14 MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



what could be done without our range riders possibilities of cur state are astounding. The When forest fires are extensive there is an 



and their sj>tem of fighting tires? Sometimes time will come sooner cr later when more over-producti< n of lumber because of the cut- 



they are at it for forty-eight hours without a will he raised on forty acres than the present ting of burned timber to save it. Over-pro- 



let-up. One man found two of them lying on system gets from 100. <!u< -tion always means low prices 



the ground in the deep sleep of utter exhaus- The roots of corn have been known to go There is one loss in timber that is greatly 



tion. They lay as they had fallen, and the down six feet where they had a chance, yet exaggerated by forest tires. The decay fol- 



ants were running over them. Perhaps these you see men ploughing three inches deep for lowing fires causes a large increase of the 



men take a little relaxation, and then the cry corn. The side hills will not always be plant- insect enemies of growing timber. In the 



goes up: "See those lazy fellows, and the ed to corn, which gives such a chance for northern peninsula of Michigan bark bettle.- 



waste in the Forest Service." Xo figuring, washing. They will be planted to trees, which and borers attacked the burned hemlock and 



you understand, of the waste of the rires and will be mulched with straw, or else sown to pine immediately after the great tires of la.-t 



the ax. All manner of abuse was heaped on grass, which will be well manured. July. 



the chief forester, but there was a vision be- The strangest thing is that men will not In the future we may look for a more rapid 



fore him, a vision of ruin and desolation, and plant trees. There are millions of acres that decay of every imperfect tree growing near 



he wrote, talked, and pleaded, till the tide are sometimes subject to overflow which for the burn-ed districts. Great numbers of trec- 



turned and a great victory was won. A crisis thirty years have raised nothing but weeds not burned will die from the attacks of insects- 



came, and issues involving hundreds of mil- and which might be put to raising houses, as the indirect result of the fires. For many 



lions. The forester broke a piece of red tape, barns, and wood-piles. Better restore the old years the owners of mixed hardwood and 



and he must go. No matter that he stands woodshed, and raise your own fuel, and give hemlock timber lands thought themselves al- 



for a great principle. No matter that he has the coal barons the go-by. A farm is an em- most immune from fire loss. The leaf fires 



given his means and his life to a great cause, pire in itself. If the farmer raises everything of October and November, 1908, were new to 



"Just look at that piece of red tape! Can't he needs he will grow rich. The nation whose many owners. That year and the next it ^was 



you see it is broken?" But, thank God, the imports exceed the exports is growing poor, thought little damage had been done. The 



nation is fully aroused and our forestry system For the last few years the balance of trade contrary is now known to be true. A con- 



is established. has been in our favor. The past year we siderable part of the burned districts are dead 



You can readily see the clashing of inter- were about $150,000,000 short, and if this or dying. This last summer we saw large 



ests. Leading men in our Pacific coast cities keeps up we shall have trouble. The farmer areas of mixed timber, containing very little 



want the bars thrown down. The future may who buys more than he sells will soon raise p'ne. burned so badly that the trees were all 



care for itself. They want the coal to be dug, a big crop of mortgages. True conservation killed immediately. Hardwood trees burned 



and the water powers to be exploited, and makes us work the land to advantage and like conifers. 



flocks and herds to have free range. It all save it as one of God's best gifts to man. So We have figured in the past on getting the 



makes business, and they want business now. stand up for Nebraska and make it one of bark from the burned hemlock trees. This 



There never yet was a national park laid out the most brilliant stars in our national con- year they were burned so badly that the bark 



or a national forest made but what there was stellation. already is decayed and has been fairly riddled 



a tremendous protest from this source. When by woodpeckers and sapsuckers in search of 



the government made a national forest near LUMBERMEN AND FOREST LEGISLA- the swarms of bark beetles that have infested 



Cass Lake, Minn., a howl long and deep went TION. tne trees. Where the timber was burned last 



up. When we tried to have a park in the Wet summer very little bark will be gathered next 



Mountain Valley, and could have got a bill By Thornton A. Green, President of the North- ^ason. 



through Congress for one of the sublimest ern Forest Protective Association. A brief description of how a lumberman 



resorts, Colorado congressmen sat down on it. A dd delivered at the Lake States Con- m:ikes mo e y f from our forests may " Ot he 



But slowly and surely, the people are going f er ence. St. Paul. December 6. with ut ">terest. 



to rule. This country is going to be saved. ' Assume that he has paid $15.000 for a group 



Not only conserved, but made more beautiful The lumbermen of Minnesota, Wisconsin of tjmber am , upcn j^* it am , ;lfter pay . 



and attractive. and Michigan do not seem to have paid a j ng a j] t ^ e \ ) \\\ s and selling his lumber he has 



