THE STATE REVIEW. 



Michigan waste lands were reforestized. The in- 



umc of the State of Michigan would be fully ten 



es as great, as lumber is higher in price here 



1 ban it is in Europe, or. in other words, the State 



if Michigan might have an income of $25,000,000 



ear from its forests with which to defray its 



uses. 



The taxes of the state are made up as follows : 

 tax assessor, April 1st, makes his rounds 

 'iig the farmers and puts a value upon their 

 i . As no crop is in the ground, simply the 

 .UK! i- assessed, and whatever is found remain- 

 . if the crop from the year before. When the 

 ( : orest lands are reached an entirely different pro- 

 ne is followed. Trees growing, according to 

 Michigan state laws, are considered real es- 

 and ihcir value is added to that of the land. 

 iM an individual attempt to reforestize lands, 

 I confronted with a condition which makes it 

 -.-il>le for him to undertake this work. Each 

 the value of the trees on his land is ad- 

 vil. and you can readily see that where the 

 - arc, as in some of our counties, as high as 

 >er cent, the reforestizing of land by private 

 .nterprise is made impossible. 



What we need in .Michigan is a definite, ra- 

 tjobal and business-like treatment of state lands. 

 ic present policy of forcing the.se lands 

 the people be abandoned and a minimum 

 price of $5 per acre be placed upon the land, 

 value of the st.uuling timber, and that all 

 be public and to the highest bidder. That 

 auditor general be compelled to deed all lands 

 i|Uem three years or more to the state land 

 ^nissioner. and that it shall be unlawful for 

 ^^Bomcer to expend the funds of the state in 

 s ami continued advertising and bookkeep- 

 'icyond the peril d of live years. Further, 

 ilie state adopt a definite forest policy. First, 

 [n the extension of tile forest reserve to all 

 I^Rcr Indies of state lands as are not suitable 

 for agricultural or ordinary crops. Second, better 

 protection to all forest districts. Third, rea- 

 and equitable taxation of forest prop- 

 so that private enterprise may be encour- 

 iii a more conservative use of the remnants 

 if forest still in existence and to the reforestizing 

 mds. Forest trees, like any other growth to 

 'ded as a crop and not as real estate. 

 a maximum rate of taxation be fixed by 

 :md that the rate be the average for the state. 



Legislation Is Needed. 



try was the topic under discussion at the 



meeting of the Detroit branch of the 



^^Hciation of Collegiate Alumnse. Carl E. 



. I 'rot. Filibert R >th, professor of forestry 



L'niver.-ity of Michigan, and state forestrv 



' .n, and Miss M. UaMwin, of Birmingham, 



man of the forestry committee of the State 



ration of \\'<>nieii's Clubs, made addresses. 



Mi-- l'ald\vin stated that as a result of the work 



r committee 1 S 4 women's clubs in Michigan 



received literature bearing on the forestry 



tion, and each have given from two to three 



ngs to its consideration. 



I'.aldwin >aid : "\\c women must see to it 



no member of the legislature goes to Lansing 



fear without a knowledge that the women of 



late want a reform in our land laws. Our 



^Biit'o < has endeavored to reach every candidate 



lection, and we have tried to pledge them 



Hforestry reform. The candidates from Wayne 



County have not been interviewed, and I urge you 



e them after election and get pledges from 



in this matter. See your township road 



commissioners also, and get them to plant trees, 



e law provides, along the public, roads." 

 SSThe alumnae agreed to work to this end. 



WOMEN CREATE SENTIMENT. 



Prof. Filibert Roth, after saying that the women 



I Michigan have created the sentiment that lies 



of the forestry movement, said: "President 



i-velt has stated that forestry reform is the 



"n ist important general problem in the United 



States at the present time. Michigan has 2,000,000 



person-; dependent on the forests for their living. 



She will have 5.000,000 before the century ends. 



