12 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



THE SERIOUS 



TIMBER QUESTION. 



The present prosperity of the iron and steel 

 trade, which has made Pittsburg such a busy 

 place, can largely be traced to the coming ex- 

 haustion of the timber reserves in this coun- 

 try, present high prices of forest products and 

 efforts to substitute iron and steel for wood, 

 because of the rapid work being made in the 

 denuding of our wooded areas, for one reason, 

 and because of the greater durability of metal 

 as another. For these reasons we now have 

 a steel freight car, now a national factor, the 

 .manufacture of which is a great industry, the 

 steel passenger coach and the steel mail car, 

 more recent innovations, the steel railway tie, 

 the iron trolley pole, steel skeletons for build- 

 ings and the use of iron and steel in a host 

 of smaller ways, as substitutes for wood, the 

 use of which is not nearly so universal as it 

 once was. Arbor Day has come and gone in 

 several states, and while in a few places it has 

 received a practical observation, in most in- 

 stances the recognition has been merely a 

 mildly sentimental one in which the planting 

 of a single tree with sufficiently elaborate and 

 symbolic exercises was accounted as .good as 

 a thousand. 



It is a question whether under Mich circum- 

 stances Arbor Day does not do more harm 

 than good. It is not a sentimental interest but 

 an economic sense that needs to be aroused. 

 A circular just sent out by the Bureau of 

 Forestry makes this sufficiently plain if there 

 was any doubt about the matter. This tells us 

 that every, person in the United States uses 

 over six times as much wood as he would use 

 where he in Europe. This is not conclusive, 

 as the average American uses six times as 

 much of a good many other things as he would 

 were he a member of the social and industrial 

 body in most European countries. But there 

 are other figures that are more convincing. 

 We are consuming three times as much tim- 

 ber each year as the forests grow. 



It does not require very abstruse mathemat- 

 ics to determine how long at this rate we shall 

 be able to maintain the ruinous pace. Since 

 1880 more than 700,000,000,000 feet of timber 

 have been cut for lumber alone, including 

 80,000,000,000 feet of coniferouj timber in ex- 

 cess of the total coniferous stumpage estimate 

 of the census twenty-seven years ago. We 

 are consuming wood and timber at a rate 

 much greater than our growth in popolation. 

 In fact this rate is estimated to be twice as 

 great. The northeastern states passed their 

 maximum of production in 1870 and the lake 

 states twenty years later. 



The southern states are supplying about 

 one-third of the timber cut in the country to- 

 day and are said to be nearing their maxi- 

 mum, and in a short time we shall have to look 

 for our supply to the Pacific coast,, where 

 lumbering operations are already in progress 

 upon a colossal scale, which would be even 

 greater but for the wise policy of the govern- 

 ment in establishing the great forest reserves 

 of that section, which contribute to the timber 

 supply from year to year, but by methods that 

 provide against exhaustion. We are said to 

 be in a position similar to that which Con- 

 fronted Germany 150 years ago and France at 

 a later date. 



The warnings of their experience are before 

 us, and we have also the benefit of their dem- 

 onstrations that by scientific and conservative 

 treatment of the problem we can in time re- 

 cover from the effects of our own recklessness. 

 But we can hardly put in operation the same 

 remedial processes by as direct means as those 

 countries have employed. We must have an 

 awakening of public spirit before any great 

 advance can be made. Nature .herself is point- 

 ing out the way. In hundreds of abandoned 

 fields and pastures, the white pines and other 

 trees are coming in by the thousands. To cul- 

 tivate them and give them all the company 

 the ground will stand; to cut what we must 



upon intelligent principles of fores-try is a 

 policy which in fifty years from now would 

 make the three-fifths of our landed area, now 

 given over to scrub growths and small forests, 

 more valuable than it has ever been before. 

 Money, Pittsburg. 



The Forest Problem. 



It is late in the day to begin to take steps, 

 to preserve the forests after three centuries 

 of unbridled slaughter, and to talk also of 

 reforestration, but better late than never. It 

 is the aim of the forest service of the 'de- 

 partment of agriculture to get the people of 

 the country interested in the plan'ting of 

 trees. Under the efficient management of 

 Gifford Pinchot advice is given out on how, 

 when and where to plant trees, and every as- 

 sistance possible will be rendered free of 

 charge. Only recently 10,000 forest tree seed- 

 lings were shipped from a planting station in 

 Xew Mexico to nine different reserves in the 

 territory, with the hope of determining the 

 best time to plant trees as well as the sites 

 best adapted to the different species. 



The growing of forests can only be counted 

 by lifetimes. And just here is where the dif- 

 ficulty comes in in getting the people of the 

 country to take hold of it. Every one likes 

 to do tht thing which he himself can see the 

 benefit from, so when it comes to planting 

 trees, which will not be ready to cut until 

 years after he has passed it does not look- 

 like a paying proposition. This is the nation's 

 problem: How can the timber supply be 

 maintained equal to the demand? It prob- 

 ably cannot be. In the great timber states no 

 effort proves effective in preserving the for- 

 ests from the a,xe and saw, and they are being 

 raprdly exhausted. Bay City Tribune. 



The subject of forestry is a comparatively 

 new one in this country. While there was 

 so much standing timber in the United States 

 the public took no interest in its preservation. 

