M""HTGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



Best Road Material 



OUR HOBBY. 



Crushed Granite and Gravel 



SCREENED TO SUIT. 



WRITE US. 



THE HENRY MERCIAN CO., 



43-44 Peninsular Bank Building, 

 Phone Main 6251 DETROIT. 



ADVOCATES A 



PRISON QUARRY 



Charles C. Rosenbury, of Bay City, vice-pres- 

 ident of the Michigan Road Makers' Associa- 

 tion, is one of the most enthusiastic good roads 

 advocates in the state. He has made a study oi 

 road building and possesses a big fund of knowl- 

 edge on the subject. Mr. Rosenbury recently 

 made an extended trip through the state and 

 gathered some valuable information on the dif- 

 ferent methods of road building in vogue. 



Mr. Rosenbury says : 



"Just as soon as the people of the counties in 

 the southern peninsula who are importing and 

 using crushed stone for roads wake up to the 

 fact and realize the importance of lending their 

 efforts to establishing a quarry and rock-crush- 

 ing plant in the upper peninsula, where vast 

 quantities of fine trap rock, suitable for the best 

 macadam road building is found, we will be able 

 to obtain satisfactory road rock for our county 

 roads. Until then the material nearest at hand 

 will, no doubt, have to be used if stone roads are 

 built. It is unfortunate that all good road ma- 

 terial has to be imported into Bay county ; even 

 our gravel being hauled many miles. 



"There seems to be only about one citizen out 

 of a hundred who realizes the importance of this 

 stone proposition to this county or at least shows 

 a spirit of interest in paving the way for the 

 county to obtain trap rock which is located in 

 the upper peninsula in abundance. 



"This rock is pronounced by road engineers to 

 be the finest road material obtainable in the 

 United States, and at least four times better than 

 any stone located in the southern peninsula. 



"We have abo'ut one hundred miles of lime- 

 stone roads in Bay county, and State Engineer 

 Rogers informs me that to put these roads in 

 ' condition to withstand hard wear it would only 

 require resurfacing these roads with three inches 

 ,p rock, and in building extensions the 

 "iilii <to for a foundation, 

 trap rock it would 

 !; besides this rock has 

 c's which would pre- 

 blowing to the lour 



"Some years ago some trap rock was gotten 

 out near the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie and 

 shipped to Cleveland for resurfacing macadam 

 roads, and is known to have lasted seyen years 

 without repairing. 



"One has but to visit Marquette, Ishpeming or 

 the copper district to realize the wonderful road 

 work that can be accomplished with the use of 

 this rock. The streets therein, and the roads 

 leading into these cities, would be marvels of 

 wonder to some of our doubting citizens. Most 

 of them are as smooth as a pavement and very 

 durable, requiring very little care even where 

 they are built over hills, a grade of five per cent 

 in places. 



"In conversation with citizens at Red Jacket 

 regarding the introducing of this rock into the 

 southern peninsula, they suggested that if we 

 would help them locate a prison there for quarry- 

 ing and crushing the nick, we would be assured 

 of enough of it to last two hundred years, even 

 if we built the roads twice as fast as we are at 

 present. And further that the rock in its orig- 

 inal state would not cost the state one penny, as 



ROAD BUILDERS WANTED. 



Many different localities throughout Michi- 

 gan are writing the State Highway Depart- 

 ment, asking for names and addresses of con- 

 tractors and practical road' builders who can 

 and will enter into a contract, or will take 

 charge of and superintend the building of 

 state roads. All persons who desire to make 

 contracts, or wish to be employed as super- 

 intendents, should send their .names and ad- 

 dresses to the State Highway Department, 

 Lansing, Mich. 



mountains of the material have been already of- 

 fered free to 'the state if it would only erect the 

 prison and crushing apparatus there. 



"There is now being operated out of Mil- 

 waukee a line of boats fitted for the stone carry- 

 ing trade, being constructed for the purpose and 

 having hatches opening into V-shaped bins. 

 These bins run lengthwise of the vessel. In un- 

 loading the stone from these bins trap doors are 

 opened gradually at the lower point, and from 

 below. The crushed rock drops onto an endless 

 belt, and is hauled up out of the boat and 

 dumped into cars. In this way 708 yards of rock 

 are unloaded in seven hours. These boats have 

 hauled limestone to some of the counties in the 

 western part of our state from points near Mil- 

 waukee. The company has asked to be allowed 

 to bid on carrying the trap rock' for the state 

 of Michigan, if the proposed prison and rock 

 crushing plant is erected in the northern penin- 

 sula. The legislature ought to provide for it at 

 its next session. 



"I recently traveled over about twenty miles of 

 limestone roads in southwestern Michigan, most- 

 ly in Berrien county, where they had cut through 

 a continual succession of hills to get the grade. 

