10 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



needs, and all these things go on without in- 

 terference of law. If some evildoer is actual- 

 ly caught in the act, the right to arrest him 

 is not granted except to sheriff or few offi- 

 cials who never concern themselves .about 

 this matter and the man is allowed to escape. 

 And even in casts where the guilty party is 

 located the juries are reluctant to convict ex- 

 cept en the clearest of proof and the general 

 record of the person as a notorious firebug 

 is usually disregarded. The result is that in 

 spite of the fact that there are hundreds of 

 forest fires set every year in our state. The 

 writer knows of not one single conviction and 

 punishment of the culprit. 



The Personal Liberty aside from its abuse 

 in connection with forest protection has been 

 and is held so sacred that the owner of forest 

 properties universally is allowed to do as he 

 pleases. He can cut and slash, burn and de- 

 vastate and no one interferes. It was not 

 until within the year that at least the courts 

 have begun to recognize the right of the com- 

 monwealth in the matter of forest property 

 and its treatment. That the misuse of any 

 property is a wrong, morally, is conceded, that 

 it is so legally if also conceded as soon as 

 the misuse is truly serious or the property of 

 a peculiar character (railroad, etc.). That the 

 unlimited, unrestricted misuse of forests by 

 their owners was not only a mistake and poor 

 business, but was a serious moral wrong and 

 should have been made a legal wrong as well, 

 all this is just beginning to dawn upon our 

 people. 



The Mistaken Policy as regards the hold- 

 ing of land by the state, county or other pub- 

 lic body. Here we are concerned primarily 

 with the matter of state lands. With the gen- 

 eral craze to get all lands cleared and set- 

 tled, and with the mercantile individualistic 

 spirit dominating everywhere, it was but nat- 

 ural that the states of this Union should have 

 at all times been eager to dispose of all their 

 lands. 



That this policy resulted in much harm is 

 now quite generally conceded, and in a few 

 states a radical change of policy or at least 

 the preliminary !?ws for such, have come into 

 existence. Here again the conditions in Mich- 

 igan serve well to illustrate the operations 

 and results. 



From the beginning the state sold, was 

 eager to sell, fairly forced the sale of all lands 

 given to it by the federal government. It sold 

 "cat in the bag" from the first and is selling 

 in this same profitable manner today. The 

 expense of a real examination was too great, 

 and the faith in an examination by the usual 

 political clique was too small and so the lands 

 went for what they would bring. For over 

 30 years thousands and hundreds of thousands 

 of acres came back to the State for non- 

 payment of taxes (result of bad tax system). 

 These lands cost the state millions of dollars 

 in advertisement and clerk hire; they were 

 again sold i and again sold cat-in-the-bag 

 fashion. Today the state owns nearly a mil- 

 lion acres of these skinned and skinned again 

 lands, several million acres come up annually 

 in soak for taxes, and still the state spends 

 money trying to get rid of them. During the 

 past five years the state sold over 800,000 

 acres of these lards, receiving about $1.20 per 

 acre for them, and now it is shown by spe- 

 cial examinations that these lands had timber 

 enough on them to pay the above sum twice 

 over, and that thus the state gave away land 

 and timber and young tree growth to the 

 amount of millions of dollars. And what is 

 even more pitiful the lands thus sold are held 

 by their owners just long enough to skin off 

 the timber, to burn over, and then revert. 

 Thus this land policy has robbed the state of 

 millions of money, millions of acres of land, 

 helped in further devastation of the county and 

 in many cases promoted a form of land specu- 

 lation which is even worse than forest de- 

 vastation. 



Had the state kept its lands, sold them only 

 on application and at fair price and separated 

 all poorer lands as forest reserves the state 



would have received more money and these 

 reserves would now produce an income instead 

 of causing expense, and the state of Michi- 

 gan would be in a fair way to supply itself 

 again with all foims of timber instead of hav- 

 ing to import them as it now does. 



This general policy of "getting the landsmen 

 the tax roll" permeates all of our states. The 

 timber counties of this state, of Wisconsin 

 and other states could have reserved county 

 forests and thus freed themselves from all 

 county and state taxes by holding income pro- 

 ducing properties, and many of our towns 

 could have done the same. 



;V. WHAT THE STATE CAN AND 

 SHOULD DO. 



From what has been said, it is clear that 

 state action is necessary; that the lines of 

 action are few and simple; that they have 

 been foreshadowed in part even In our early 

 day legislation, and that they must take very 

 much the same form which forest legislation 

 has taken with the older nations. 



Categorically, the state action should pro- 

 vide: 



1. A rational State Land Policy. 



2. Establishment of State, Forests. 



3. Forest Protection. 



4. Rational and Fair Forest Taxation. 



5 Enforced Right Treatment of Forest 

 Properties. 



6. Continuation of rocerty education and 

 the encouragement of forestry among the 

 people. 



1. The state should cease to sell lands and 

 become a purchaser of lands. It is clear that 

 this measure must vary with the state, that it 

 means not the same for Indiana as for Wis- 

 consin, and that in the case of such a state 

 as Iowa it may fall away altogether. 



