THE STATE REVIEW. 



Michigan Forestry Association. 



The Michigan Forestry Association was organized in Grand Rapids August 30, 190;'), having for its object the promotion of a rational system <j] 

 forestry in -Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers: President, John II. liissell, of Detroit; Vice-President, Thornton i 

 Green, Ontonagon ; Secretary, Henry G. Stevens, Detroit; Treasurer. J. J. Hubbell, Manistee; Board of Directors, Mrs. Francis King. Alma; CharlL 

 J. Monroe. South Haven; L. L. Hubbard, Houghton; S. M. Lemon, Grand Rapids; H. N. Loud, Au Sable; George P.. llorton, Fruit Ridge. 



The State Forestry Commission Charles W. Garfield, Grand Rapids ; Arthur Hill, Saginaw ; William H. Rose, Lansing. 



AN ANNOUNCEMENT. 



With this issue of the State Review the an- 

 nouncement is made to its friends and patrons 

 that a change has occurred in its management, 

 that it has been purchased by gentlemen long 

 familiar with the newspaper business and that 

 beginning with this issue, its place of publication 

 will be the city of Detroit instead of Grand 

 Rapids. 



The State Review is now over three years old, 

 and during the management of the gentlemen 

 who founded and controlled it, it has deserved 

 and received the respectful attention of a large 



pa 



tio 



th 



up 



inj 



Tl 



th. 



un 



tat 



tw 



fur 



prt 



in 



mil 



ral 



eat 



prc 



thi 

 pec 

 an. 

 tio 

 CU: 



Re 



thi 

 pe 

 th. 

 da 

 pii 

 mi 

 till 



its 

 abl 

 im 

 its 



Mr. Schmidt's Address. 



Address of Mr. Carl E. Schmidt, before the 

 Board of Commerce of Detroit, after presenting 

 the resolutions on forestry, adopted by that body 

 on Tuesday, October 16, 1906: 



Michigan has about six million acres of waste 

 state tax lands. These waste lands have come to 

 the State of Michigan by reason of the non- 

 payment of taxes of former owners, and I think I 

 could make the situation clear to you most easily 

 by describing how these lands come into the 

 possession of the state, and why they are re- 

 tained. When these lands were sold they were 

 covered by virgin forests of valuable timber, as 

 for instance, pine in the main, and it was bought 

 by the lumbermen of the state at a stipulated 

 price. The desirable lumber, in the first place 

 the pine, was taken off, and as the land then had 

 no more value to the lumberman, he wished to 

 stop paying taxes on same. To most easily avoid 

 this, and to enable him to still hold the land, 

 was, under our laws .a very simple problem. All 

 that was necessary for him to do was to deed 

 these lands to some man outside of the state. 

 The act relating to delinquent taxes stated that 

 if the title of the lands was in any \vav being 

 contested legally, the state could not claim title 

 until the legal contention, whatever it might be, 

 had been settled. So the lumberman simply no- 

 ticed some suit in the local courts, and made no 

 effort to ever bring the suit to trial. The result 

 was that the lands were held as though thev 

 were his own. and in course of time he found 

 that the remaining timber, let us say the hem- 

 lock, had again become valuable. The opera- 

 tion was very simple. He selected such forties 

 of the land as contained a profitable quantity of 

 hemlock lumber, had the man in Ohio or else- 

 where deed it back to him, paid the taxes, settled 

 the lawsuit as far as these 40 acres were con- 

 cerned and took off the hemlock. It was now a 

 simple matter for him to again re-deed the lands 

 and have the original method of procedure re- 

 peated. 



Because of this reason we see the fluctua- 

 tions in the holdings of the state in state tax- 

 lands, varying anywhere from five to nine million 

 acres. In case he did not consider it worth whilj 

 to tie up these lands by the means described 

 above, he simply allowed the land to go h.i:k to 

 the state, which however means to the auditor 

 general. The law distinctly states that the aud- 

 itor general was to advertise these lands for a 

 period of five years, and if, after the expiration 

 of this period, the taxes were not paid, or (In- 

 lands sold, he was to deed these lands to the 

 state land commissioner, or in other words to the 

 State of Michigan. We have seen by the report 

 of the legislative committee that the state in five 

 years expended $264,000 in advertising tax land; 



for sale, and paid out for clerk hire in the audi 

 general's office $570,000, a total of $834.ooo, 

 in these live years succeeded in selling $303, 

 worth of land, or, it was costing the state $1 

 per year to sell $00,000 worth of land. If 

 $166.000 per year were used in reforesti/ing, 

 would have annually reforested 31.000 acri 

 land, or 310,000 acres in ten years. If pla 

 for instance, in Carolina poplar, we would in 

 years have the first 31,000 acres available 

 crop, which would give us a profit, based on 

 result in Wurtemberg, of $160,000. 



I find advertisements in some of the magaxi 

 by the state land commissioner, offering Michi. 

 lands for sale at from 75 cents to $2.50 p 

 In addition to this our state every little w 

 holds so-called clearance sales, at which it 

 lands at practically any price that may be off* 

 Some other states are wiser in this respect 

 for instance, Wyoming, Montana and Wash 

 ton, who have placed a minimum price of $10 

 acre on their tax lands. These states also 

 some of their lands for grazing purpose*. W. 

 ing last year received $100,000 as rental for 

 of its lands. 



The clearing out of the forests, in addition 

 having most harmful effects on climatic 

 ditions in our state, has a more direct 

 easily ascertainable detriment. For instanc 

 1890 we had invested in the State of Michi; 

 $1,25,000,000 in lumber and dependent induslri 

 Today statistics show an investment of $50,1 

 000, or a loss of $75,000,000 of capital to 

 state. This, in addition to the money going 

 of the state for the purchase of lumber e 

 We are, for instance, today getting our shin 

 from the Pacific coast, pine from Georgia, 

 from Mississippi. 



The state is also losing in population in 

 lumbering districts. A fair sample is losco c 

 tv. In is'.io the population in this county 

 15.224; in 1900 it was .10,246. 



The tax law of 1899 states that land* deli 

 quent for five years should he deeded by t 

 auditor general to the state land commissi 

 after the lands have been examined to a>ee 

 their value. So as to keep up the advert! 

 graft, this part of the law which is mandate 

 is rarely, if ever, carried out. The result is t 

 these lands arc advertised for 10. 15 or mo 

 years, and there are some instances where Ian 

 have been offered for over 25 years, without 

 sale being made. 



In addition to the above, this law must ha' 

 intentionally been made confusing. In one pla 

 it states that "The commissioner of the state lai 

 office and the auditor general shall act jointly 

 to lands which they may consider not advantag 

 ous to open for homesteads, and shall affix 

 minimum price." Another part of the law say 

 "These lands withheld from homestead erit 

 shall be offered for sale by the state land cor 

 missioner at a price discretionary with him. A 

 other part savs': "He is authorized to sell, b 

 at not less than the appraised valuation of t 

 land." All of which means, in effect, that wh 

 the lands are offered for public sale, the lai 

 commissioner may. if he sees fit, put a discr 

 tionary price upon them and sell them behii 

 closed doors in his private office. What the 

 feet of such a proceeding may be, or is. may 

 easily imagined. 



Let us compare this, our method, in the han 

 ling of waste lands with the methods obtainin 

 for instance, in the middle of Kurope. There 

 land is largely like our own, many acres bei 

 unsnited for agricultural purposes. The king'' 

 of Wurtemberg has -IsT.OOO acres of forest la 

 from which its net profits last year were $2.4 

 OIHI. Supposing that five million acres of 



