12 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



REFORESTATION 



AND THE PRESS 



Forestry matters were taken up for discus- 

 sion at the recent meeting of the Northern 

 Michigan Press Association, held at Traverse 

 City, and Perry F. Powers, of Cadillac, former 

 auditor general; E. L. Sprague and .T. T. 

 Bates, of Traverse City, were among the 

 speakers. Mr. Powers stated that while he 

 was friendly to the reforestation movement 

 he did not believe that the state should make 

 any radical departure from its present method 

 of dealing with its lands. 



The attention of Charles W. Garfield, presi- 

 dent of the Michigan Forestry Commission, 

 was called to the position of Mr. Powers, 

 and he replied: 



"Really, I can't see how men can commend 

 the state forestry movement and at the same 

 time approve of the present method, or lack 

 of method, in handling the state lands Under 

 the present plan there is no material reduc- 

 tion in the holdings, apd the returns are 

 largely inadequate as.- compared with the ex- 

 pense of the proc6ed.rrigs,. 



"To illustrate this point: The reports show 

 that since the present law went into effect, 

 providing for deeding to the state of delin- 

 quent tax lan^s, and their sale by the land 

 commissioner, i there has been disposed of 

 782,721 acres, and the anfount received there- 

 for is $860,340, or a little- over a dollar an 

 acre. Now, with no material reduction in 

 the general volume of these lands in the hands 

 of the state, this does not seem to be a 

 very good business policy, for under state 

 authority certain of these lands are being re- 

 forested in a very economical manner, and 

 still the cost is something over $6 an acre 

 to start the young forest on its way. 



"The objection to reforestation of lands in 

 any locality because it may injure for the 

 time being the present farm holdings in the 

 vicinity is unworthy of consideration as an 

 argument. In any plan of timber growing on 

 a large scale somebody will be injured for a 

 time. The same thing is true in the develop- 

 ment of a street or drain, or a thousand other 

 public utilities. Michigan is looking out for 

 all its people in adopting its land and forest 

 policy. I must confess that it is rather dis- 

 heartening to have petty selfish interests stand 

 in the way at the time of the adoption of a 

 general plan by the state which would be of 

 incalculable benefit to all the people. 



"It has been suggested that grave injury 

 has been done to Roscommon county from 

 the reforestation policy; but Roscommon has 

 been helped, not hurt there's no question 

 about it. Roscommon has already been ben- 

 efited by the forest reservations far more than 

 if the land had been handled in any other 

 method that I know of. If the legislature 

 had seen fit to set aside twelve townships 

 in western Roscommon and southwestern 

 Crawford counties when the plan was first 

 broached twenty-five years ago, Roscommon 

 today would be worth many hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars more than it is, and the 

 expense of reforestation would have been met 

 entirely by revenue from these lands. The 

 truth of the statement can be demonstrated 

 beyond the shadow of a doubt, and the sooner 

 the state enters upon some definite forest 

 policy, which involves a clearly defined method 

 of handling the state lands in a business way, 

 the better it will be for the whole state, and 

 as well for any portion of the state taken 

 for forestry purposes. 



'The men who decry any change in the 

 ways of handling public lands would do well 

 to look into the land and forestry policies 

 in other countries and note the effect upon 

 any immediate locality of giving up lands 

 largely to the growing of a crop of timber. 

 Unquestionably large areas of Michigan 

 lands will produce greater wealth in given 

 time planted to trees than under any other 

 method of treatment. As a result of a well 



thought out forest .policy there are many lo- 

 calities which would in a few years support a 

 considerable population, which under the most 

 approved methods of agriculture would sup- 

 port only a sparse population, and that in a 

 very indifferent way. 



"There is no use in theorizing about the 

 agricultural value of these lands. We only 

 need to look at similar lands in other parts 

 of our country for an example of the fu- 

 tility of using them for farming purposes. 

 Similar lands near great centers of popula- 

 tion along the Atlantic coast from Charleston 

 to Boston, where there is eVcry advantage of 

 great markets to assist in making lands profit- 

 able, and with hundreds of years of oppor- 

 tunity these lands have remained practically 

 abandoned. On the other hand, lands of this 

 character in Germany, Austria, France and 

 Switzerland, which have been managed under 

 a national system of forestry, have proved 

 valuable directly to the people engaged in 

 their development, and of immense indirect 

 value by furnishing raw material for great 

 industries that otherwise could not exist. 



"The question of growing timber enough 

 to support the wood working industries of 

 Michigan is alone of tremendous importance. 



"The forestry plan is a business proposi- 

 tion, pure mrd simple. What would a busi- 

 ness wan do with like holdings? He would 

 sorl his lands, and he would put his non- 

 agricultural lands into a permanent forest re- 

 serve. Most of the lands bought of the state 

 are bought by men who know better than 

 the state does the value of the land, or rather 

 the value of the growing timber on the land. 

 The state is not in a position at present, 

 with its lack of knowledge of its own prop- 

 erty, to make proper deals in its real estate. 

 It ought not to have any right to play into 

 the hands of scheming buyers any longer, at 

 the expense of all the people. 



