MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



11 



MINNESOTA'S PLAN 



OF REFORESTATION 



The Forestry Commission of Minnesota in 

 uiual report says: 



The pine forests of Minnesota have been 

 (1 sixty years and most of the timber 

 ieen shipped out of the stater In a few- 

 more years the original pine will be gone. 

 Already thirty thousand car loads of forest 

 products are brought into Minnesota annually 

 from the Pacific coast. 



The population of the United States since its 

 first settlement has increased at the average 

 rate of IS per cent every ten years, and in 

 eighty years will reach the amazing number of 

 320,000,000. Forest products will be in much 

 greater demand then than now. If we neglect 

 suitable measures of reforestation our posterity 

 will be ashamed of us. 



Forestry is not an expenditure. It is a sav- 

 ings bank investment. The great thing in 

 forestry is that it utilizes third and fourth 

 rate sandy, hilly and rocky land that is unfit 

 for agriculture. The yield tables of Germany 

 show that an acre of such land planted as part 

 of a forest, with pine, on forestry principles 

 seedling trees two or three years old, planted 

 at an average distance apart of four or five 

 feet, it being necessary to have forest crowded 

 when young to promote height growth will 

 in eighty years produce 18,000 feet board 

 measure. The surviving trees for the greater 

 number would have died out would be from 

 12 to 15 inches in diameter breast high. They 

 would continue, if left standing, to grow many 

 years after they had reached the age of eighty 

 years, but not at a rate to earn good interest. 



If the state this year planted 37,500 acres of 

 forestry land in the same way, and continued 

 to do as much every year for eighty years, it 

 would then have a normal forest of 3,000,000 

 acres not in one body but in scattered locali- 

 ties of the value of probably $200,000,000. 

 yielding a net revenue of 3 per cent per 

 annum. From the 37.500 acres planted this 

 year there could then be cut 675.000.000 feet 

 board measure of logs and the same amount 

 every year thereafter perpetually. Under 

 forestry management a larger percentage of 

 the cut-over area would become reforested by- 

 natural seeding than is the case under present 

 methods of logging (now only about 5 per 

 cent of cut-over land becomes well stocked 

 with pine from natural seeding), the blank 

 spaces would be promptly replanted and a sus- 

 tained yield secured. 



If the state had 37.500 acres of third or 

 fourth rate land to plant wit^ forest we would 

 find that on an average 5 per cent of it was 

 already well stocked with pine or some other 

 valuable timber, and that another 5 per cent 

 of the area was rock or water, which we would 

 call blank spaces: deducting this 10 per cent 

 from 37.500 would leave 33,750 acres to be ac- 

 tually planted. In other words, for every 

 1,000 acres of third or fourth rate land only 

 900 acres on an average would have to be 

 planted. 



In planting about 200 acres substantially in 

 the way above mentioned the state has found 

 that two men can plant one acre a day. the 

 whole cost, exclusive of land, being about 

 $6.00 per acre. To plant 37,500 acres each 

 spring would require 2,500 employes thirty 

 days. Although some thousands of men will 

 for a few years be coming out of the logging 

 camps every spring, some of whom could be 

 . employed in planting, and although the plant- 

 ing would be done in half a dozen or more 

 counties, still it is not likely the state could 

 for a number of years plant 37,500 acres an- 

 Huallj-. The state should not undertake to do 

 any more than it can do economically and well. 

 It should, however, engage in the work with 

 energy. 



Prussia plants and sows 45,000 acres of state 

 forest annually. The other German states in 

 the aggregate plant more. 



I believe the state will be able to purchase 



A Lumbered Hillside in California, Nothing Left to Hold Water and Erosion 

 (Courtesy Conservation, formerly Forestry and Irrigation.) 



forestry land at an average price of not ex- 

 ceeding $2.50 per acre, but as the state has 

 some school land that is only fit for forestry, 

 but which according to the constitution must 

 be offered for sale at not less than $5.00 per 

 acre, authority should be granted for paying 

 $5.00 per acre when necessary. 



