12 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



for taxes. Now there are some 20,000 to 30,000 

 of these lots that have been deeded by the audit- 

 or-general's department back to the state for non- 

 payment of taxes. 



Secretary Carton proposed at the meeting 

 to put all this land into the state reserve, 

 thereby taking it off the market, for it is gen- 

 erally understood that the same schemers who 

 originally purchased the land are figuring on 

 buying it back again. In order to frustrate their 

 scheme Secretary Carton's proposition will be 

 adopted by the commission. 'Ihe company, it is 

 said, have made thousands of dollars in the tran- 

 saction. The cost to the state, however, has been 

 considerable, for every description has had to 

 be advertised tor the past five years, and it has 

 cost the state nearly $40 per acre already, and 

 they again have the same land on their hands 

 that originally, as stated, was sold from $3 to $4 

 per acre. 



Ihis is certainly good news, even if old news 

 to be reported now. It can not be too often re- 

 peated that the state for years past has paid any- 

 where from $750,OGO to $150,000 per year for 

 clerk hire and for advertisements of tax lands in 

 which just this sort of lands always formed the 

 important part. It is a credit to this new Forest 

 and Land Commission that it has begun to set 

 its foot down on this kind of waste, and it fully 

 justifies the wisdom of the last legislature for 

 creating this commission. There is an element 

 here, however, which is far more important than 

 the mere saving of a large sum of money. 



This new departure of the state through its 

 Public Domain Commission marks an important 

 step in good government. The old policy of the 

 state of pushing these tax lands again on the 

 market had much to do with and helped mater- 

 ially the abominable land swindle which has been 

 going on for years and where hundreds of 

 families have already been ruined merely to fill 

 the pockets of a lot of unscrupulous men who 

 have no compunction to misrepresent the actual 

 conditions of things in the most shameless man- 

 ner, and who are today the greatest enemies of 

 the state as well as of their respective counties. 



We have at last a proper state land and forest 

 policy, the principal structure in the rough; we 

 have a State Forest organization in the Public 

 Domain Commission with full powers over land 

 and forests ; we have the much needed State 

 Forester; we have more real forestry education 

 in Michigan than any other state in the .Union, 

 and we have a public sentiment in favor of for- 

 estry and conservation which we can all be proud 

 of. But these good things have cost work, and 

 the structure in the rough will need much work 

 to give it proper finish. Forestry in Michigan 

 is still only in its beginning as far as actual 

 application is concerned. The wood lot is still 

 an uncertain quantity, lacks care and protection; 

 the big woods up north are still in precarious 

 condition with practically no assurance of con- 

 tinuity, with no real protection, with no kind of 

 rational treatment or care, and still at the mercy 

 of the greedy tax-gatherer who can do as he 

 pleases. There is much work ahead and every 

 good citizen, every owner of forest, every teacher 

 or club worker who wishes to get in touch with 

 the real situation, the real needs, and the best 

 notions concerning future improvement in for- 

 estry should not fail to be present and give us 

 the benefit of his or her knowledge, experience 

 and suggestion. Therefore, come one and all! 



THE OMNISCIENT WEATHER MAN 

 AGAIN. 



The following spouting of the vociferous 

 weather man is published here chiefly for the 

 purpose of giving our readers the exact facto 

 in the case, and to let them know just what 

 sort of a man is kept at the head of the Na- 

 tional Weather service. To go into any argu- 

 ment about the statements is useless for they 

 contradict and condemn themselves. The dis- 

 patch reads: 



Prof Willis L. Moore, chief of the United 

 States Weather Bureau, attended the Atlantic 

 Inland Waterways Congress at Providence 

 early this month. He made an address on 

 the relation of the weather to rivers, and in 

 discussing this subject he said emphatic things 



Hayes Wheel Co. 



Manufacturers Automobile Wheels 



Jackson, Michigan 



about the theories of some conservationists. 

 He charged them with trying to cram the 

 American people with falsehoods in support 

 of their doctrines. 



Prof. Moore admitted the value of conserv- 

 ing the forests, but he declared that the doc- 

 trine that they were necessary to protect our 

 climate was false; the records of the Govern- 

 ment for the past fifty years proved this, he 

 said. 



"The flow of our rivers is practically what 

 it has always been," said Prof. Moore, "and the 

 records of the height of rivers of the United 

 States would not bear out many of the state- 

 ments that have been so broadly published. 

