MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



11 



ive, it has led to no good, and I think it is 

 high time that we change it. What we want is 

 to have those lands which have been to quite 

 an extent old timber lands. \Ve want lands 

 that have been no good to the people of Michi- 

 gan taken off the hands of the state, we want 

 to give it a chance to reforest them, and deal 

 with them in a businesslike way. 



The convention took a recess until 8 p. m. 



THE EVENING SESSION. 



It Was Devoted to Interesting Stories of the 



Forest. 



President Bissell announced that the first 

 number on the program for the evening would 

 be a paper by H. H. Chapman, who was pres- 

 ent to represent the United States forest ser- 

 vice. Mr. Chapman told the "Story of United 

 States Forestry," as follows: 



Mr. Chapman's Story. 



The great question with' which national for- 

 estry is concerned today is the proper handling 

 of those areas of public lands which have 

 been withdrawn from entry and set aside as 

 national forests. The national government has 

 today an area of nearly 160,000,000 acres thus 

 reserved. Were these reserves situated in the 

 east, they would be equivalent to the total 

 area of the states lying north of Xorth Caro- 

 lina and east of Ohio. And upon this im- 

 mense empire, the government is definitely 

 committed to the policy of forestry. 



We may well ask ''What is forestry, and 

 what does it mean to the west?" That ques- 

 tion in different forms has been asked unceas- 

 ingly in these western states since the national 

 forests were created. Forestry means there, 



elsewhere, the growing of timber and the 

 protection of timber from wanton destruction 

 by fire and axe. But if this were all it meant, 

 most of the western reserves would never have 

 come into existence. To these scattered com- 

 munities in the foothills and mountain valleys 



the west, the national forest areas are a 

 powerful factor for good or evil. These for- 

 ests control the supply of timber upon which 

 such settlements and settlers must depend for 

 fuel and buildings, and for the working of 

 local mines. The water needed in irrigation, 

 without which much of this western popula- 

 tion would disappear, flows largely from lands 

 within the national forests. Grass and forage 

 which will support immense numbers of cat- 

 tle and sheep lie within these same boundaries. 

 Each of these great industries, agriculture, 

 mining, grazing, helps to support western 

 homes. It has been the policy of the govern- 

 ment throughout the history of its land laws, 

 - to encourage the home-builder in every way. 

 and to increase the number of its' independent 

 and prosperous citizens. 



Encourage the Home Builder. 



Are the western national forests created in 

 furtherance of this policy, or are they a dis- 

 tinct reversal, and a wall to progress? How 

 do they affect the_ welfare of the west? Until 

 very recently it was thought best to allow 

 government timber lands to pass into the 

 hands of individuals as rapidly as possible, 

 through lenient and loosely interpreted land 

 laws. In this way, it was claimed, individuals 

 without means were given a start in life and 

 the timber brought into the market. So strong 

 was this spirit throughout the Lake States 

 that the government could never have suc- 

 ceeded here in establishing a reserve policy 

 similar to that of the west. Needless to say, 

 timber so acquired fell into the hands of large 

 owners, and when cut, the timber was taken 

 without regard to a second growth. 



The first protest against such a policy came 

 from a few far-sighted eastern enthusiasts, 

 who feared that it would ultimately lead to the 

 wiping out of our timber resources. Through- 

 out the eighties an agitation was kept up by 

 the American Forestry Association, which re- 

 sulted in nothing but arousing the wrath of 

 the public land committee for what they con- 



sidered as "impertinent meddling." Finally, 

 in 1891, a clause was slipped through, literally 

 in the night, as a rider on the bill repealing 

 the timber culture act, which gave the presi- 

 dent the power to withdraw any areas of pub- 

 lic land wholly or in part covered with timber, 

 and set them aside as national forests. This 

 power has never been modified until March of 

 this year, when in six western states, Congress 

 took over the right to create reserves. Under 

 this sanctioning clause, our Presidents Harri- 

 son, Cleveland, McKinley and Roosevelt have 

 each set aside and declared the government's 

 intention to hold for the people, immense 

 areas of western mountain lands and timber 

 that would otherwise have become the prop- 

 erty of large corporations. 



West Opposed Forestry at First. 



The movement has never retrograded, but 

 to say that it has met with no opposition 

 would be far from the truth. It has been the 

 main western question for years, and every 

 great extension of the reserves has aroused a 

 fresh outburst of furious criticism. How does 

 it happen then that today the position of the 

 national forests is more secure than ever be- 

 fore and the western public more than ever 

 united in their support? It can be attributed 

 to the wisdom of the policy that has been 

 shaped for these lands, and the fact that this 

 policy has accepted conditions as they existed 

 and has thrown open these forests to the 

 widest possible use by the people dependent 

 upon them. 



Fortunately for the forest reserves, the 

 lands set aside were never regarded as na- 

 tional parks. The essential principle of a park, 

 state or national, is scenery and not timber 

 production. The nation has its Yellowstone 

 and Yosemite parks and no timbe'r is cut 

 within these limits. The principle that the 

 timber on national forests was to be cut and 

 used, was consistently advocated by Dr. Fer- 

 now and the American Forestry Association 

 and has never been questioned. . 



