MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



thorough protection and thereby for its own re- 

 forestation, without the supply of green timber 

 being touched. That this will continue is evi- 

 dent and in le-^s than :>o years this same land 

 will pay the state interest on over $5 per acre and 

 still continue to reforest itself. Compare this 

 with the method of selling these lands at $1.20 

 per acre to be skinned of their timber and then 

 left to revert to the state for taxes. Does the 

 state do this? Yes. during the last four years it 

 sold over 700.000 acres of just such lands, and 

 much better ones besides, at just this price. Five 

 doltars an acre would have been cheap. But 

 then, 'reforestation is one of these vague, proble- 

 matical things which hinders the development of 

 the countrv." 



plant corn, wheat and potatoes. The work is al- 

 ready being done in isolated cases. 



WASTE LAND COMMISSION 



The Marquette Mining Journal in discussing 

 Michigan's new "waste land commission," says: 



"Should the commission decide to outline a 

 forest policy there would undoubtedly be consid- 

 erable opposition by interested parties to its adop- 

 tion. Such opposition was once open and bla- 

 tent : it is now secret and quiet. For its argu- 

 ments have been shown to be either knowingly 

 false or based upon misapprehension. Such a for- 

 est policy as is advocated by the Michigan For- 

 estry Association and W the forestry commission 

 does not contemplate withdrawing agricultural 

 lands from settlement, it does not involve reduc- 

 ing the revenues of any county, it does not lead 

 to turning the country into a wilderness. 



:c-ad it would encourage settlement wher- 

 ever there is a large enough area of fertile land 

 to support a farmer, for one reason because sec- 

 tions 'of cleared land in a forest are great pro- 

 tections against fire: it might well increase the 

 revenues of many of our northern counties, for 

 there is no reason why the state, like the fed- 

 eral government, should not pay the counties a 

 percentage of all receipts from the sale of tim- 

 ber and other products. And a small percentage 

 on very small sales will be infinitely better than 

 the less than no revenue now derived from fire 

 scarred wastes: it would make these regions the 

 work-ground of many men who would earn good 

 wages and spend them in towns where earrers 

 df good wages are now few and far between. The 

 persons who would be injured by a rational forest 

 policy are the land shark who now is able to 

 take state property without paying for it, and 

 he is entitled to ro consideration." 



President Graham appointed the following 

 committees : 



Land Laws and Their Administration Carl E. 

 Schmidt of Detroit, and Francis King of Alma. 



Forest and Land Conditions Physical A. E. 

 Palmer of Kalkaska, and Dwight B. Waldorf of 

 Kalamazoo. 



Reforestation and Protection C. V. R. Town- 

 send of Xegaunee. and George B. Horton of 

 Fruit Ridge. 



Taxat'on Wm. E. Osmun of Montague, and 

 k of Owosso. 



MICHIGAN MUST AWAKE. 



Michigan's pine barrens are an example of the 



waste territories that are created by the ruthless 



removal of the forests. Efforts are now being 



made toward reclaiming them, but it is a slow and 



tedious process, when compared with the speed 



with which these lands were denuded of their 



timber. Nor are the pine barrens the only pan 



of Michigan which must suffer because rendered 



timberless. The few wooded tracts in the south- 



i em portion of the state are rapidly disappearing 



and no effort is being made to replace them. The 



removal of this influence in regulating rivers and 



streams and in equalizing climate is bound to be 



felt, indeed has been felt already in the way of 



freshets which now speedily follow a moderately 



heavy rainfall, where but a few years ago such 



experiences were comparatively unknown. '1 he 



| people of Michigan some day will awake to the 



I knowledge that the pine barrens of the state are 



! by no means the only section of the state where 



i reforestation should be undertaken. Lansing 



I State Republican. 



WISCONSIN STARTING RIGHT. 



The Legislature of Wisconsin has appropriated 

 $10.ooo for the purchase of land at tax sales. The 

 law provides that land to be sold for taxes within 

 a specified area shall be offered to the Public 

 Land Commission before it can be sold to any- 

 body else. Land so acquired by the state is to be 

 added to the State Forest Reserve. This bears 

 many marks of being an excellent scheme worthy 

 of general adoption. 



_ There can be no question of the value and de- 

 sirability of national forests on national reserves. 

 A like advantage appears in state forests on state 

 reserves. The proposition does not involve com- 

 pulsory purchase by the state of all lands upon 

 which taxes are unpaid. The purchase is optional. 

 A tract of sufficient size and of suitable charac- 

 ter could be purchased and unsuitable tracts be 

 declined. The purchased tracts could be planted 

 with trees with a view to a future timber supply 

 and incidentally with a view to revenue for the 

 state. 



The time will doubtless come when men will 

 plant forests as a business just as other men now 



WISCONSIN'S LARGEST ELM. 



''I believe that Appleton has the largest elm 

 tree in Wisconsin," writes ?.n observer. "About 

 five feet from the ground the body of the tree 

 measures 153 inches in circumference; about six 

 feet above the ground the body of the tree 

 branches and forms two large trunks, both of 

 which are the same height, branching in all di- 

 rections. 



"The branches spread and slightly droop and 

 extend over a space 78 feet in diameter, making 

 a 245 foot circle. The area covered by the shade 

 of the leaves of this mammoth tree is 477 square 

 feet. Allowing two and one-quarter square feet 

 to a man, 2.123 men could stand in the shade of 

 this tree if the sun shone directly from the zenith. 

 Xo limbs have been trimmed from its trunk and 

 it seems to be sound to the center. 



