary plod back to the shanty when the day's 

 work is done. The men can come in to a hot, 

 comfortable dinner. They can even sleep late j 

 and are consequently better refreshed and pre- : 

 pared for the hardships of work in the northern 

 woods. 



Nothing anywhere so near complete was ever 

 set down in the logging country of Michigan as 

 the eleven-car train in charge of "Walking Boss" 

 Robert Eastman that went from Ludington to 

 the Stearns company's spur to begin upon the 



fifteen years' "cut" in Oliver, Chelsea and Orange 

 townships di" Kalkaska county. There is no nickel 

 i)i- silver plating on this train. The cars are not 

 piano finished. They have practically no sp-in.^s. 

 In fact, they arc made t<> remain stationary ex- 

 cept at rare in nd then the moving i\ to 

 the accompaniment "f considerable creaking, jar- 

 ring and clattering of dishes and kitchen ware. 

 But the train is complete in point of necessities. 



: It is rough, warm and strong, if not particularly 

 hand-uine. It is steam-heated and what seems 

 strangely out of place, is equipped with Gould 

 automatic couplers. 



When the Stearns company determined to con- 

 struct a portable lumber camp much time was 

 spent in careful planning. The Pere Marquette 

 railway has recently discarded quite a number of 

 so-called low capacity flat cars. The cars were 

 good enough, but they did not have air brakes 

 or automatic clrawhcads and were of compara- 

 tively small capacity. Eleven of these the Stearns 

 company procured. They were cut in two at the 

 Ludington mills, lengthened and widened, strong- 

 ly trussed and equipped with new wheels and au- 

 tomatic couplers. When the car bodies were fin- 

 ished they measured 56 feet in length and were 

 l:.' t'eet in width, almost twice the size of the 



i original "fiats." Two of these cars were set' aside 



I for sleepers. One was the dining car, another 

 the kitchen car, a store car, blacksmith shop car, 

 boiler and pump car, two lounging room cars, 

 office and store car. 



In exterior finish the cars, except the sleepers, 

 resemble ordinary box freight cars. The sleepers 



, have cupolas running the entire length to better 

 ventilate the upper berths. Neither pains nor 

 expense was spared in the effort to make all 

 warm. Good lumber was used in both the outer 



, and inner sheathing. The space between was 

 filled with a special insulating paper which will 

 exclude the cold and make heating a simple mat- 

 ter with the big Gould car heating plant. 



In the sleeping cars there are two rows of bunks 

 on either side of a central aisle. The bunks are 

 two tiers high. There are thirty-six of these 

 bunks or berths in each car, and each bunk ac- 

 commodates two men. This makes the sleeping 

 capacity, with the beds for the bosses and "seal- 

 ers," fully 150. A feature of the sleepers lies in 

 the fact that good .springs and mattresses are pro- 

 vided. Special attention, was paid to ventilation 

 and the cars are believed to be more sanitary 

 than any permanent camp ever set up in the 

 Michigan woods. 



In the cook or kitchen cars are two big mod- 

 ern steel hotel ranges. Each has a water tank 

 and boiler which keeps a supply of hot water 

 always at the sink taps. Every available corner 

 and space is used for cupboards and storage, and 

 there is a temporary store room at the end of 

 the car opposite that through which the waiters 



| pass to the dining car. 



The dining car is a plain affair. The tables 

 extend almost across, leaving a narrow pa 

 way at one side of the car. The men sit at either 



; side of the tables and the car is designed to ac- 

 commodate the full complement of 150 men. The 



i men's lounging room cars take the place of the 



; sitting room of the ordinary camp. They are 

 equipped with chairs and tables, shelves for read- 

 ing matter and plenty of light and ventilation. 

 The store car is, as its name implies, a veritable 

 store where supplies are kept and material sold 

 to the men. Part of this car is given over to the 

 storage of tools', clothing and food supply of the 

 camp. The other part has its counter, shelves 

 and computing scales like the regular corner gro- 

 cery. Here are kept tobacco, matches, pipes, 

 cigars, cigarettes, clothing, underwear, socks, 

 shoes, gloves and even a little candy and a supply 

 of shotgun and -rifle cartridges. The men have 

 credit at this store and their "tabs" are deducted 

 from their wages by the paymaster. 



