MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



MICHIGAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



The Michigan Forestry Association was organized in Grand Rapids August 30, 1905, having for its object the promotion of a ra- 

 tional system of forestry in Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers: President, Hon. Chas. W. Garfield, of Grand 

 Rapids; Vice-President, John H. Bissell, of Detroit; Secretary, Filibert Roth, of Ann Arbor; Assistant Secretary, Henry G. Stevens, Detroit; 

 Treasurer, W. B. Mershon, Saginaw, W. S. Board of Directors Hon. J. E. Beal, Ann Arbor; J. J. Hubbell, Manistee; Mrs. Lena E. Mautner, 

 Saginaw; Prof. James Satterlee, Lansing; Fremont E. Skeels, Cadillac; W. E. Williams, Pittsford; Dr. Lucius L. Hubbard, Houghton; Mrs. 

 John C. Sharp, Jackson. 



THF SFfRFTARY'S PftRNFR 

 nc JC^IXCIAIXI <J WI\llLiI\. 



WHAT THE STATES HAVE 



-kMr AMrk A or 

 LMJINt AINLJ AKt, 



fPART nn 

 ; 

 EXISTING OBSTACLES TO FORESTRY WHICH 



STATE ACTION ALONE CAN REMOVE. 



As pointed out more cr less in the preceding 



r *u 

 s today in every state of the 



Union certain great obstacles to forestry as a 

 business, and some of these threaten seriously 

 i-ven our present and rapidly vanishing timber 



supplfes. These obstacles offer no extraord- 



, , ... , 



they can be and will be over- 



come as soon as the legislatures of our states 



catch the "forestry spirit" which is now so un- 



mistakably amon^ our people. Unfortunately, 



een reluctan i this 



matter: they have- treated it as of the "re- 

 form" sort "of thing, to be looked upon sus- 

 piciously and to put off for future and better 

 consideration and understanding. It is a re- 

 markable fact thac in this matter of forestry, 

 which is a purely economic matter, and to the 

 legislator means only the adjustment of law 

 to the needs of a useful and necessary branch 

 cf agriculture, that in this matter where 90 

 per cent of our people are agreed that the 

 proper measures should no longer be delayed, 

 that in this we still find the legislatures hang- 

 ing back; in fact, there are few legislatures 

 of the last five years where 2 per cent of the 

 legislators displayed any interest in the mat- 

 ter and still fewei where even a single man 

 could be found who was willing to put 

 shoulder to the v heel to accomplish what 90 

 per cent of the people would be glad to sup- 

 port. 



Xor is the matter so technical. There are 

 various ways in which the obstacles may be 

 removed. and almost any effort can be modi- 

 fied and improved as time goes on. Good 

 will and good sen.,e are the only requisites. 



The obstacles to forestry which state ac- 

 tion alone can remove may be grouped under 

 the following four heads: 



Taxation to the Point of Confiscation. 



Lack of Protection of Forest Property. 



Personal Liberty to the Point of License. 



Mistaken Policies Regulating State Lands 

 and the Holding of Lands by All Public Cor- 

 porations, Counties, Towns and Cities. 



Unfair Taxation Every owner of forest 

 land in almost every state of the Union is 

 agreed that unjust taxation has led to prema- 

 ture and hasty removal of forests. 



Here again the conditions existing in Michi- 

 gan, which apply exactly to most of the states, 

 will help to illustrate. We distinguish here 

 between the assessment and the rate of tax- 

 ation. for especially the latter has operated 

 injuriously. 



The assessment, according to present law, 

 is at "full cash value" of the property, it as- 

 -csses the growing crop as well as the land. 

 How this would affect a case of reforestation, 

 has already been pointed out; it makes the 

 tree farmer distinct from the corn farmer, it 

 assesses only the land for the latter, and the 

 land and crop for the former besides piling up 



tne assessment all through the life of the 

 trees. This method of assessment, then, is ab- 

 olutely prohibitive to any effort at reforesta- 

 tion. 



In the case of the man who owns and holds 

 a fores t already in existence, the case is less 

 un fair; he can cut and sell timber, but even 

 here it is in danger of becoming unfair, and 

 st usually does become unfair in practice, since 

 this assessment in nowise takes into conid- 

 eration what the property is making for the 

 owner. 



In the case where the forest is bought mere- 



uougiii m 



ly to lumber it, this assessment is fair and 

 cQrrect in princlpie 



The unfair pract j ces o f excessive assessment 

 o f the forest of the non-resident owner, and 

 the lack of satisfactory safeguards against 

 this, need not here be considered, though 



these, too, have worked a great deal of harm 

 {o ^ {or ' est 



The tota , ' Ux ra{e u made of sut 



county and loca i < town> highway, schools, 

 etc.) tax rates. The first two are usually not 

 high in any state. Thus for 1905 we have 

 .Michigan- 



State tax $2 46 per $1 000 of property. 



P" ?1,000 of property. 



* 10 - 00 P er 



?1^ ot property. 