But fundamentally it is good policy for the 

 state to own land and not only poor land but 

 good land as well, and especially that it own 

 all lands which do not promise a truly pros- 

 perous condition of settlement. This policy 

 will be fought here, as it was fought abroad 

 and as it is now being fought locally in our 

 states by the land speculator who revels in 

 cheap lands, the natural goods of the land 

 swindler. It will be fought also by the small 

 and local business man and the local politician, 

 both of whom want settlement and people to 

 live off of at any cost, and irrespective of the 

 ultimate harm to state and county. 



As an illustration of the value of the state 

 purchasing and owning lands and forests, the 

 case of New York may serve. The Adiron- 

 dacks lands were disposed of by the state at 

 about 5 cents an acre; the state began buying 

 back these lands in 1884; it has bought over 

 a million acres, largely culled, at an average 

 price of about $3.60 per acre, and today it has 

 a holding worth a', least $20.00 per acre, besides 

 securing to its people one of the finest sum- 

 mering places and one of the beauty spots of 

 the New World, a fact in itself worth all that 

 these lands have ever cost. 



In purchasing lands by the states for forest 

 purposes it will be wisdom to buy good forests 

 at good prices as well as poor lands, and thus 

 put the enterprise on a self-supporting basis 

 as soon as possible. 



2. Of the Establishment of State Forests 

 hardly anything further nex;d be said. If done 

 honestly and liberally so that the usual penny 

 wisdom of our states does not spoil the enter- 

 prise, there is no reason why every forest state 

 should not own and operate forests. If New 

 Hampshire and the other New England states 

 will only use their power of eminent domain, 

 buy what mountain forests are needed to se- 

 cure the beauty of that region, its waters and 

 its industries, bond the state, secure the bonds, 

 by a mortgage on the woods, there should be 

 no difficulty in making the forests pay the 

 interest and the capital in reasonable time. 

 If Michigan had kept her cutover lands it 

 would have had a good paying property today. 



If the southern states will take over all their 

 cheap cutover lands, they will soon develop 

 large propert.es which will be a blessing to 

 future generations and prevent millions of 

 acres of waste. 



In discussing this matter much has beer 

 said in our states of having a certain part of 

 every township in forest. It is part of the 

 scheme of having all forests in connection with 

 farms and thus making the farmer supply 

 both wood and bread. But while it is highly 

 desirable that the farm woodlot be preserved 

 that farm forestry be encouraged by every 

 reasonable means, yet this will not suffice. 

 There are whole counties in states like Wis- 

 consin or Virginia that are practically all good 

 land. In such counties the farmer will never 

 be willing to devote more than 3 to 5 per cent 

 to forest, an amount entirely inadequate to 

 supply even the farmer himself. On the other 

 hand there are in these same states entire 

 counties where 35 to 90 per cent of the land is 

 poor land or poorly suited to agriculture. Here 

 the matter of forestry is foremost and be- 

 comes one of large holdings, if these hold- 

 ings are in private hands, it becomes either 

 a matter of mischievous monopoly, or else, 

 what we now have, one of forest devastation 

 and waste land with constant conflict between 

 the state, trying to preserve and regulate and 

 the owner trying to use up for his own pres- 

 ent gain and to waste. Under these conditions 

 Europe has long found out that it is only 

 the state which will manage the forest well 

 and at the same time manage it for the good 

 of the people. 



State forests, occupying all of the rougher 

 and poorer lands should be the central figure 

 of all state action in our country. 



What these forests can and should do finan- 

 cially has been mentioned and is discussed 

 more fully elsewhere in this report. 



3. The State Should Provide Forest Pro- 

 tection In wrestling with this phase of state 

 action the efforts have varied, but two dis- 

 tinct lines could always be recognized. The 

 older measures and the measures still most 

 favored by the large majority of state legis- 

 tors, placed the burden on the town or locality 

 where the property and the danger lies. More 

 recent attempts on the assumption and plea of 

 inefficiency of the local government have 

 asked the state itself to undertake the protec- 

 tion by a properly organized state patrol. In 

 the states where most legislation has been ac- 

 complished, the discussion resulted in a com- 

 promise. A state official, fire warden, or state 

 forester, with one or more deputies forming 

 the directive or administrative part and a set 

 of local fire wardens, either existing political 

 officers, such as town supervisors, or else spe- 

 cially appointed fire wardens, forming the field 

 service. In all cases these men are paid; the 

 expense is usually divided between state and 

 town, the wardens are clothed with power to 

 call out the citizens, and the latter, and these 

 only, are compelled to respond or be punished. 



The older efforts, the placing of the burden 

 entirely on the local people evidently assumed: 

 1. That if the town gets nearly all of the taxes 

 it should also do the bulk of the work. 2. If 

 the local people have to put out the fires they 

 will be diligent in preventing fires, which is 

 after all the main object to be accomplished. 



Those arguing for state patrol claimed that 

 the town is poor and the burden too great for 

 the few settlers, and that at any rate, the town 

 has proven entirely inefficient and that if for- 

 ests are to be protected the state must do it. 



The use of the county authority has never 

 entered the discussion, though in reality it 

 may be assumed that the sheriff's office should 

 furnish protection whenever the town authori- 

 ties a,re unable to do so. 



As stated before in central Europe the pro- 

 tection is furnished by the peopl* of the 

 locality fighting the fires and patrol or pre- 

 vention is secured through the foresters (on 

 larger tracts), the local police and the state 

 police or gendarmes. But the chief feature 

 here is that, All must do their duty. 



The writer himself has long favored a proper 



