MICHIGAN ROADS AXD FORESTS 



Michigan Forestry Association. 



The .Michigan Forestry Association was organized in Grand Rapids August 30, 190.3, having for its object the promotion of a rational system 

 forestry in Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers: President, John H. Bissell, of Detroit; Vice-President, R 

 Hanson, Grayling; Secretary, J. Fred Baker, Lansing: Treasurer, J. J. Hubbell, Manistee. Board of Directors Mrs. Francis King, \ima- Hon 

 Arthur Hill. Saginaw ; S. M. Lemon, Grand Rapids; H. X. Loud, Au Sable; Thos. B. Wyman, Munising; Prof. Filibert Roth, Ann Arbor. 



The State Forestry Commission Charles W. Garfield, Grand Rapids ; Hon. W. B. Mershon, Saginaw ; William H. Rose, Lansing. 



PROCEEDINGS ANNUAL 

 MEETING OF MICHIGAN 



(Continued from the November number.) 



CHARLES WILLIS WARD, OF SAGINAW, 



SUGGESTS AN EXCELLENT PLAN. 



The discussion on "Taxation on our For- 

 which followed the reading of Dr. ,Fer- 

 now's paper on the subject, was opened by 

 C. W. \Yard. of Saginaw, who read an inter- 

 esting paper on the subject. He said: 



Can a rational system of taxation of forest 

 lands be devised and effectively carried out in 

 Michigan that will put an end to the present 

 m of contiscat'iry taxation, and also en- 

 courage the beginning of reforestation enter- 

 prises by private enterprise and the investment 

 of private capital? 



The first immigrants to America found a 

 land covered with den- -. teeming with 



animals and birds of prey that were detri- 

 mental to the raising of domestic animals, or 

 Before agricultural pursuits could be 

 begun, the forest had- to be conquered, de- 

 stroyed, and thereafter warred against lest it 

 should repossess the lands reduced to cultiva- 

 tion. This constant fight begat in the breast 

 of the early agricultural worker a feeling of 

 hatred against the forest, which animosit3- has 

 been transmitted in a measure as a legacy to 

 the farmer of the present day. 



A certain degree of animosity has also been 

 bred among- the agricultural classes against 

 such timber owners as sought to preserve the 

 forest either as an investment or to prevent a 

 wasteful and rapid depletion of our forest re- 

 sources. The immense acres of woodland cov- 

 ering the Eastern States and concealing the 

 vast prairie regions of the middle west behind 

 its apparently impenetrable barrier seemed to 

 the pioneer agriculturist to be absolutely in- 

 exhaustible, and to him the preservation of 

 large timber areas seemed inexcusable, useless, 

 even almost a cnme, and he opposed and fought 

 such attempts with bitterness, and with all 

 the weapons at his command. 



For a time the forest lands were considered 

 of so little value that they were required to 

 -mail tribute in the way of taxes, but after 

 the agriculturist began to occupy considerable 

 portions of the land he found that increased 

 taxation upon timbered lands that were held 

 as investment properties frequently resulted in 

 the timber being removed and the lands be- 

 coming available for farming purp. - 



The farming class found the weapons of tax- 

 ation so efficacious in removing timbered areas 

 held for investment from its pathway that as 

 the settlement of the country proceeded, taxes 

 upon timbered lands were increased to such 

 an extent as to become so burdensome upon 

 the non-income producing forest as to amount 

 to partial confiscation and in later years ac- 



tually forced the cutting and marketing of im- 

 | mense quantities of timber that otherwise 



crkrcrc:Tr>w k c-c-/-v/-i *-rtf\*i ' would have been P reserv ed as permanent for- 

 -ORESTRY ASSOCIATION est investments. 



Michigan's System. 



In Michigan the system of assessing taxes 

 by local boards composed entirely of local 

 farmers, upon which the timber owner (usu- 

 ally a non-resident), had no representation 

 whatever, gave to the farmer class an absolute 

 control of the taxation of timbered lands, and 

 the timber owner was made to bear a burden 

 of taxes equaled perhaps in no other section 

 of the Union, and against this burden he found 

 himself powerless to find any redress, his only 

 alternative being to cut and sell his timber and 

 in many instances abandon his lands, which 

 reverted to the State, thereby founding the 12,- 

 000,000 acre area of waste lands that now dis- 

 figures the landscape of what was once one of 

 the richest and most beautiful forest states that 

 ever existed in any country on the globe. 