The rich soil of Nebraska is hungry for great deal of attention to forest legislation in $17,000. In other words, he has made two 



trees In '72 there was not a shrub or tree h to a few , awg that thousand dollars. Then he finds he needs 







on the townsite of York. Now it is called 



$300 worth of cotton wood lumber per acre, hfi necessit for some action that wi]1 Rive in the hope that future manufacturing profits 

 besides the firewood which was enough to hetter prctection to their timber lands, may be larger. He rarely makes a dollar 

 cover the cost. The land was left all the cha hl the statutes are Iikcly to be made sawing lumber and often loses. he man- 



better because it was subsoiled by those vigor- jn al f three states this coming winter and the ages to wind up his operation wit ft about as 



lumbermen are most vitally interested in any much timber as he started with, he ma* 



The side hills must and will be defended changes that may be made. money because of the natural i 



from erosion and washing. You see farms -phe lumbermen's chief asset is standing her values. If some of the timber land 

 with deep gullies ploughed through the corn- timber. Mills, railroads and equipment are has been burned over, the 9peration 1 

 field: too deep, almost, to get a team across. pra ctically valueless if there are no timber will show a loss and not a gain 

 Sometimes a grain of sense will come to the resources behind them. business is largely one of book profits 



owner and he will dump in a load of straw, There is a marked increase in the amount Cash dividends do not come with regularity. 

 and so stop the wash. One year ago we had r f timber offered for sale by the non-opera- These are some of the reasons why the 

 a fearful dust storm in the spring, and in t ; ng timber owners as well as by the opera- lumbermen are interested in laws for the pro- 

 some cases entire furrows on the hills were tors -p] le pr i ces that have prevailed for sev- tcction of forests, but I do not mean to imply 

 blown away. In one instance the rich soil of era] years are being shaded in consequence, that they alone are interested. The entire 

 a neighbor drifted three feet deep on one of Forest fires have had much to do with this country is aroused to the necessity for action. 

 my hedges. [ told him I wished he would weakening of timber values. It has been difficult in the past to convince 



lariat his farm and keep it at home. Groves Many lumbermen must, of necessity, resort the residents of the unforested parts of the 

 and windbreaks are needed to stop the fierce to i-, olld j ssues in these times of high values lake states that they have a common interest 

 gales which for ages have swept over our O f stU mpage and high cost of labor and sup- with the lumbermen in the protection of the 

 Buffer-crops can be sown on the p ]j eSi COU pled with the low price of lumber at f-rests. They are beginning to understand 

 long, sloping side hills. I once saw in the t ^ e po j nt O f production. Standing timber is that the lumbermen are less interested in pro- 

 Republican Valley a large field of alfalfa the pr i llc i pa i security for these bonds. It is tecting the remaining forests than they are. 

 which was catching the wash from the long (in ]y by exercising great care in the protection The owners have an average value in their 

 The time will come when of - our t j m b er resources that timber bonds .tumpage of about $2.50 a thousand and they 

 instead of the man moving his barn to get it can he kept at par. disburse, in the process of reducing the tree 



away from the manure pile he will get a Insurance upon the plants and output of the to a marketable product, about four times that 

 spreader and put it on his farm. The man h , mher companies always has been compara- amount. 



; cattle will learn sooner or later tive , y high Unless something is done to les- The public, realizing at last that the wanton 



(1 manure is wi rth a small sen the risk from forcst fire exposure many destruction of the forests means a distinct 



-1 mine, and that it will pav to save. 1,-mbermen and lumber towns will find it dim- loss to everyone, demands that something be 



People are waking up to their possibilities, cult to obtain adequate insurance at reason- done: and something will be done. Such vast 



The boys of the future are going to show their able prices. resources have been destroyed by fire in re- 



fathers how things will be done and fTiat When the modern lumberman builds his cent years, coupled with a heavy loss of life. 



farming will pay. Two boys in Xorth Caro- mills and railroads he estimates the probable th?t the people will not be denied. There is 



lina raised 125 bushels of corn per acre, where life of his plant by the amount of timber he only one way open to them the law. New 



their neighbors were raising twelve. A boy l, : ,s. Any loss of timber follows through laws and amendments to existing laws are 



near West Point, last year, raised 114 bushels, every step of his operations. In many cases pr < posed on every hand. Some of them single 



where the neighboring men were getting forty, the "added expense of producing logs from out the lumberman as the scapegoat, a few 



Never yet has an acre of rich land west of burned timber is more than the actual loss place the burden upon the railroads. The 



the Missouri River been put to its best. The of stumpage. records of Forester Griffith, of Wisconsin, 



