MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



11 



now useless alike to the state and the citi- 

 zens of the state, of great and permanent 

 value? Cannot the state well afford to spend 

 this sum in securing and improving a prop- 

 erty that ultimately will repay the state dollar 

 for dollar for every cent that she puts into 

 it, and much more besides? 



Again, we should not ignore the indirect 

 value of such forestry property to the state, 

 in providing labor for her citizens, extending 

 her trade and commerce, and in favorably in- 

 fluencing climate and stream flow. In my 

 judgment, it would be a sane policy for the 

 state of Michigan to issue long-term bonds, 

 at a low rate of interest, for the purchase 

 of her non-agricultural lands suitable for for- 

 est growth, until she ultimately has five mil- 

 lions of acres in state forests. 



A Sound Business Venture. 



How do we know that this is a sound 

 business venture on the part of the state? 

 Xrw York today could sell her state forests 

 at from three to ten times as much per acre 

 as she paid for them. Pennsylvania today 

 could sell her state forests for from two to 

 four times as much per acre as she paid 

 for them. Do not tell me that Michigan 

 would lose by purchasing her cheap pine lands 

 and making them into state forests. The 

 great stretches of pine lands, unfit for agri- 

 culture, will some day be one of Michigan's 

 greatest assets. For nearly half a century 

 the stream of gold that came into this state 

 from the exploitation of the white pine, that 

 prince of timber trees, on these lands, was 

 greater than that which ever before came 

 into any country or any state from a like 

 source. 



From one end of the state to the other 

 the old timber is gone, but a' new crop must 

 again clothe those naked sands. Pine trees 

 must again wave in the breezes of northern 

 Michigan. How can the state lose in a ven- 

 ture of this nature when she already has 

 thousands of acres of pine barrens that have 

 come to her through the non-payment of taxes 

 and which can be made into state forests 

 without the expenditure of a single dollar, and 

 when thousands of additional acres can be 

 purchased at the cost of a dollar or a dollar 

 and a half per acre? 



We in the east are beginning to appreciate 

 the value of non-agricultural lands for the 

 production of timber, and they cost today two 

 to eight times as much as they did a decade 

 ago. Michigan should acquire these lands 

 now. while they are inexpensive and their 

 value not appreciated. Do you tell me that 

 pine land is not worth a dollar an acre, aye, 

 five dollars an acre, when less than six acres 

 of sixty-year-old second-growth white pine 

 sold in Massachusetts a year ago for more 

 than $2,600, or more than $400 an acre? Do 

 you tell me that white pine land is not worth 

 a dollar an acre, when a hundred-acre white 

 pine woodlot sold in Connecticut last year for 

 $25.000? Do you tell me white pine land is 

 not worth a dollar an acre when, on good 

 pine soil, this prince of trees will for the first 

 fifty years, when in full stand, make an aver- 

 age annual increment of a thousand feet a 

 year? It is not an uncommon thing in south- 

 rrn Connecticut for stands of second-growth 

 chestnut coppice to bring $100 per acre, and 

 their value is increasing with each succeeding 



Lands Can Reproduce Another Forest. 



You may say that over much of the cut-over 

 ind repeatedly burned pine lands of Michigan 

 here is no hope of a second crop through 

 latural regeneration. This is true, but the 

 and is there, ladies and gentlemen the land 

 s there, and the potential value of these bar- 

 ens for the production of white and red pine 

 great. A land which in the immediate past 

 produced the finest commercial forests of east- 

 ern America is not worthless. These lands 

 are capable of reproducing another forest 

 growth of even greater value under proper 

 care and management, and of producing suc- 



cessive crops as long as the state exists. In 

 order to do this, however, they cannot be 

 wholly left to private ownership. The private 

 citizen will seldom plant a forest for future 

 generations to harvest, no matter how profit- 

 able the venture may be. The state must own 

 those lands and place them under a sane sys- 

 tem of management. Where there is not an 

 adequate natural production she must plant. 

 You say this is an expensive operation. I 

 grant that it is. But,, gentlemen, you are to 

 look at the results and compare them with 

 the initial cost. In Massachusetts and other 

 New England states second-growth stands of 

 white pine and early plantations of white pine 

 have recently been harvested with startling 

 results. White pine plantations have produced 

 40,000 board feet per acre at the end of forty 

 years, the timber selling for five or six dollars 

 per thousand on the stump. No one knows 

 what this same class of timber will fetch 

 forty years hence; certainly it will be much 

 higher. I hear you say that this class of 

 timber is much more valuable in the thickly 

 populated east than in Michigan. This is true, 

 but forty years from now, with our enormous 

 consumption and rapidly decreasing supply, 

 there will be no part of the country but will 

 have a market for every stick of timber that 

 can be produced. Placing the initial cost of 

 and planting in this state at from six to eight 

 dollars per acre, as has been shown to be 

 a conservative figure in handling white pine 

 in this state, compare it, if you please, with 

 a possible value at the end of forty years of 

 $200 or more per acre, and tell me then if 

 this is not a sane economic proposition. 