"Xo house has ever been built on the lot for 

 the tree stands just where a house would natur- 

 ally be erected. When its foliage is full grown 

 there is perhaps no tree in existence that has a 

 greater breathing and absorbing capacity than 

 this statelv elm of our citv." 



was removed. Ail of the white pine n. 

 | standing in the state, and much of it is tov 

 j small to be caned merchantable timber, is 

 only about haif as much as was cut in a. 

 I single year of the period between 180 and 

 189,). when Michigan \va-s the greatest pine 

 producing state in the union. The remaining 

 I forests are almost exclusively hardvvood, of 

 ' which the bulk is hemlock and maple. There 

 j is considerable cedar, some spruce and a lit-' 

 | tie oak. Other desirable species are fonnd in 

 too small a quantity to be reckoned as timber 

 assets. ' 



In quantity half and in quality all of the 

 timber in Michigan may be said to be in the 

 hands of private owners. But one state re- 

 serve worth mentioning has been created. 

 The state's timber holdings are limited to cut 

 or burned over lands, "pine barrens,'' upon 

 which no one can be found who is willing to 

 pay taxes for the title. Minnesota and Wis- 

 consin have been much less improvident in 

 the use of this great asset. In Wisconsin the 

 lumbermen own only one-seventh of the stand- 

 ing timber and in Minnesota but one-fifth. 

 It is too late for Michigan to save her forests 

 for future needs and rising values. They are 

 nearly exhausted and the little that remains; 

 is being felled as rapidly as the few mills can 

 saw it. 



The state itself has nothing out of this 

 ' once vast resource to call its own worth own- 

 ing. A few reserves wisely established twenty 

 years ago would now be worth millions of 

 dollars to the people. But they stood indif- 

 ferently by and permitted the golden oppor- 

 tunity to pass. Their mistake now presents 

 a melancholy picture of improvidence and 

 neglect. Yet it is doubtful if. in the light of 

 this experience, they would do differently if 

 , the opportunity presented itself again. It 

 would 'be another case of "grab, boys grab." 

 The get-rich-quick fever is still dominant. It 

 still prevents a sober and judicious conserva- 

 tion of natural resources. It also stands in the 

 way of a rehabilitation of these resources, 

 and we find to-day the state as indifferent 

 towards reforestation as it was towards the 

 forests when it possessed them and let them 

 go. Saginaw Xews. 



MICHIGAN MEN IN ACTUAL SERVICE. 



Though only four years old the Forest School 

 at the University of Michigan has to-day 25 men 

 in the United States Forest Service, one in the 

 Philippine Forest Service, and one has just ac- 

 cepted the position cf Professor of Forestry at 

 the University of Xebraska. 



According to the field program of the United 

 States Forest Service for August, 1907, (and 

 these programs, by the way, are very interesting 

 reading to all friends of forestry ) twelve Michi- 

 gan men were promoted, which for a few of 

 them means the third promotion since entering 

 service. 



The greater part of these men are at work on 

 the Western Forest Reserves, where their Uni- 

 versity training ought to help them in overcom- 

 ing some of the great difficulties in handling for- 

 ests in rugged mountain countries with all ex- 

 tremes of climate. 



MICHIGAN'S TIMBER RECORD. 

 According to federal statistics there are 

 35,000,000,000 feet of standing timber in Mich- 

 igan, of which it is estimated that more than 

 50 per cent belongs to lumbermen. This if 

 less than one-half of the amount of white pine 

 alone cut since 1873. In other words, in a 

 little more than thirty years, over two-thirds 

 of Michigan's forests were stripped clean. But 

 this does not tell the true story of the timber 

 situation of to-day in relation to the record of 

 the past. What has been cut was the cream 

 of the vast woods that once covered the 

 northern portion of the lower peninsula. The 

 bulk of it was white pine, commercially the 

 best timber product in its time found any- 

 where in the United States. What is left is 

 dross in comparison with the value of what 



HEMLOCK BARK IN DEMAND. 

 The" rush of the hemlock bark peeling seas- 



. on is now on, and hundreds of men between Bay 

 City and the Straits of Mackinaw are engaged 

 in this industry. A large number of men are also 

 employed north of the straits. All the hemlock 

 logs cut to be manufactured are stripped of their 

 bark which is worth $7 a cord in the market. 

 Men are paid about $2 to $2.25 a cord for peel- 



: ing, and some lumbermen pay $2 a day where 

 they employ their own men and run their own 

 camps. Many contracts for peeling are t^ken 



' by the cord. " Frank Buell has 10,000.000 '";et of 

 hemlock logs to be stripped of their ,^rk and 

 has 150 men engaged in the work. vneeland- 

 Bigelow Co., has a number of miinon feet of 

 logs to be peeled and lets the contract for the 

 entire lot at a stated sum a cord. The season 

 for peeling opens in May and closes in August. 

 It is estimated that more than 150,030,000 feet 



' of hemlock will be cut this year in the region 

 north of Bay City and the bark peeling gives 

 work to a whole army of men. 



Nearly every lumberman in this region cuts 



: more or less hemlock and hence there is a lot 

 of bark to peel and handle. 



Aside from the two firms mentioned, there is 

 scarcely a firm on this river but has more or 

 less hemlock logs to convert into lumber, and 

 these must be peeled. Charles Kuehl, of Sagi- 

 naw, handles a good many thousand cords of 

 oarV, and so do H. M. Loud's Sons Co., at An 

 Sable, three or four concerns at Alpena, the Em- 

 bury-Martin Lumber Co. and M. D. Olds & Co., 

 at Cheboygan, and all of the lumbermen operat- 

 ing on the line of the Mackinaw division of the 

 Michigan Central railroad. There is a tannery 

 company* at Alpena and another at Cheboygan, 

 which handles a number of thousands of" cords of 

 bark each. All in all it is an industry of snb- 



' stantial proportions. 



