MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



Michigan Forestry Association. 



The Michigan Forestry Association wa s organized in Grand Rapids August 30, 1905, having for its object the promotion of a rational system ot 

 forestry in Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers : President, John H. Bissell, of Detroit, Vice-President, C. S. Udell, 

 Grand Rapids; Secretary, Henry G. Stevens, Detroit; Treasurer, J. J. Hub bell, Manistee. Board of Directors, Mrs. Francis King, Alma; L. L. Hub- 

 bard, Houghton; S. M. Lemon, Grand Rapids; H. N. Loud, Au Sable; Thos. B. Wyman, Munising; Mrs. J, C. Sharp, Jackson; C. D. Lawton, Lawton. 



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



RUTHLESS CUTTING 



OF SMALL TREES. 



I'retty soon, if the present devastation con- 

 tinues, some one will have to form a Society 

 fur the Protection of Christmas Trees. A re- 

 port conies clown from Vermont that young 

 i-ciniferous trees to the number of 1,000,000 

 were sacrificed to the Christmas-tree market 

 from that state alone last year. The pitiful 

 sum of two cents apiece was paid to the moun- 

 tain farmers and their children for getting 

 them. 



In Washington little trees not much higher 

 than a man's knee'were retailed at seventy-five 

 cents apiece. So long as the middleman re- 

 tains this great profit the wrecking of the 

 forests will probably continue. Dispatches 

 j'rum Maine assert that some $30,000 has been 

 realized by farmers of that state last season 

 from Christmas tree cutting. Looked at in a 

 coldly commercial sense, the people of Ver- 

 mont are fools to sacrifice their young trees. 

 In two decades, the cuttings that brought two 

 cents apiece would have been worth as many 

 dollars. 



The New England newspapers have noticed 

 this wastage, and one of them (the Springfield 

 Republican), commenting upon it, says: 



If the cutting of these young trees were pur- 

 sued intelligently and with discrimination, 

 there would be nothing to grieve over, but the 

 chances are in most cases that it has been a 

 ruthless slashing conducted by the farm-boys 

 very largely. Mature timber and timberlands 

 are now soaring into such values as should 

 awaken hill-farm owners to the importance of 

 cultivating their preservation through ap- 

 proved forestry methods. But there is prob- 

 ably altogether too much yielding to the cu- 

 pidity which would sacrifice a young tree for 

 a few cents, that would be worth more dollars 

 when mature. It's a long wait for a tree crop, 

 and very trying to the impatient American 

 character, but farmers will soon be very much 

 alive to the fact that it will prove a paying 

 wait. 



The Virginia hills are the home of the 

 Christmas holly. Back of Arlington it has 

 grown in profligate profusion from a time 

 which no man knoweth. The vandal has been 

 at work, however, since man conceived the 

 thought that the best way to honor the Son 

 of God at the Christmas season was to rob 

 the earth of its beauties and to offer them on 

 the altar of decay. Unless Virginia does some- 

 thing before long, the holly of its hills will go 

 the way of the arbutus of the Massachusetts 

 woodlands. 



Washington in Christmas week is filled with 

 holly. The negroes bring in huge branches 

 with jagged ends which tell the tale of a tree 

 ruined for all time that a drawing-room may 

 be decked for a day. The holly trees are chief 

 among the glories of the hills. A full-foliaged 

 one standing among its bare-branched oak and 

 maple neighbors is a sight to make warm the 

 winter heart. Near Arlington, where sleep the 

 dead soldiers, the holly is everywhere. The 

 whistling cardinals haunt the recesses of its 

 foliage and add their red beauty to that of the 

 berries. 



People go to the White Mountains in sum- 

 mer. This statement won't startle any one by 

 its novelty, but there may be something new 

 in the knowledge that the people who go to 

 New ITamp.shire for the beauty of the scenery 

 and the purity of the air spend $8,000,000 in 



that state in the months before the leaves of 

 the forest trees take on the color of the ex- 

 pended gold. The tide of summer travel ac- 

 tually is beginning to turn away from New 

 Hampshire because the mountains are being 

 robbed of their tree-glories by the hand of 

 trade. The mountain streams are losing their 

 waters, the rapids are becoming rills, and the 

 depths are becoming murmuring shallows. 



When Edward Everett Hale was little more 

 than a boy he was a member of a geological 

 survey company which went through the for- 

 ests and over the mountains of New Hamp- 

 shire. This was in the year 1841. In a letter 

 touching the matter of the proposed govern- 

 ment reserve, Dr. Hale said: 



With these eyes I have seen forests demol- 

 ished in which were trees centuries old, and 

 where now the region is given over to sumach 

 and blackberry bushes. It is no mere matter 

 of botanical curiosity for which we are plead- 

 ing. It is the preservation of a water supply 

 which affects five of the six New England 

 States. It also affects the very existence of 

 whatever makes the region attractive to per- 

 sons from every part of the nation. It is easy 

 to see, on mere economical grounds, that the 

 destruction of forests has been the ruin of 

 many a nation which did not have wisdom 

 enough to keep them. In our case denuding 

 of our noblest mountains will destroy the 

 noblest and best ground for recreation which 

 is now open to all people east of the Mis- 

 sissippi. 