The so-called office car, because of one feature, 

 its hospital compartment, is perhaps the principal 

 feature of the whole camp. The entire car is di- 

 vided into four equal compartments, each 12x14 

 feet. The first of these is the hospital, a feature 

 hitherto unknown in the lumber camps. It is 

 supplied with every convenience. 



Another compartment will be an office for the 

 "walking foreman," and the gang foremen and 

 sealers. Here the figuring of the scale- will eb 

 carried on. The third compartment is a sitting 

 room for the foremen and sealers, and the fourth 

 a sleeping compartment for them. Then comes 

 the blacksmith shop car with its up-to-date forges, 

 and tools especially designed for the peculiar 

 work this shop is called upon to turn out. At 

 the end of the train is the healing and pump car. 

 In this a big horizontal boiler is mounted, which 

 furnishes heat for the entire train and steam for 

 certain varieties of cooking. Here, too, is a set 

 of powerful pumps that will take water from 

 artesian wells drilled from time to time at points 

 where the camp will be located. The steam-heat- 

 ing tubes are detachable between cars like regu- 

 lar passenger coach heating equipment. 



With the train there is a standard gauge loco- 

 motive, a former switch engine of the Pere Mar- 

 quette. The engine will handle the eighty special 

 type logging cars which belong to the company 

 and which will convey the cut of logs from the 

 scene of the woods operations to the mills at 

 Ludington. The company has a right of way ex- 

 tending into the forests for a distance of nineteen 

 miles from the Pere Marquette at a point nine 

 miles from Kalkaska and near Spencer. The 

 Stearns Salt and Lumber Company has already 

 contracted for the grading of nine miles of this 

 stretch and it is practically complete and ready 

 for the ties. Under their working agreement the 

 lumber company prepares the grade and lays the 

 tics and the railway company puts down the steel. 



This road is destined to take from the Stearns 

 portable camp some of the glamor and thrills 

 that were formerly inseparable from the logging, 

 operations. With the Stearns work there i 

 "running the river," that dangerous, exciting 

 work that follows the winter's cutting, when the 

 logs are sent down stream to the mills. The 

 railway will take the logs to mill. Modern log- 

 ging yokes will support the big timbers and mod- 

 ern pressed steel car wheels on modern rails will 

 tal-e the place of the swiftly flowing river. There 

 will be no "jams" and no spectacular work with 

 the cant-hook and "peavie," searching for the 

 key log. Other logging operations within five 

 miles of the Stearns camp still resort to the river, 

 but the up-to-date portable camp has robbed the 

 river of its part in lumbering. There are to be 

 no more long, hard hauls from cuttings to the 

 river. The rails go to the cuttings and the logs, 

 thereby, from cuttings to saws. Indeed, this is- 

 the portable camp's one foremost economical 

 virtue. 



(From the Michigan Investor.) 

 THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. 



Perhaps for the first time in the history of any 

 nation, the executive of the . United States has 

 proposed a form of taxation to the Congress for 

 the sole purpose of reducing wealth. Mr. Roose- 

 velt's suggestion that an income or inheritance 

 tax, or both be considered and passed does not 

 grow out of any necessity of the government, nor 

 is it to replace any other tax which is now levied. 

 It is simply intended to prevent, so far as it will' 

 be applied, the growth of fortunes to the point 

 where, in somebody's opinion, they arc a menace 

 to the safely of the people. Just how the Pres- 

 ident will have the tax applied is only hinted at in 

 the message. He suggests, it is true, a modest 

 tax upon small estates, which would seem to im- 

 ply that an immodest tax should be placed upon 

 large estates. Indeed, if but a modest percentage! 

 be levied upon the large estates when they pass 

 by death there would he no sensible diminution 

 of their aggregate, and the purpose for which the 

 tax was levied would fail. The larger the estate 

 created during a single life the more likely, un- 

 der the Rooseveltian theory, is its continuance to 

 be a menace to the balance of the public. Would 

 the President favor the cutting of such an estate. 

 in two? Where would he draw the line between 

 the small estates and the big ones? When does 

 a sum of money cease- to be safely small and at 

 what point does it become dangerously large? If 

 a million dollars be a source of danger by the. 

 control which it gives its possessor, is it any less 

 dangerous when it is fifty thousand or a hundred 1 