 The American people have been taught that 

 floods have markedly increased in the past 

 fifty years; that low water is lower in the 

 streams, and high water higher. Such a prop- 

 aganda is proved false by the records. 



"The depletion of our forests has had no 

 practical effect upon the flow of our streams. 

 The main reason is that the broken, perme- 

 able soil of the husbandman is as good a con- 

 servor of moisture as a forest. Furthermore 

 the people have been taught that cutting away 

 the forests has brought drought upon the na- 

 tion and a long train of evils. 



"Now, the Weather Bureau has in its posses- 

 sion the records of New England for fully 100 

 years, and these show that if there has been 

 any change in the precipitation of water there 

 has been a slight gain since the forests were 

 cut down. The same thing is shown by the 

 records for the Ohio Valley, which we have 

 for the past fifty years. 



"In this respect we have been taught a good 

 deal by designing people that we'll need to 

 unlearn. Any good cause is injured by bring- 

 ing fallacious reasoning to its support, ar.d 

 the truth is never helped by attempting to 

 bolster it up with falsehood. There are so 

 many reasons why our forests should be pro- 

 tected and conserved that it is unfortunate 

 that wildly exaggerated assertions should have 

 been put forth by some enthusiasts with re- 

 gard to the effect of forests upon climate and 

 floods. Whatever effect a forest has in this 

 respect is only local and is small. 



"Did it ever strike you that within twenty- 

 five years the erection of a building of com- 

 bustible material within the limits of any 

 corporate town in this country will be prohib- 

 ited? Wood will be used in cities only for or- 

 namentation. 



"Then these enthusiasts are telling us that 

 the supply of coal in the world will be ex- 

 hausted within ICO years. As a matter of fact 

 the best geologists can see 10,000 years sup- 

 ply in sight now, and there is no knowing how 

 much more is back of that. 



"But a point that it is well to make is that 

 thousands of years before the world's coal 



supply is exhausted there will be very little 

 need for coal, for by that time a rational policy 

 of conservation will result in the utilization of 

 the potentiality of all the rivers, transmuting 

 this potentiality into heat and power. Then 

 there will be no need for fuel. 



"The purpose of conservation was originally 

 said to be the protection of valuable timber. 

 Then the need was taught of planting millions 

 of trees to protect our climate, to prevent us 

 from being burned up in one part of the year 

 and from being washed away in the other." 



FOREST FIRES. 



Again the entire Civilized World, Old and 

 New, has been shocked by the forest fires of our 

 country and Canada. 



Many lives lost; many homes burned; several 

 thousand million feet of merchantable timber 

 destroyed, and what is far more materially, the 

 forest annihilated over millions of acres. It is 

 still .too early to speak of details, and it is hoped 

 that the U. S. Forest Service will give the coun- 

 try the real facts in the case as soon as possible. 

 For if we at least gain a lesson from this terrible 

 experience the loss is perhaps no greater than a 

 spendthrift people, like ours, usually pays to learn 

 a simple lesson in good government. For it is a 

 matter, not of forestry, but of decent, efficient 

 government, which confronts us in this matter 

 of forest fires. The forester raises a crop and 

 cares for it exactly as does the farmer,. Like 

 the farmer, he watches over it and cares for it 

 diligently, but it is for a good and efficient gov- 

 ernment to see that this property and this crop 

 are not at the mercies of every destructive heed- 

 less or malicious person. That forests can be 

 protected from fire has long been proven in 

 Europe where many millions of acres of forest 

 have for centuries matured their crop of timber 

 without thought of of fires. 



How much we have yet to learn in this mat- 

 ter, not as foresters, but as citizens of a civilized 

 community is well illustrated by the following, 

 taken from the Detroit News : 



THE WEEKS BILL. 



The bill for the acquisition of national forests 

 which has become popularly known as the Weeks 

 Bill, passed the House of Representatives at 

 midnight on Friday, the 24th of June, by a vote 

 of 130 to 111. It was fought at every stage by 

 its opponents in the House, and an attempt was 

 made to prevent its passage by dilatory tactics, 

 when it finally came before the House. Its pass- 

 age was a triumph for the management and hard 

 work of the men in whose hands it has been. 



In the Senate the bill came up on Thursday, 

 and an open filibuster was immediately begun by 

 Senator Burton of Ohio and Senator Newlands 

 of Nevada, assisted, to some extent, by certain 

 other senators. Owing tp the determination of 

 the Senate to adjourn on Saturday, the filibuster 