It has been said that an improvident child 

 will not miss its plaything until it has de- 

 stroyed it. and it may also be said that an im- 

 provident people will not miss its most prec- 

 ious resources until exhaustion is rapidly ap- 

 proaching. That we as a people have been 

 more improvident and wasteful of our once 

 vast resources of timber, stands as an incon- 

 trovertible fact, and yet with their exhaustion 

 so near at hand have we reached such an ap- 

 preciation of the immensity of the calamity 

 that we are about to hand down -to our de- 

 scendants as will enable us to bring about the 

 passage and enforcement of snch laws as will 

 induce the investment of either public or 

 private capital in reforestation and forest pres- 

 ervation projects and thereby begin to replace 

 and replenish that which we have so ruth- 

 destroyed? 



Son of a Michigan timber owner and one 

 who appreciated and even loved its noble 

 woodlands, perhaps more than almost any 

 other one of those who carved fortunes from 

 its vast pineries. I \va- born in a lumber camp 

 in 1857. my birth-place having been located on 

 the site of the present village of Alma. I have 

 witnessed the practical destruction of the pine 

 belt that lay north of Saginaw. and have all 

 my life been somewhat intimately connected 

 with one of the large holdings of Michigan, 

 and Wisconsin timber, and am therefore some- 

 what familiar with the early vicissitudes sur- 

 rounding the timber owner, as well as the 

 causes that so largely contributed in the rapid 

 destruction of much of their timber values and 

 removal of much of the capital derived there- 

 from to other states for investment. 



Some Inside History. 



Possibly it might prove interesting should I 

 divulge a little inside history as viewed from a 

 timber investor's standpoint. 



In 1880. the estate to which I refer consist- 



ed of something near 100,000 acres of land, es- 

 timated to contain approximately 900,000,000- 

 feet of pine and an unknown quantity of other 

 woods, such as maple, hemlock, elm, basswood, 

 birch, etc. 



"During the past 30 years this estate has paid 

 to the state of Michigan about $600,000.00 in 

 taxes, as near as I can estimate, yet how much 

 of this large tax collected has the state ex- 

 pended directly for the benefit of the property 

 from which this tax was collected? Not much 

 for fire protection, I am sure, for its owners 

 have always furnished their own fire patrol and 

 themselves fought the fires often kindled by 

 parties of careless sportsmen. Not in building 

 roads for the development of the property, be- 

 cause aside from a few miles of roadways, 

 which I believe its owners could have them- 

 selves constructed and maintained at a cost not 

 exceeding $18,000 to $20,000, they have borne 

 the burden of roadbuilding themselves. 



Not in the improvement of streams for run- 

 ning logs, for the building of dams and clear- 

 ing out of rivers has been done by the logger 

 himself except in one single instance where a 

 river improvement company was granted a 

 charter enabling it to collect tolls from all logs 

 run down the stream, and the loggers paid 

 back manyfold the cost of cutting out the snags 

 and driftwood which was the only improve- 

 ment made by the said improvement company. 



Now let us see what has been the result of 

 this method of treating a large timbered estate 

 whirh was being held for a permanent invest- 

 ment and this holding has resulted in preserv- 

 ing a large body of forest lands up to a time 

 when it is acknowledged that Michigan's 

 forests are to reach practical exhaustion with- 

 in a generation and its mammoth timber indus- 

 tries are about to become memories of the 

 past. 



In 1850 there were some 900,000,000 feet of 

 pine upon this tract. Today this has been re- 

 duced to 60,000.000 feet, or less than 7 per cent 

 of the original amount, and there remains less 

 than 500.000,000 feet of other woods. About 93 

 per cent of the other woods, and the area of 

 timber has been reduced nearly one-half. 



Tax Commission Unreasonable. 



N evertheless in spite of the reduction of the 

 timber on this tract, the tax commission of 

 your state has, within the past three years, 

 caused a close estimate to be made of every 

 kind of timber upon these lands, and they are 

 now assessed upon the value of this stumpage 

 computed from the market price of lumber for 

 the past year, and the sum paid for taxes for 

 the present year by this estate is nearly as 

 great as the sum paid in 1S80. when there stood^ 

 upon these lands not less than 800.000,000 feet 

 of pine timber more than stands there today. 



It would seem as if your tax commission was 

 not satisfied with the rapidity with which this 

 timber is being removed and it is disappear- 

 ing at the rate of 60,000,000 feet per year, and 