Lumbering operations in the Appalachian 

 region have been widespread, and the methods 

 show a reckless disregard for future growth. 

 A clean lumber job is seldom seen. Trees 

 have been felled without regard to the young 

 growth. The logs have been "snaked" down 

 the hillsides with mule teams, breaking down 

 the young seedlings and wearing deep trails in 

 the sides of the hills, which are soon converted 

 by the heavy rains into yawning gullies. The 

 tops of the trees and the branches are left on 

 the ground to become tinder for forest fires or 

 to rot and become the breeding place of in- 

 numerable insects which attack the living 

 growth. Under government control, this in- 

 dustry, directed into the proper c hannels, 

 would insure the preservation of the forests, 

 furnish a valuable object-lesson to private 

 owners, and contribute materially to the sup- 

 port of the reservation. 



The creation of forest reserves is a necessary 

 policy. Sooner or later the certain conse- 

 quences of the forest destruction which is now 

 taking place will force the national govern- 

 ment to step in. The question is not merely 

 that of preventing the impoverishment of the 

 immediate localities and the conversion of pro- 

 ductive land into a waste of barren rock. The 

 loss of the forest is followed by that of the 

 soil and by recurring floods. The headwaters 

 of every important river south of the Ohio and 

 Potomac and east of the Mississippi, including 

 tributaries of these streams, rise in the south- 

 ern Appalachians, while the White Mountains 

 feed important rivers of every New England 

 state except Rhode Island. The rainfall of 

 both regians is heavy and distributed through- 

 out the year. In the southern Appalachians it 

 is heavier than anywhere else on the contin- 

 ent except on the northern Pacific Coast, and 

 falls often in heavy downpours. 



After denudation every rain turns the shrunk- 

 en streams into mountain torrents, which de- 

 vastate property and bear down quantities of 

 silt to obstruct navigable rivers. 'The sand- 

 bars thus formed accentuate the effect of alter- 



nating high and low-water periods, and large 

 government expenditures for dredging and 

 harbors improvements are entailed. The clear- 

 ing of river channels and harbors in North 

 Carolina, Georgia and Alabama is now being 

 urged. Yet deforestation is only in its first 

 stage. Eventually, in this country, as has been 

 the case in France, the stripped mountains 

 will become so inimical to the public good that 

 the government will have to take charge of 

 them and reforest them. But the expense of 

 this, when once the forests are gone, will be 

 only less ruinous than the damage which it 

 will check, and the remedy will require many 

 years to become operative. 



The Forest Service has made an effort, with 

 the aid of the lumbermen, to gather detailed 

 accounts of the lumber cut of the United 

 States in 1905. The figures are staggering. 

 The final tabulation shows that 11,666 estab- 

 lishments cut 30,r>o:Mi(;i,uim feet of lumber. 

 According to these figures, both the number of 

 establishments and the total cut are lower than 

 the census showing for 1899 and for 1904. 

 There is a clear tendency toward a reduction 

 in the number of mills, together with a gam 

 in individual output. Two causes account for 

 this tendency the end of supply is being 

 reached in some localities, and the concentra- 

 tion of capital, as in other industries, is result- 

 ing in the consolidation of plants in fewer 

 hands. 



The total cut of pcllow pine was probably 

 little, if any, greater in 1H05 than in 1904. The 

 cut of white pine was certainly no greater. 

 The cut of Douglas fir increased remarkably, 

 because the capacity of old mills was increased 

 and many new ones were added. The cut of 

 fir in 1904 was also below normal, owing to 

 unfavorable market conditions. There was 

 probably a small decrease in hemlock, and in 

 the cut of spruce. The census shows a de- 

 crease of 34 per cent in oak from 1899 to 1901 

 and this decrease is undoubtedly continuing. 

 There was also some decrease in poplar, a con- 

 tinuation of the decrease of 18 per cent shown 

 in the census returns between 1899 and 1904. 

 There was evidently an increase in cypress, 

 maple, and the miscellaneous group, including 

 a large number of species of minor import- 

 ance, many of which are being substituted for 

 those which are obtained with increasing 

 difficulty. 



No Waste Here. 



Citrus growers of southern California have 

 been perplexed by two great problems car 

 shortage and box shortage. It has been dif- 

 ficult to get the wood shooks of which orange 

 boxes are made, the wood getting scarcer and 

 more costly all the time. Now comes a Cali- 

 fornian with an idea for permanent relief. 



He is making a box of pulp which requires 

 but one-fourth as much lumber, and the wood 

 may be supplied in the form of chips, or even 

 sawdust, if necessary. The pulp box is lighter, 

 saving 700 pounds of weight in a carload of 

 fruit; it is cheaper and its maker promises the 

 supply will be equal to the demand. 



In line with this idea the Texas lumber con- 

 cerns' are introducing plants to utilize every 

 particle of the pine trees which they consume. 

 The lumber is the first product, then the waste 

 is distilled into pitch and its other distillates. 



Then the exhausted pulp is made into paste- 

 board for paper boxes. Not a particle of saw- 

 dust goes to waste, much less a chip. By this 

 development a sawmill becomes not only a 

 sawmill, but a distillery and a paper making 

 mill as well. 