 Here they are using limestone crushed at the 

 prison at Joliet, 111., about the same quality as 

 we are using, and it is hard to get at that, the 

 demand being far more than the Joliet quarry 

 can deliver. Limestone is being used continually 

 in Berrien county, St. Clair county, Saginaw 

 county, Dickinson county, Wayne county, Mon- 

 roe county, Tuscola county, Cheboygan county 

 and Kent county. I have traveled over roads in 

 these counties and know that their highway com- 

 missioners are using limestone simply because 

 it is the best available road stone to be had in 

 the southern peninsula. Hard heads are not 

 available in the proper quantities at less than a 

 prohibitive price, and when they are obtained do 

 not run the same, some being extra hard ana 

 others when crushed are soft and crumbly. At 

 Sault Ste. Marie, where they have quantities of 

 hard heads right at hand, they are using them to 

 build their roads. Their roads, however, are not 

 to be compared to those in other parts of the 

 northern peninsula, which are built of trap rock." 



READY FOR GOOD ROADS. 



It has been suggested by residents of Benton 

 township, Berrien county, that a meeting be called 

 for the purpose of considering plans for improve- 

 ment of roads. Inquiry elicits the information 

 that there is a sentiment in that township in favor 

 of a liberal expenditure for improvement of the 

 highways, and all that is evidently needed is for 

 some public-spirited resident to take the initiative 

 and plan as well as help to carry out some prac- 

 tical method of improvement. 



PEOPLE NEED EDUCATING. 



A good roads campaign will soon be inaugurated 

 by Secretary Gibson of the Business Men's Asso- 

 ciation of Battle Creek, for the purpose, he says. 

 "of educating the people to vote right on the 

 question when presented at the polls next April." 



Several big meetings are being arranged for, to 

 take place in the near future, of which one of 

 the attractions will be State Highway Commis- 

 sioner Karle. "The people need to be educated," 

 says Secretary Gibson. "There is a general senti- 

 ment in favor of good roads, but there are many 

 who do not realize the benefits to be derived. I 



am going to use all the blarney I possess in fur- 

 thering the good roads pro|*>sition." 



GOOD ROADS NOTES. 



The Board of Supervisors of Eator county has 

 ordered a vote on the good roads proposition in 

 Oneida and Grand Ledge at the next general elec- 

 tion in April. This is in accordance with the 

 petition recently filed from these townships 



The Business Men's Association of Mt. Clemens 

 has taken up the question of good roads and will 

 make a vigorous campaign. It is proposed to 

 adopt the district plan, Mt. Clemens to join with 

 several surrounding townships. The question will 

 be submitted in .April. 



At a meeting of the Winsor, Huron county, 

 township board it was decided to purchase 

 a stone crusher and other necessary machinery 

 to make the material for stone roads. A 

 petition has been sent to the state highway 

 department for the building of one mile of 

 state reward road. 



The Country Club of Marquette will build a 

 new road to the club next spring. It is to be a 

 macadamized road and will be three-quarters of 

 a mile long. 



PINE COSTLY AS HARDWOOD. 



The position which the United States has 

 held as a lumber-producing nation has, per- 

 haps, been due more to white pine than to any 

 oilier wood. The timber of this valuable tree 

 which has played a most important part in 

 the material development of the nation is now 

 as costly as the finest American hardwoods. 



Rev. Edward Everett Hale, the chaplain 

 of the United States Senate, who has always 

 taken an interest in forestry, deplores the pass- 

 ing of white pine 1 as our foremost wood, and 

 tells how in his own lifetime he has seen the 

 day when "the masts of every vessel thai 

 sailed the Seven Seas were made from New 

 England grown pine; while today very little 

 white pine is cut in New England big enough 

 to furnish a good-sized spar.'' He tells also, 

 to illustrate the increasing cost of the wood, 

 that he ordered a set of book shelves on which 

 the cabinet-maker made a price, and then 

 asked whether they should be of mahogany 

 or white pine. 



Michigan was the leading lumber-producing 

 state for twenty years, from 1870 to 1890, 

 with a supremacy based on white pine. In 

 two decades the cut was 160 billions of board 

 feet, valued, at the point of production, at not 

 less than two billion dollars, or nearly half 

 as much again as the value derived from all 

 the goldfields of California from their discov- 

 ery in the late forties until the present. 



An idea of the increasing scarcity of white 

 pine timber is given by the New York F. O. B. 

 quotations, on a basis of carload lots. 

 "Uppers" of the best grade, cost $97 to $114 

 a thousand board feet and the "selects" or 

 next lower grade cost $79.50 to $99.50. Men 

 who are not yet middle-aged remember the 

 time when these grades could be purchased 

 at $15 to $25 a thousand feet. The present . 

 quotations on quartered white oak, which are 

 $75 to $80, offer another basis of comparison 

 which indicates the condition of the market 

 for white pine. 



