MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



Michigan Forestry 

 Associatoin 



HAS FOR ITS OBJECT 



The modification of our laws which will enable the holding and 

 reforesting of forest lands. 



The protection of forest property against fire and trespass. The 

 disposition and management of our state lands. 



Every citizen should be interested in this work and join the Asso- 

 ciation. Membership fee $1.00 per year, including yearly subscription 

 to Michigan Roads and Forests, the official organ of the Association. 



PROF. HUBERT ROTH, Secretary, 



Ann Arbor, Michigan 



A NEW WRINKLE IN FORESTRY. 



In an address before the Lumbermen's Club 

 of St. Louis, Mo., Hon. J. B. White of Kansas 

 City developed a notion which has been grad- 

 ually spreading among lumbermen, namely 

 that they should be alowed to charge as much 

 stumpage for their material as it costs to pro- 

 duce the tree. In other words, if it costs $10 

 to grow a tree which will cut 1,000 feet b. m. 

 of lumber, the lumberman should charge 

 enough for his lumber to make the stumpage 

 alone bring him $10 for this tree. 



Mr. White's position is in part as follows: 

 ' Supply and Demand. 



"In the world's commerce and trade in nat- 

 ural products, a fair and well-established de- 

 mand in one balance and in the other a proper 

 supply with a reasonable profit thereon, con- 

 stitutes honest merchandising and a healthy 

 trade condition. In many commodities with 

 normal and satisfactory conditions come dis- 

 ease and disaster when the pulse is led by 

 excitement to beat in feverish haste, when the 

 bulls and the bears fight for market control, 

 circulate wild stories as to the supply and as 

 to the demand, and the masses who do not 

 know and who let others do their thinking, 

 lose their heads and their money. It is wrong 

 that our laws will protect this kind of gamb- 

 ling that changes the market directly adverse 

 to the law of equalization as to supply and 

 demand and permits monopolies to be formed 

 to corner the supply and extort from the peo- 

 ple. This is not legitimate trade or merchan- 

 dising, but is speculation, of the character of 

 high finance, coldly and shrewdly managed by 

 those who know the facts'or are better guess- 

 ers as to the supply that can be brought to 

 the market. We speak freely of this great 

 evil of speculating in the necessities of life, 

 where the public has to pay the loss, yet we, 

 as lumbermen, know just how it is in our own 

 business of manufacturing and merchandising 

 in lumber, where we overproduce and are pay- 



ing the loss, which is a loss also to the future 

 public. We know we are making too much 

 lumber, that the supply is greater than the 

 demand, and that we have perfect control 01 

 the supply and can regulate it according to the 

 demand, and yet we do not do it. We know 

 absolutely that we cannot grow even a fifty- 

 year-old tree containing not exceeding 5 per 

 cent above No. 1 common for less than $12 

 stumpage with all conditions favorable, includ- 

 ing low taxation, yet we are selling better trees, 

 150 years old, for $5 stumpage, which contain 

 25 per cent above common and makes a differ- 

 ence in value of more than $12 per thousand 

 from what we are now getting. 



"We can righteously insist, without reason- 

 able complaint against us by the public, that 

 we should have at least as much for mature 

 trees of superior quality as it will cost to raise 

 mature trees of inferior quality. It is a posi- 

 tive sin against 'posterity for a lumberman to 

 sell his lumber at less than cost of growing 

 trees or less than some good competitive sub.- 

 stitute can be provided for. Any law and any 

 trust that will prevent a man cutting and sell- 

 ing timber below the cost of reproducing it 

 and a reasonable added profit, is a good law 

 and a good trust for the people. 



"If we cannot singly protect ourselves 

 against ourselves we should be permitted to 

 combine ourselves in such a manner that we 

 cannot break a moral principle at the expense 

 of the comfort and needs of future genera- 

 tions. We are not good manufacturers; we 

 are not good merchants; we are not good land- 

 lords or good tenants; we are mighty poor 

 business men and should be restrained in the 

 interest of conservation and for the benefit of 

 ourselves and of this generation and of those 

 whii are to come after us." 



Mr. White then proceeds to outline a bill 

 which would embody his views. The fallow- 

 ing is the first section and clearly illustrates 

 the principle: 



"Section 1. Be it enacted, That whenever, 

 it shall appear to the State Forest Commis-j 

 sion that waste is being committed on State? 

 or private forests, after due examination there- 

 of, notice shall be served upon the owner,! 

 party in charge pr person or persons commit- 

 ting the waste, and the owner or party offend- 

 ing shall make restitution 'by paying into the 

 State fund for conservation and reforestation, 

 the value of such waste, to be ascertained in 

 manner following: 



"If the timber cut and removed is being 

 sold at less than cost of reproduction, it shall 

 be prima facie evidence of intentional violation 

 of this act, and the difference between the 

 price obtained and the cost of reproduction,- 

 to be estimated and ascertained according to' 

 the best available methods, shall be the meas- 

 ure of damage to be assessed and collected,! 

 as all fines and penalties are adjudged andj 

 collected for other misdemeanors. If the 

 whole or any part of such tree is left to wasted 

 in the woods, then the market value shall be| 

 ascertained in like manner and the entire value 

 assessed against the owner or offending party 

 in same manner, together with sufficient pen- 

 alty in either or both cases to cover cost of! 

 prosecution." 



While this is a most instructive and inter- 

 esting view, there is also another side to this 

 question. The people gave the forests to their 

 present owners, and one of the excuses (it 

 was a poor one) was that while this was quite 

 a gift the people would be benefited by get- 

 ting correspondingly cheap lumber. And in 

 the past they have had cheap lumber. Would 

 the people now be willing to pay full price for 

 this timber which they gave away practically 

 free of charge? 



HENEY TELLS OF TIMBER STEAL. 



With all preliminaries brushed aside, the 

 trial has begun of Binger Hermann, former 

 congressman, charged in the federal court at 