 The period when the desire was merely to 

 cut it off, and extreme familiarity with wooded 

 conditions is still too close at hand for the 

 public to actually realize the importance of 

 the forests. Eventually the country will learn, 

 but only by the difficulties which the loss of 

 the timber entails, the desirability and neces- 

 sity of forest preservation. Experience is a 

 hard teacher and frequently a costly one. 



The coming generation is growing up with 

 little natural knowledge concerning the for- 

 ests. Yet it is important that it should under- 

 stand their economic value to the country. A 

 little practical instruction to them now will 

 make them better fitted to deal with problems 

 which they will surely have to face. The 

 evils that can be wrought by the destruction 

 of forests have been amply illustrated by the 

 recent Pittsburg floods and on a smaller scale 

 by the high water in the Saginaw valley. Mat- 

 ters of this sort are important and an under- 

 standing of their causes will be of material 

 benefit to those who will be forced to grapple 

 with them in more general, and perhaps more 

 acute form. Courier-Herald, Saginaw. 



reset and take care of the trees. " Filibcrt 

 Roth, Michigan State Forester. 



It is evident that there is not enough timber 

 standing to continue commercially for more 

 than twenty years in all the United States, 

 including the Pacific coast forests. Michigan 

 has done something along the line of refor- 

 estation, but it has been rather desultory, al- 

 though a step in the right direction. One of 

 the measures which should receive earnest 

 legislative consideration is the provision for 

 the extension of work to renew its forests. 

 Michigan already has got beyond the stage of 

 merely protecting what it has, although it is 

 by no meacns entirely stripped of limber. It 

 has reached the point where it must do some- 

 thing to replace the forests that have become 

 a thing of the past, unless it would face the 

 prospect of becoming timberless. Recorder, 

 Albion. 



"Michigan is not alone in reforestation 

 work, in fact it is one of the latest ones to 

 get into it. When I spoke to the governor 

 of Wisconsin a few years ago on the subject 

 he said, why, we don't need it. We have 

 timber enough. Today they are working on 

 reforestration. 



"Michigan began this work only four years 

 ago. It is a result largely of sentiment. When 

 I secured deputies to help me in this work 

 they were used to destruction, and when I 

 gave them small trees to set out they took 

 them with a smile. That smile came off, and 

 today they would fight for the protection of 

 those trees. They are ready and anxious to 



A fire which started in a brush heap half a 

 mile north of Birchwood, Grand Traverse 

 county, swept over a territory three miles 

 long by half a mile wide. The flames swept 

 through several pieces of promising young 

 timber and practically destroyed what little 

 standing timber there was left in that section. 



Much damage was also done in Grant town- 

 ship, Grand Traverse county, by forest (ires. 

 The fire started in section 27 in the chop- 

 pings and spread with great rapidity, the high 

 wind sweeping it along. It then crossed into 

 section 22, where it raged with renewed vigor. 



There are a number of good bills still in com- 

 mittee at Lansing, but there is one among them 

 that all the people of Michigan are interested in 

 having reported out and passed. That is a bill 

 providing for the appointment of a commission of 

 nine men who, during the next two years, shall 

 make an examination of the waste lands of the 

 >tate and report to the legislature the wisest 

 method of administering those lands. 



This bill is backed by the Michigan Forestry 

 Association. In purpose it is 'one of the wisest 

 measures introduced at Lansing. If its provis^ 

 ions are lived up to, if the members of the com- 

 mission are what they should be, disinterested and 

 public-spirited, and of wide experience, the re- 

 sults of their work will -be increasingly apparent 

 during the generations 'to come, reflecting honor 

 not only upon them, but upon all who have had 

 any part in selecting them. 



According to Prof. Roth, the state forest war- 

 den, there are today six million .acres of waste 

 lands in Michigan, lands which produce little that 

 is more valuable than scrub oak and sweet fern. 

 Because of the denuded condition of our water 

 sheds. Michigan towns and cities are subjected to 

 recurring destructive floods. Here -are two in- 

 stances of the most wanton and extravagant 

 wastefulness. Yet, of course, there are persons 

 who profit by it ; otherwise American common 

 sense would 'have stopped it long ago. These 

 persons, or many of them, have political influence. 

 For that reason, and for that reason alone, it is a 

 question whether the governor and the legisla- 

 ture of Michigan will give us such a commission 

 as we need. 



For the governor and the legislature know that 

 a great part of our six million waste acres, though 

 too sterile for agriculture, can be made to grow 

 trees. And the governor and the legislature know 

 that trees have been, and are today, though in a 

 diminishing scale, one of the greatest sources of 

 "Michigan's wealth. And the governor and the 

 legislature know that we Americans are using 

 three times as much wood every year as our for- 

 ests produce. They know that Michigan passed 

 its maximum production seventeen years ago; 

 they know that wood increases in value with every 

 tree that is cut down ; they know that our waste 

 acres contain potential millions of wealth for the 

 state, and more than all they know that it is neces- 

 sary for them only to refuse the importunities of a 

 few political place seekers and provide for a. com- 

 mission which shall place the matter comprehen- 

 sively, intelligently and squarely before the people 

 in order to secure this wealth. Grand Rapids 

 Press. 