She uses annually one thousand millions of feet of 



lumber, exclusive of railway ties, poles and the 

 like. 1 he product of the United States forests in 

 the first state of manufacture is worth eleven hun- 

 dred millions of dollars. We use $10,000,000 worth 

 of wood annually for fuel in this state. In New 

 England, with soil similar to much of ours, of all 

 land cleared up in 1880 40 per cent had been aban- 

 doned to the forest before 1900. For the same 

 reasons this thing is going on in Michigan. Farm- 

 ers have found by experiment that timber is the 

 only profitable crop that can be grown there. 



"There are nearly 4,000.000 acres of unim- 

 proved lands in the settled portion of lower Mich- 

 igan. Of the northern peninsula only 5 per cent is 

 cultivated. Twenty million acres of the state are 

 woods or waste lands. When it is realizsd that 

 lumber is being brought into the state now from 

 the Pacific coast at a cost for freight per car of 

 $350, and that supplies are also brought from the 

 south, the importance of utilizing the waste lands 

 is evident. 



"When farmers sell a farm in Michigan they 

 throw in the wood lot the most valuable part of 

 the farm. The state has not properly protected 

 the lumbermen in either life or property in the 

 forests. I see no way to stopTrhrir slaughter of 

 the forests they own, but the state can do much 

 on its own lands. 



"Michigan now owns outright from 000,000 to 

 1,000,000 acres of waste land. It is practically 

 owner of all delinquent tax lands, which consti- 

 tute about one-quarter of the state area. Most 

 of the delinquent tax lands, under the wretched 

 system now in force, are sold from five to six 

 times in a quarter century. The wood is cut off, 

 the taxes lapse again, and the state is the poorer by 

 the process. 



OUR METHODS INEFFECTIVE. 



"In the ten years ending in 1905 the state spent 

 $1,500,000 trying to get rid of these waste lands, 

 is the auditor general's report shows. In one 

 year the state paid out $65.000 for useless ad- 

 vertisements. Land may now be bought for ten 

 cents an acre. Divided ten lots to the acre it is 

 sold to city buyers, who, when they find out its 

 character, let their rights lapse. These lots must 

 then be advertised year after year. Each ad- 

 vertisement costs the state forty cents. Clerk 

 hire for looking after each lot costs eighty cents. 

 In other words the state pays out year after year, 

 in many cases. $1.20 for looking after what is 

 from one to eleven cents' worth of land. Such is 

 the working of the present land law. 



"A state forest reserve of ten million acres 

 could be formed with advantage to every citizen. 

 It would in time give employment to hundreds of 

 small sawmills. Had this been done twenty-five 

 years ago we would now be getting a handsome 

 revenue from what is now useless and a great 

 expense. The state forest of Ontario is now pay- 

 ing all the province's expenses. Inside of fifteen 

 years a forest reserve can be made self-support- 

 ine. Inside of twenty-five years it is profitable. 



""1 he state land laws should at once be amend- 

 ed to prevent the sale of any state lands at less 

 than a designated price per acre. At present 

 they may be sold by state officials at an}' price. 

 The state should be required to make a survey 

 of the material on the land before this price is 

 fixed. At present the state never knows w'lat 

 it sells. Reform of the state land laws is im- 

 peratively necessary. Let us work for corrective 

 legislation at the state capital this winter." 



Michigan's Man-Made Deserts. 



Carl E. Schmidt spoke as follows: 

 "Some 25 to 30 years ago, when a young man. 

 I traveled through the State of Michigan buying 

 up raw furs. This business took me from one end 

 of the state to the other, and where railroads wer 

 not available, stage coaches, boats and private 

 rigs had to be used. In those days I made the 

 trip from Saginaw to old Mackinac, and it was 

 possible to practically travel every mile of the 

 distance in the shade. Five years ago I took a 

 trii to the far west, and spent some days on the 

 deserts of North America. My first impressions 

 of the desert lands were that they were the most 

 monotonous, the most hideous and repellant thing 

 that could be found, but after a few days I found 



that even its plant life was interesting, and its 

 animal life, though hideous, still fascinating, and 

 I could understand why some of the desert riders 

 loved their stretches of land with the same 

 warmth that the sailor loves his blue ocean. 



