12 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



MATCHES USE UP MUCH FINE TIMBER 



The civilized nations of the world strike 

 three million matches every minute of the 

 twenty-four hours. Nearly one-half of these 

 are ignited in this country. Americans use up 

 the enormous total of seven hundred billion a 

 year, and have a larger match bill than any 

 other nation in the world, says Forsetry and 

 Irrigation. 



Hundreds of factories over the country are 

 engaged in this industry, about which the gen- 

 eral public knows but little. Some of the 

 plants are very large; one on the Pacific coast 

 Covers 240 acres, and has thirty-two miles of 

 railroad to supply the match machines with 

 200,000 feet of sugar pine and yellow pine logs 

 a day. 



A statement of the number of cubic feet of 

 wood which actually is converted into matches 

 each year would convey only an inadequate 

 idea of the number of trees required for the 

 industry. For the manufacture of the match, 

 the best grade of wood is necessary. Sap- 

 wood, knotty, or cross-grained timber will not 

 do. This makes it necessary to search the 

 best forests and pick out the choice trees only, 

 and nothing but the choice portions of the 

 choice trees go to the match machines. It 

 may be seen that the lumberman sweeps over 

 a wide area in search of suitable timber to 

 feed into the match machines. 



Seldom is the little splinter tipped with sul- 

 phur given even a scanty mention in the con- 

 sidering the depletion of the world's finest for- 

 ests; yet the manufacturers of these little fire 

 sticks are as much concerned over the timber 

 supply question as any other class of wood- 

 workers. No scraps or left-over material can 

 be put into matches. This is because the wood 

 has to be cut into such extremely small por- 

 tions, each of which must be strong enough to 

 avoid breaking when the match is scratched. 

 Therefore the rejected timber from the match 

 factories is good enough to be made into many 

 articles of a larger size; and the by-product 

 end of the match business becomes the largest 

 end, so far as bulk is concerned. Among the 

 by-products turned by the large Pacific Coast 

 factory just mentioned are 1,000 doors and 800 

 sashes daily. 



As a matter of fact, it would be impossible 

 to carry on the match business at all, at pres- 

 ent prices, if the rejected lumber were not 

 worked into something else. The room where 

 matches are made is frequently the smallest 

 department of a match factory. The larger 

 portions contain the sawmills and planing mills 

 where doors, sash, shingles, lath, siding, posts, 

 cordwood, and many other salable commodi- 

 ties are made ready for market. 



This country, although it has the most abun- 

 dant material and the finest machinery in the 

 world for the purpose, does not manufacture 

 enough matches to supply the home market. 

 Thousands of dollars' worth are annually im- 

 ported from Germany, Austria, France, Swe- 

 den, and other countries where they are made 

 by cheaper labor and poorer machinery, and 

 usually from higher-priced wood, though it is 

 not better than what is grown in the American 

 forests. The imports are largely safety 

 matches, which can be struck only on the box 

 or other specially prepared surface. 



Wood for matches is a much more serious 

 problem in some of the European countries 

 than it is as yet in the United States. The 

 most suitable match timbers are pine, linden, 

 aspen, white cedar, poplar, birch, and willow. 

 Others, however, are occasionally used. Ger- 

 many imports willow and aspen from Russia. 

 Some time ago the German match manufac- 

 turers petitioned the minister of agriculture 

 to cause the foresters to plant aspen in the 

 state forests to supply wood for matches with- 

 out importing it. A similar petition to their 

 government was presented by the French 

 manufacturers of matches, who wanted a home 

 supply. At the same time the Russian manu- 

 facturers of matches asked their government 

 to take measures to chock the export of match 



wood to foreign countries, because the mater- 

 ial was needed at home. 



In the United States, as well as in Canada, 

 a diligent search for choice forests is main- 

 tained, and very large tracts have been bought 

 by companies in the match business, not only 

 to meet present demands, but to provide for 

 years to come. In a single year one match 

 company cut 225 million board feet of pine in 

 the Lake region. The cut in that instance was 

 exceptionally large, however, in order to save 

 timber which was threatened by the ravages 

 of a bark beetle. There are more than 150 

 match manufacturers in the United States, and 

 about half that number in Canada. 



Matches are manufactured in many ways 

 and with numerous kinds of machines, and for 

 that reason a description of an operation in 

 one factory would not apply to another. 

 Nearly every manufacturing company has ma- 

 chinery made specially for its use, and covered 

 by patents, and it also employs processes dis- 

 covered or devised by its own chemists and 

 mechanics, and kept secret to prevent rivals 

 from obtaining and profiting by them. Some 

 time ago an .American company sold the right 

 to use its special machines in France, .obtaining 

 $100,000 in cash and an equal sum yearly as 

 royalty. This shows how much depends on 

 the machines, and how much a match manu- 

 facturer will pay to get the best. Only by 

 using the best that is obtainable is competition 

 possible. A single machine has been known to 

 turn out 177,926,400 matches in one day, boxed 

 and labeled ready for shipment. 



Some matches are shaved with the grain 

 from sawed blocks, some are cut both ways by 

 saws. In some factories the blocks are boiled 

 to make them cut easily. By some machines 

 a boiled or steamed log is revolved on its own 

 axis and a shaving the thickness of a match 

 is cut round and round. This shaving is at the 

 same time cut into lengths and split into match 

 sticks. There is hardly a limit to the varieties 

 of methods employed. Round matches are 

 made by forcing them through dies. The Jap- 

 anese make paper matches, which are wood 

 after all. 



