MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



11 



insist that no land shall be devoted to forest 

 growing or brought into the Reserves which 

 is susceptible of being turned into a farm, is 

 equivalent to insisting that there shall be no 

 State Forest Reserves, or at least none which 

 can be economically protected and admin- 

 istered. You can't break up Reserves without 

 preventing the possibility of adequate protec- 

 tion or economical handling. The State is, 

 therefore, by the physical limitations conclu- 

 sively directed in its course to utilize the for- 

 feited tax lands without regard to whether 

 they are agricultural or non-agricultural in 

 those spots where its holdings are so situated, 

 bunched together, as to make them available 

 for the formation of State Reserves. 



Character of Soil No Cause for Worry. 



The elimination of this question concerning 

 the character of the soil need not worry any 

 one, however, even though he may be very 

 tenacious of his belief in the soundness of the 

 economic principle referred to. This for sev- ! 

 eral reasons. 



First All of the State's holdings have al- ; 

 ready been looked over, examined critically. | 

 and selected carefully by the self-interest of ; 

 those most concerned. An automatic and im- 

 partial process of natural selection has been 

 working for many years. The owners of this 

 land, as well as the public who might become 

 purchasers, have for long years come to the 

 conclusion that this particular land the State 

 own- is r.ot worth the taxes which are levied 

 upon it. This is not the sudden opinion of a 

 day. but the resultant opinion of many years. 

 Land which will not induce those who hold . 

 the title to pay the taxes upon it. is not, in 

 general, of the better class of land in the lo- j 

 cality where it is situated: and when this ; 

 failure to pay the taxes has become habitual 

 over long stretches of years, and has finally ' 

 ended in the absolute forfeiture of title, it es- : 

 tablishes. with reasonable certainty at least,, 

 that this derelict land is not of the best, but 

 rather of the poorest in its locality. Hence, 

 if the State does take all of the land which it 

 owns in a certain place, it will be taking that 

 land in the locality which time and the self- 

 interest of all concerned have automatically 

 and impartially selected as the poorer class 

 of land in that locality. Tt will, therefore, be 

 taking for forest raising, the land which prima 

 facie is the non-agricultural land that should \ 

 be devoted to that purpose. 



Secondly. After the State has set aside as 

 State Reserves all its holdings of forfeited tax 

 land that can be used for this purpose, there 

 will remain a very large quantity of this State 

 owned land, a quantity much in excess of the 

 amount of this class of land taken up for set- 

 tlement in the last six or eight years. Besides 

 the area of the unoccupied cut over land re- 

 maining in private ownership is many times 

 greater than the area of what the State owns. 

 The supply is generations in advance of the 

 demand, especially if present conditions are 

 allowed to continue. 



Little Tax Lands Used for Homes. 



Third. As a matter of fact there is rela- 

 tively little of this forfeited tax land purchased 

 by those who acquire it for the purpose of es- 

 tablishing a home upon it. or of converting it i 

 into a farm. Land Commissioner Rose esti- 

 mates that less than 10% is bought for such i 

 purposes. The representatives sent out by the 

 Commission of Inquiry reported that 5% would 

 be a high estimate. A careful examination of 

 the Land Office schedules showing the sales 

 of these forfeited tax lands seems to demon- 

 strate that even the latter estimate is high. 

 The bulk goes to timber men and speculators, 

 and the greater part of the remainder goes to 

 those who purchase in small bits in their own 

 neighborhood in order to get the smattering 

 of timber that finds a market at the nearest 

 mill. 



5. It is consistent with the foregoing, and 

 is conceded that State Reserves should be so 

 located and limited that an undue portion of 

 no county should thereby be devoted perma- 



nently to growing forests to the exclusion of 

 tillage and occupation, i. e., a wise balance 

 should be preserved between forest areas and 

 areas occupied in ways that exclude a forest 

 cover. 



I have on other occasions called attention 

 to this point and shown that it is demon- 

 strated by the official figures that there is not 

 forfeited tax land enough in any county of 

 the State, even if every acre of it were used 

 for forest raising, to upset this just and proper 

 balance. The official figures show that in a 

 single county only is there forfeited tax land 

 equal to a quarter of the area of the county; 

 that in only one other county in the State is 

 the area of the forfeited tax land as much as 

 a fifth of the area of the county; that in only 

 fourteen counties in the Lower Peninsula is 

 there as much as 6% of the area of the county 

 included in the forfeited tax land. These fig- 

 ures show the possible limit of State Reserves 

 in theory. The map on which the forfeited 

 tax lands are platted show that the actual 

 limit in practice must be far less than that 

 shown by the figures. The State's holdings 

 are not all situated in compact bodies in any 

 single county; far from it. It is, I believe. 

 a conservative estimate to say that there is not 

 a o uiity in the State of which it is not true 

 that at least a third and probably a half of 

 the total quantity owned by the State is non- 

 available by reason of isolation, or because of 

 ing situated in scattered small groups 

 not forming part of any large compact body 

 suitable for use as a State Reserve. 