The ordinary revenue is not sufficient to 

 permit the legislature to appropriate money 

 enough to carry into effect a plan of refores- 

 tation as extensive as the above. To accom- 

 plish this there should be an additional tax of 

 three-tenths of one mill on all taxable property 

 in the state, being only thirty cents on each 

 thousand dollars. This would raise about 

 $300.000 annually and be sufficient to carry the 

 plan into effect. That the plan may be per- 

 manent it should be authorized by a constitu- 

 tional amendment such as herewith proposed. 

 That it may not seem extravagant let me 

 mention that for forestry Pennsylvania ap- 

 propriates annually $400,000 and Xew York 



better adapted for any other purpose than the 

 production of timber, it may be sold or leased 

 and the proceeds used for acquiring or devel- 

 oping forestry land. Until otherwise directed 

 by the legislature, which may supolement these 

 provisions with necessary enactments, the 

 State Forestry Board shall draw and disburse 

 the money hereby provided and purchase, man- 

 age and control the lands and forests. No 

 money shall be paid for any tract until the 

 attorney general shall certify to the validity 

 of the title. It shall be competent for two 

 successive regular legislatures, by a two- 

 thirds vote of each house, to alter or repeal 

 any of these provisions. 



If the next legislature were to submit the 

 amendment it could not be voted on until the 

 general election in 1911. and if adopted no 

 money would be available under it sooner 

 than 1913. 



Few states have the natural resources to un- 

 dertake such a system of reforestation. Min- 

 nesota's natural advantages admit of her doing 

 it. If she has the public spirit to undertake 

 it she would at once be in the front rank, if 

 not the leader, of all the American states in 

 reforestation. 



The commission also proposes the following 

 constitutional amendment: 



To secure a sustained yield of timber for the 

 use of the people of this state the proper 

 officers shall annually levy and collect a tax 

 of three-tenths of one mill on each dollar of 

 the taxable property within this state, the 

 proceeds of which shall be used for the pur- 

 chase of land for the state adapted for forest 

 at not over $5.00 per acre, and for the produc- 

 tion and maintenance thereon of forest accord- 

 ing to forestry principles. Unexpended 

 balances shall not lapse but constitute a fund 

 for forestry purposes. The timber produced 

 thereon shall be sold at a fair valuation and 

 the revenue therefrom be paid into the state 

 treasury, except that one-quarter of the net 

 revenue shall be paid to the towns in which 

 the land is situated, in aid of public schools 

 and roads. Should any tract acquired be found 



HAVE A LOVE FOR TREES. 



"Sidewalk builder, spare that tree." 

 This slogan has been adopted by the city 

 fathers of East Lansing and it is being upheld 

 at the expense of straight sidewalks. After 

 much deliberation the common council decided 

 to split a four-foot walk on Xiles avenue into 

 two parts and oass around a magnificent elm, 

 which otherwise would have been cut down. 



At another place on Miles avenue, an old 

 walk will be moved two feet so that it will be 

 jn line with new walks, which must be laid 

 in a certain place in order to avoid cutting 

 a row of shade trees. In many places 

 j the new walks have been materially altered 

 i from their straight lines in order to avoid cut- 

 ting trees. The aldermen are bound that their 

 city shall be as beautiful as nature made it. 



IRELAND TO HAVE FORESTS. 



Ireland has awakened to the value of her 

 j forests. A commission appointed by the 

 Crown has just made public its report. 



The commission urges the adoption of a 

 scheme for the state to plant about 700,000 

 acres. This, with the 300,000 acres existing, 

 would give Ireland 1,000,000 acres of forest 

 ; land, an area which the commission considers 

 rial. About 200,000 acres would be pur- 

 chased by the state in mountainous regions 

 and managed as state forest, while 500,000 

 acres would be planted by the state, but man- 

 i aged by private owners or by county councils. 

 Denmark, an agricultural country half the 

 size of Ireland, has since 18S1 increased her 

 forests by 175,000 acres. Belgium, in spite of 

 her dense population, has added 70,000 acres 

 to her forests in the last 25 years. 