In common with other industries of the 

 United States which depend upon existing for- 

 ests, the match-makers are within sight of a 

 shortage in the wood supply. When present 

 timber holdings have been depleted, they can 

 not be duplicated. If forced to economize, the 

 people of ths country might get along with 

 fewer than twenty-five or thirty matches a day 

 per capita as at present; but they will probably 

 insist on having them, and will demand, as in 

 Germany and France, that foresters plant and 

 grow timber especially for matches. This 

 could readily be done if forests were placed 

 under competent management and not left to 

 run wild, producing cordwood and brush when 

 they ought to grow merchantable timber. 



LOUISIANA'S NEW FORESTRY LAW. 



If the legislation of Louisiana passes the 

 forestry law proposed by Governor Blanchard 

 of that state, it will be the most advanced step 

 yet taken by any state to regulate timber cut- 

 ting on private lands. By the terms of the 

 statute, the cutting of trees under 12 inches in 

 diameter, four feet from the ground, will not 

 be permitted. The law does not apply to 

 those who, in good faith, wish .to clear the 

 land for agricultural purposes, or who need 

 the timber on the ground for roads or ditches, 

 or in case of an owner or tenant who uses the 

 wood for domestic purposes. 



The lumberman will be required to fell his 

 trees in a way to cause least damage to young 

 timber, and the refuse must not be left where 

 its presence will invite fires or otherwise en- 

 danger the small trees. The penalty provided 

 for violations of the proposed law is a fine of 

 $25 to $100 for each offense, and imprisonment 

 may be added. Each tree wrongfully cut will 

 constitute a separate offense. 



The proposed law not only delimits offenses 

 and names penalties, but also sets forth the 

 reasons why such a law is thought advisable. 



Timber is becoming scarce, it says, and ought 

 not be needlessly wasted. Forest destruction 

 will carry with it other evils besides dearth of 

 wood. It will cause destruction, soil erosion, 

 and increase floods and draughts, to the dam- 

 age of the whole people. The forests ought 

 not be wholly cut down, the proposed law fur- 

 ther says, because they assist in obstructing 

 disastrous tornadoes. 



The supreme court of Maine recently ruled 

 that that s.tate may lawfully restrict the clear- 

 ing of privately owned forest land, if the pub- 

 lic would be injured by such clearing. Louis- 

 iana's proposed law goes still further in the 

 same direction and follows the lines of the 

 opinion rendered by the Maine supreme court. 

 It is worthy of note that the two states which 

 are first to take this advanced stand in forest 

 protection are fifteen hundred miles apart and 

 have forests not at all alike in character, dif- 

 ferent soils, climates with few points in com- 

 mon, crops of wholly different kinds, geogra- 

 phy and topography of opposite extremes, yet 

 each realizes the immense importance of its 

 forests and how essential their protection is 

 to the continued prosperity of its people. 



MAINE'S FOREST PRACTICE. 



Maine, like Michigan, has long been famous 

 as a pine tree state, but unlike Michigan it 

 continues' to raise pine forests. In Maine for- 

 ests are not so often skinned and the land left 

 to become a desert; they are treated as con- 

 tinuing crops. There are. forests in Maine 

 which have yielded lumber for more than a 

 century and these forests are today better 

 forests than they were in the beginning. 



One of the reasons for the difference -be- 

 tween Maine and Michigan is indicated by a 

 question asked of the state Supreme Court by 

 the State Senate, which is considering forest 

 legislation. The court has just rendered 1 a 

 decision to the effect that the Legislature has 

 a constitutional right to pass laws regulating 

 the cutting of timber on private lands if the 

 cutting is liable to be detrimental to the pub- 

 lic welfare. This decision refers especially to 

 small timber which is needed to form a forest 

 cover and so conserve water and prevent 

 floods and soil erosion. The court states 

 definitely that such regulations cannot be con- 

 strued as taking private property for public 

 use and that the state cannot be made to pay 

 for young growth which it may forbid the 

 owner to cut. 



The Senate in asking its question said that 

 it had no thought of enacting a law which 

 would prevent clearing land for agricultural, 

 mining or manufacturing purposes, but simply 

 one which would prevent stripping land of its 

 forest cover when such action would cause 

 general injury. The next Michigan Legisla- 

 ture will hear a good deal about forest pro- 

 tection and reforestation, as the report of the 

 commission of inquiry will be presented to it. 

 It would be well for prospective legislators 

 and the people at large to study up on what 

 other states with a longer forest history than 

 that of Michigan are doing to protect the great 

 national resource. Mining Journal. 



REFORESTATION IN CHIPPEWA 

 COUNTY. 



Twenty thousand acres of government land 

 in Chippewa county, Mich., 'have been with- 

 drawn from the homestead entry by Secretary 

 Garfield. The purpose is to provide land for 

 the proposed national forest in the upper pe- 

 ninsula. 



The land is now burned-over barrens which 

 Uncle Sam proposes to artificially transform 

 into a tree garden. The plan is to afford an 

 object lesson of what can be accomplished in 

 making white and Norway pine grow on land 

 long counted worthless. 



The name proposed is the Iroquois national 

 forest. 