Later my travels took me through Michigan 

 again, practically over the same ground that I 

 had passed 25 or :tO years before, and my heart 

 was filled with sorrow at the view presented. No 

 desert, no matter how forlorn, can equal in mel- 

 ancholy the man-made deserts of Michigan, and 

 at that time the thought occurred to me if it 

 would not be possible to give back to our state 

 our grand forests that had once clothed it with 

 its verdure. A closer investigation of the subject 

 brought me to realize that there were three im- 

 portant steps to be taken to make this possible. 

 First, to prevent our state from selling its lands, 

 and by this I mean such lands as are not suited 

 for agricultural purposes, at a minimum price of 

 let us say, $5 per acre. Arizona, Wyoming and 

 other western states, now have a minimum price 

 of $10 per acre on their lands, whereas ours are 

 advertised in magazines, etc., and offered at 

 prices ranging from 75 cents to $2.50 per acre. 

 With this minimum price for the ground, the 

 value of wdiatever timber remains on it to be 

 estimated and added to this price, would at least 

 keep some of these lands in the hands of the state, 

 or if they were sold an equitable price would be 

 received. The State of Michigan is now spending 

 for advertising and .clerk hire approximately 

 $165.000 ner year, and this expenditure results in 

 a sale of an average of $60.000 worth of lands. 

 Now I would propose that the money thus spent 

 be utilized in reforestizing such lands in our state 

 as are unsuited for agricultural purposes. In 

 addition to this, the state should pass an equitable 

 tax bill ; as it is at present, the trees on the land 

 are counted as real estate and this feature of our 

 tax bill makes it prohibitive for private persons 

 to reforest their lands. That reforestizing is 

 practical can best be seen by referring to the 

 older European countries. Frederick the Great 

 introduced the system in Germany, and this sys- 

 tem is practically the one in operation today. 

 While this is not the place to enter into a de- 

 tailed description of the modus operandi, the re- 

 sults will probably strike you forcibly. The 

 Kingdom of Wnrtemberg consists of about prac- 

 tically all of our Michigan so-called plains. Of 

 these lands, 485,000 acres have been reforestized. 

 The profits upon these 485,000 acres have been 

 in the last year $2,450 000. Now when you con- 

 sider that Michigan has about six million acres 

 which could be utilized in the same manner by a 

 very simple process of multiplication you will find 

 that an income of $25,000,000, or even $30,000,000, 

 is not beyond reason. 



Forestry Meeting. 



To the members of the Michigan Forestry As- 

 sociation and citizens interested in forestry: The 

 first annual meeting of the Michigan Forestry As- 

 sociation is appointed to be held in the audi- 

 torium of the Grand Rapids Board of Trade, in 

 the city of Grand Rapids, Mich., Tuesday and 

 Wednesday, November 27 and 28, 1906. Sessions 

 will be held on Tuesday at 10 a. m., 2 p. m. and 

 at 8 p. m. ; and on Wednesday at 9 a. m. Public 

 addresses by our best authorities will be given 

 at these sessions on different aspects of the Mich- 

 igan Forestry Problem. 



You are cordially invited to attend the meet- 

 ings and encourage, by your presence, the move- 

 ment for the adoption by this State of an intelli- 

 gent and comprehensive state policy in forestry. 



The regular business meeting of the associa- 

 tion will be held on Wednesday morning, at which 

 time formal action will be taken upon the recom- 

 mendations of the standing committees of the 

 association, and the election of officers for the 

 ensuing year. 



Come, and bring one or more friends we need 

 your help ! 



Send your name immediately to Mr. John Ihl- 

 der, of Grand Rapids, so that he can make the 

 necessary arrangements for your stay. 



HENRY G. STEVENS, 

 JOHN H. BISSELL, Secretary. 



President. 