But the development of the present well 

 rounded system of use has not been attained 

 without a tremendous effort. Many conflicting 

 interests must be harmonized, and what ap- 

 pears right to the irrigation farmer might not 

 meet the wishes of the large sheep owner, or 

 the miner. The law of 1891 did no more than 

 provide the right to establish reserves, and 

 while some 17,000,000 acres were set aside in 

 the two years following, these reserves were 

 chiefly in irrigation districts where there was 

 a practically unanimous demand. These re- 

 serves were not protected, for there was no 

 way to do it no law, no appropriation nor 

 could ?ny portion of them be legally made 

 use of for any purpose. Even the location of 

 mineral lands was prohibited. For six years 

 all efforts to get proper laws failed, and when 

 the big Cascade reserve was created in Ore- 

 gon, a vigorous opposition arose. The sheep 

 men found their industry threatened, and in 

 turn made war on the reserves in Congress, 

 backed by the entire political support of 

 Oregon. 



The National Policy Established. 



In this crisis, when it looked as if progress 

 was at a standstill, the Secretary of the Inter- 

 terior was moved to call upon the National 

 Academy of Science to appoint a committee to 

 outline a proper forest policy for the Govern- 

 ment and indicate the necessary legislation. 

 Upon this committee were five men. the 

 youngest of whom was Gifford Pinchot. Their 

 report was submitted to President Cleveland 

 shortly before his term closed in 1897, and 

 strongly urged the immediate establishment of 

 additional reserves, but, unlike many of the 

 first reserves, these embraced the better tim- 

 ber lands of the northwest. President Cleve- 

 land, without hesitation, created these reserves 

 and coming as it did, unexpectedly, his act 

 aroused fierce protest in the states affected, 

 especially as the forests reserved were still 

 regarded as closed areas by the western public. 



But the committee did not stop with this. 

 They declared that immediate legislation was 

 needed permitting the use of these reserves 

 and the law of June 4, 1897, which followed, 

 laid the foundation of \he national policy 

 of use. 



By this law it was declared that settlers 

 should have free use of timber for domestic 

 purposes, that mature timber whose removal 

 would benefit the forest should be sold, and 

 that mineral locations could be freely made 

 within reserves. More important still, it pro- 

 vided the machinery of protection, an organ- 

 ized force of supervisors and rangers the liv- 

 ing wall whose efficiency, increasing every 

 year, has made forest fires in the national for- 

 ests almost a thing of the past. 



But this efficiency was not attained without 

 the most severe fight of all. The government 

 lands had always been handled by the Land 

 Office in the Department of Interior, and there 

 the forest reserves remained. Now the Land 

 Office, as that true and upright man, Secretary 

 Hitchcock, discovered to his sorrow, was not 

 altogether free from political corruption, and 

 the condition of the reserves under the forest 

 supervisors was only a shade better than be- 

 fore. 



Pinchot's Brave Stand. 



But there was one man who had a definite 

 plan for our forests and the determination to 

 see it through. Gifford Pinchot had taken the 

 position of forester in the Department of Agri- 

 culture. His claim was, the national forests 

 should be in the hands of men specially trained 

 for the work, else these forests would be man- 

 aged without regard for the future, and over- 

 cutting would result. The forests must be cut 

 in a way that would insure a perpetual suc- 

 cession of timber crops. None but trained 

 foresters could be depended upon for these 

 results. The Department of Agriculture had 

 the only force of trained foresters in the gov- 

 ernment, and the Land Office had to call in the 

 Deoartment of Agriculture for technical ad- 

 vice. Therefore, the reserves should be trans- 

 ferred to the Department of Agriculture. 



But this was not to be for eight years, or till 

 the very recent date of 1905. Meanwhile, the 

 former land commissioner, Binger Hermann, 

 being hard pressed by the Forest Service and 

 others, secured the services of Dr. Roth, then 

 teaching at the Cornell Forest School, and 

 requested him to apply his efforts to the for- 

 mation of a proper policy for the control of 

 the reserves within the Land Office. No more 

 thankless task was ever undertaken than that 

 shouldered by Dr. Roth, who, single-handed, 

 attempted to force a corrupt and inefficient 

 body of supervisors into doing things they 

 neither cared about nor understood. His plan 

 was soon brought out, in the issue of the first 

 Forest Reserve Manual, laying down rules 

 governing every sphere of activity on the re- 

 serves. The very multiplicity of the duties 

 he thus heaped upon the heads of these unfor- 

 tunate supervisors, forced several of them to 

 resign through sheer discouragement. But 

 Dr. Roth soon saw, as did others, that as long 

 as the reserves remained under control of the 

 commissioner of the Land Office, they could 

 not be freed from political incompetents. So 

 he wisely left the Land Office to bear the re- 

 sponsibility for its own sins, and the state of 

 Michigan is the gainer for his decision. His 

 manual remains today, in all essential respects, 

 the basis for the management of the national 

 forests. 



Trained Forest Rangers. 



Before Mr. Pinchot, some two years later, 

 succeeded in securing the transfer of the re- 

 serves, he had, in a great measure, accom- 

 plished one of his chief objects the training 

 of a large force of men for the work. Many 

 of these men had spent years in the west in 

 examining and reporting upon areas for with- 

 drawal. Others had been at work studying 

 the characteristics of the most important tim- 

 ber trees, and making plans for the manage- 