Reserves Not to Exceed 20 Per Cent. 



But for the purpose of quieting all possible 

 apprehension on this point, the Commission of 

 Inquiry has recommended to the Legislature 

 that, in the act of erecting reserves, a provis- 

 ion shall be inserted to the effect that the 

 State Forest Reserves in any county shall not 

 exceed 20% of the acreage of that county. It 

 was intended thereby to meet much of the ob- 

 jection in argument that has been encountered 

 in this State by those urging the adoption of 

 a forestry policy. 



0. Although the principle that forest rais- 

 ing should be directed to the poorer or non- 

 agricultural land has no importance as respects 

 the location of Reserves or the selecting of 

 lands therefor, nevertheless it has a very im- 

 portant bearing- when we come to consider 

 what to do with the forfeited tax land which 

 is unavailable for State Reserves. It is im- 

 portant because we must here consider the 

 matter of settlers. If the principle referred to 

 be correct, it involves its converse, viz.: that 

 settlement shall be directed to the better land 

 fitted for tillage and directed from the poor 

 non-agricultural land, which should be re- 

 served for forest raising. 



It is to accomplish this, and to exclude the 

 timber pirate and the petty lumberman who is 

 fast sweeping the State clean of the not too 

 plentiful seed trees whose preservation is the 

 only hope of natural regeneration, that the 

 Commission of Inquiry recommended two 

 things as the condition of any sale or other 

 disposition of the forfeited tax land: 



(a) A minimum price per acre of five dol- 

 lars. Any tillable land good enough to justify 

 the State in encouraging poor people to settle 

 on it. is cheap at this figure. It is much less 

 that the habitual dealers in State land claim 

 to be getting right along for what they got 

 from the State at 50c to $1.00 an acre. If land 

 isn't worth that, the State will make no mis- 

 take in declining to try to entice poor men 

 upon it. 



fb"! The appraised value of all forest, tim- 

 ber, or wood products to be added to the min- 

 imum price aforesaid. This appraisal should 

 be made by those whom chief interest is not 

 departmental activity; it should be made by 

 those who can see a thing if it stands above 

 the ground and who can see that all of the 

 forties out of several thousand in a county do 



not have the same identical value, save in offi- 

 cial archives. 



Best Land for Actual Settlers. 



It is only in connection with this part of the 

 problem viz.: how to dispose of the land for 

 settlement which is not taken for State Re- 

 serves that the character of soil, whether 

 fitted for tillage and farm purposes, has any 

 real importance; and its importance in this 

 connection is plainly in the direction of curb- 

 ing and restraining, rather than of stimulating, 

 the taking up of the forfeited tax land for set- 

 tlement. Public welfare will best be served by 

 such encouragement to new settlers as will 

 locate them on the very best unoccupied land. 

 Can any one believe that, taking things as 

 they come, "mill run" he will find this 

 "best unoccupied land" on the lists of the land 

 which for a generation in many cases and for 

 a long term of years in all cases, has been 

 abandoned as derelict, until even the slow pro- 

 cesses of departmental red-tape have had time 

 enough to forfeit title absolutely? To assert 

 it would be to assert a want, on the average,, 

 of good sense in the people at large. 



So while the procuring of new settlers 

 should be encouraged, public welfare requires, 

 that they be directed away from, rather than 

 toward, the State owned tax land: wherefor 

 checks should be provided tending to keep set- 

 tlers away from the forfeited tax land except 

 such as there may happen to be of the best, or 

 at least good enough as raw land to justify a. 

 price of $5.00 an acre. 



7. It should be determined on equitable 

 principles whether the counties and townships 

 have such an equitable interest in the for- 

 feited tax lands used for State Reserves as to 

 entitle them to compensation for their interest 

 therein; and if it be determined that equity 

 calls for the making of compensation, it should 

 be made by the State at large in such manner 

 and under such conditions as the Legislature 

 may deem appropriate. 



Inasmuch as the maintenance of Reserves 

 under State ownership will keep large tracts 

 of land off the tax roll, thereby throwing the 

 entire burden of local taxes in the county and 

 township upor> the land therein remaining in 

 private ownership, an undue burden of taxa- 

 tion will be thrown upon those who own land 

 in the counties and townships wherein State 

 Reserves are located. As the Reserves are 

 maintained by the State for the benefit of the 

 State at large, it is plainly just that an equita- 

 ble provision for payment should be made by 

 the State of local taxes, or a definite sum in 

 lieu thereof. Regard may and should be had 

 to the local advantages which are an off-set. 

 Full justice should be done both to the locali- 

 ties and to the State at large, in the framing 

 of a tax provision, as well as in the determina- 

 tion of the question of compensation. 



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