J otal average rate for the state $17.40 per 



? 1 ^' 



lne town, highway ami school taxes, the 

 local taxes, are levied by the local people. The 

 tew residents 'ne of the thinly settled 



towns levy these taxes and there is no law 

 to set a limit or maximum. These few people 

 can an . d do lev y lhe taxes, they build roads 

 and bridges, schoolhouses, etc., whether need- 

 ed cr Justified or not. They can and often 

 have made a large part of their living by 

 <omg these jobs which consume the local 

 tax. Yes, but they tax them- 



selves as high ;.s anyone. True, but their 

 ow " ''le properties represent but a small 

 P art of the total property of the town, it is 

 the non-resident who commonly pays 95 per 

 cent ot all taxes levied. And it is by work- 

 ln S ( 95 P er cent th at they make 



their living and the "representative man or 

 ocal politician makes his money. What this 

 leads to is well :!'ustrated by the following: 

 I ", 19 u- 1 the avera 8 e ta x rate of one county 



> per $1,000 of 



And in five oljier counties this average tax 

 rate exceeded $40.00. while in 13 mere it ex- 

 ceeded $30.00 per $1,000. And every one of 

 these high taxed counties was a timber county, 

 a thinly settled district where the non-resi- 

 dent owning tax property was bled for all he 

 would stand. In some instances the combi- 

 nation of assessment and rate led to the levy- 

 ing of a tax rate amounting to over $100.00 

 per $1,000. Confiscation in 10 years! 



For this reason it has been one of the com- 

 mon questions in the timber owner's office, 

 when deciding on where to cut next winter: 

 "How do we fare in - township, as re- 

 gards taxation?" If the answer is "good," 

 the cut is not made, if "bad"' the decision is: 

 "Then we will locate a camp there." 



There is no claim here that if the tax rate 

 had been low or reasonable and honest, that 

 the forest would not have been cut, but the 

 writer does claim thi-: 



If the state kcal people had treated the 



owners of timber honestly and had spent a 

 reasonable part of the taxes in giving the pro- 

 tection which the owner had a right to expect 

 under the constitution there would still be 

 more than half of our pinery lands covered 

 by forest. But this was not and is not the 

 case A certain <oiest owner in Michigan paid 

 during the last 25 years over $600,000 in taxes 

 and it would be difficult to prove that a cent 

 had ever been expended in the protection or 

 real good of this property. 



The result of all this is also well illus- 

 trated by Michigan conditions: 



As early as 1875 over nine million acres of 

 Iandj one -half of the north half of the state, 

 wa s returned as deliquent or "in spak" for 

 taxes. The owners could not afford to hold 

 the lands, and as soon as the then market- 

 able stuff was cut they let it revert to th 

 state. 



The Lack of Protection has been partly 

 discussed above. There has never been 

 * t responsibility anywhere, the town, 



( 



est we * . not property in the ordinary 

 sense. This was and is still true, especially 

 in case of protection against fire. The town 

 officials in most states as here in Michigan, 

 were supp osed to act, but they were not corn- 

 pelled to, the county officials never concerned 

 themselves at all. With us in Michigan, even 

 o late years ( s ; nce 1903), the case has been 



better. Now and then a bit of fire fighting 

 is done to keep tne fi res out of tne sett ] e . 



ments . but even then there is no head, no 

 method, no responsibility; and in some cases 

 it see med chiefly a case of earning $2.00 per 

 day As stat ed before, the new law here in 

 Michigan has helped nothing, for the very 

 head takes evidently no interest in the mat- 

 ter Besides this utter lack of responsibility 

 in the execut jon of law and the fighting and 

 prev ention of fires, there is an amount of per- 

 sona] jjberty allowed which has long degen- 

 erated j nto the worst form of license. 



Every one is al i owe d to go onto any un- 

 occup j ed j ands irrespective of the wishes of 

 the owners j n consequence these thinly set- 

 t)ed d j str icts have long been the biding places 

 of the irresponsible and even the criminal. 

 Everyone, irrespective of character and pre- 

 vicus record, is allowed to travel over these 

 lands and hunt rtsh pick berries and camp 

 where he p i ea se. In this way the woods are 

 overr un by persons unknown as to name and 

 character to any of the local authorities. Dur- 

 ing the dangerous months of each year and 

 during dangerous dry seasons some of these 

 -people are constantly setting fires, but the 

 large area, the difficulty of finding fire and 

 people makes it practically impossible for the 

 few town officers to apprehend them. Again, 

 everyone is allowed to fire to clean land, and 

 though the danger of this practice has long 

 been recognized even in our old fire laws, 

 nothing effective has ever been done to regu- 

 late it. Under the pretext of fighting fires 

 or of protecting property by backfires, thou- 

 sands of acres are burned over every year. 

 In no case does the law prescribe sufficient 

 care. Even in the driest season, when the 

 cutover lands especially are far more danger- 

 ous than any ordinary sawmill or similar 

 establishment, the pernicious cigar and pipe 

 is in everyone's mouth; matches are struck 

 and thrown into the dry. inflamable brush; 

 campfires are built without any regard .to 

 safety; shooting is done without excuse and 