"It has been demonstrated that any land 

 with the present prices for forest products 

 is worth $5 per acre for the purpose of grow- 

 ing trees. If by placing this minimum price 

 on state lands it will prevent their whole- 

 sale purchase for the purpose of skinning the 

 timber off, with a result that a majority of 

 the descriptions are returned to the state with 

 all the value taken out of them as far as 

 timber growth is concerned, the plan will have 

 immediate and lasting effect for the good 

 of all." 



BIG MONEY IN HEMLOCK BARK. 



The shipments of timber cut during the past 

 winter in the territory between Negaunee and 

 Escanaba will be wound up within two or 

 three weeks. The operators have had a fairly 

 god season, but are later than usual in clean- 

 ing up their winter's cut, as there was a 

 car shortage during the early part of the 

 season. 



As soon as the swamps and roads dry u;> 

 most of the operators below Negaunee will 

 have as many men at work as during the 

 greater part of the winter season, as the de- 

 mand for hemlock bark and cedar poles was 

 never better. The tannery at Kenosha, Wis., 

 is now paying $8.75 per cord for bark, this 

 being an advance of seventy-five cents over 

 last season. The prices offered for cedar poles 

 and ties are also larger than ever before. The 

 operators can make good money on their bark. 



A logging operator says that at $8.75 per 

 cord the jobbers should clean up from $2 to 

 $2.50 per cord on their output of hemlock 

 bark, and still have their timber left. He 

 says that there will be from fifty to one hun- 

 dred per cent more men working on the bark 

 contracts this summer than during any previ- 

 ous season, and that the cutting of timber 

 for winter delivery will start earlier than usual 

 next fall. 



From present indications there will be big 

 money to be made in logging the coming' year, 

 is the prices are gradually climbing up. The 

 increase last year, according to a Negaunee 

 timber man, on the prices of timber of ail 



kinds was about. 30 -per cent, and the advance 

 this year will be at least 20 per cent, if not 

 more. While operating expenses have also 

 increased, the advance has not been as large 

 as the increase in the prices of the timber. 



MICHIGAN'S TIMBER PRODUCTS. 



The director of the census announces the 

 following preliminary report on the produc- 

 tion of lumber, lath and shingles in Michigan 

 for the calenedar year ending December 31, 

 1906. Statistics concerning the production of 

 lumber and timber products have heretofore 

 been collected in connection with the decennial 

 and quinquennial censuses of manufactures. 

 To satisfy the urgent demand for more fre- 

 quent information relating to these important 

 products, the Forest Service, of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, collected statistics per- 

 taining to the production of 1905. The total 

 cut of lumber in 1906 was 2,094,279,000 feet, 

 as against 1,719,687,000 feet in 1905. The pro- 

 duction of lath in 1906 was 317,395,000, com- 

 pared with 221,386,000 the previous year an.l 

 of shingles 915,153,000 for 1906, as against 875,- 

 051,000 in 1905. 



ROOSEVELT'S GREATEST POLICY. 



In resisting the limitless greed of the land 

 grabbers and squaters, in working powerfully 

 to prevent the spoliation of the property of 

 the property of the United State, in safe- 

 guarding as far as possible for future use 

 the timber lands and fuel lands still owned 

 by the government, President Roosevelt is 

 doing only his duty the first and most ob- 

 vious duty of his office as national custodian. 



The President's perception of the magnitude 

 of this question, surpassing in importance 

 every other enterprise that has engaged his 

 attention, was clearly declared in one of his 

 two speeches at Jamestown on Monday. He 

 marshalled in orderly array the kindred prob- 

 lems, the reclamation of the arid lands, the 

 nreservation of the waters which head in the 

 Rocky Mountains so as to make them of most 

 use to the people as a whole, the utilization of 

 the inland waterways as channels of traffic and 

 the protection of the natural resources of the 

 public lands from fraud, waste and encroach- 

 ment; and then, in this striking fashion, he 

 went on to present them thus correlated as a 

 single problem: 



"They are connected together into one great 

 fundamental problem that of the conservation 

 of all our natural resources. Upon the wise 

 solution of this much of our future obviously 

 depends. Even such questions as the regula- 

 tion of railway rates and the control of cor- 

 porations ' are in reality subsidiary to the 

 primal problem of the preservation in the in- 

 terests of the whole people of the resources 

 that nature has given us. If we fail to solve 

 this problem no skill in solving the others will 

 in the end avail us very greatly." 



No truer generalization was ever drawn, nor 

 was any great task ever described that is 

 worthier of the energies of a statesman. The 

 position of the President is unassailable. The 

 people are with him and will be with him to 

 the end in the execution of hfs policy of de- 

 fending and utilizing to the best advantage 

 that which is the nation's own. New York 

 Sun. 



FEEDING TREE TRUNKS. 



Mr. Simon, owner of an estate at Allaire, 

 Morbihan, France, having proved that the 

 death of numerous apple trees was the re- 

 sult of an affection of the rootlets, render- 

 ing them unable to draw from the ground 

 the elements necessary for the life of the 

 tree, conceived the idea of artificial nutri- 

 tion by injecting directly into the trunk a 

 liquid that might replace the sap. 



The results were very satisfactory, and 

 other trees, and even cabbages, cauliflower 

 and potatoes, have been similarly treated. 