When you go home, it is your business, 

 gentlemen, if you have the interests of Michi- 

 gan at heart, to lay this matter before your 

 legislators in Lansing. Work for the pros- 

 perity of your sons and daughters, and for 

 their sons and daughters, and not wholly 

 for your own selfish interests of today. I 

 have tried, farmers of Michigan, to put before 

 you the necessity for placing these great areas 

 of waste lands, where there is no hope for 

 agriculture, in the hands of the state, where 

 they rightly belong, and where they may be 

 made productive; but there is also another way 

 in which you can help the cause of forestry 

 there is another way in which you can annul 

 the acuteness of the wood famine which is 

 sure to come. 



A Plea For the Woodlot. 



In Michigan, as well as in every other state 

 .of eastern America, a large percentage of the 

 so-called waste land or non-agricultural land, 

 is attached to the farms. So, also a very 

 large percentage of the forests is embraced 

 in the farmer's woodlot. The improvement 

 of these is wholly an individual matter, de- 

 pending upon the activity of every farmer in 

 the state. For years you have been cutting 

 out the best from your woodlots as the local 

 market has developed, until in many instances 

 nothing is left but forest weeds, culls and 

 sprouts. You have sold magnificent speci- 

 mens of walnut, oak, whitewood and ash at 

 the bare cost of getting them to market, when, 

 if left until now, they would be worth more 

 than your entire farm. But do not lament 

 over the past, although Michigan will never 

 see such superb specimens of hardwoods again. 

 Realize not only the present value, but the 

 potential value of what you have left. Do 

 not deceive yourself into thinking- that your 

 culled and cut-over woodlots are valueless; 

 they will yet prove a gold mine. Appreciate 

 their value; don'Kpermit them to be skimmed 

 of every stick of timber as soon as it is 

 large enough for a fence post, or will cut out 

 an armful of wood. Don't permit them to be 

 grazed by sheep and cattle until there are no 

 young trees for a future crop. Give them as 

 n.iich thought and consideration as you do 

 your tilled fields and your meadows. I say, 

 you do not appreciate their value; you would 

 sell them today for a mere pittance _of their 

 potential worth. I know an Ansonia farmer 



of southern Connecticut who only a few 

 months ago sold the wood from a five-acre 

 woodlot for $150; a few weeks later the pur- 

 chaser sold it to the Ansonia Water Company 

 for $325. The latter company is now cutting 

 it, and will obtain more than $500 from its 

 sale. 



Instead of culling your woodlot for the 

 straightest and best trees as soon as they be- 

 come of marketable size, but are still far from 

 mature, begin the other way round. Take 

 out the old, the over-mature, the decaying 

 trees that are occupying space and becoming 

 of less value with each succeeding year. Take 

 out the inferior species, the forest weeds, and 

 manage your thinnings so that the best speci- 

 mens and the most valuable species will have 

 adequate growing space. Go home and study 

 your woodlots. Use common sense and con- 

 stant care, because these two things are the 

 very essence of farm forestry. 



Forestry in its application to the farmer's 

 woodlot is not an incomprehensible thing. It 

 is simple. There is not a farmer in this room 

 today but can go into his woodlot and on his 

 own initiative work out a plan for its improve- 

 ment. The important part of farm forestry 

 today lies in the proper care of present 

 woodlots. 



Aside from this important field, however, 

 there is another phase of farm forestry which 

 demands attention. Your waste lands, which 

 have become of little or no value for pastur- 

 age, should be made productive through the 

 growing of timber. This, however, can only 

 be done through planting. But, in planting 

 these poor, rocky or exhausted soils, take 

 careful heed of the species that you use. Wal- 

 nut, catalpa, whitewood, oak and similar hard- 

 woods will not make a profitable growth on 

 extremely poor soils. Conifers, particularly 

 white and red pine, will flourish where most 

 hardwoods will fail. Not only _ is this sound 

 economy for you to utilize, in many instances, 

 these waste lands attached to your farms for 

 forest growth, but in many parts of the state, 

 where there is. already a dearth of wood for 

 local use, it may be profitable to grow forest 

 trees even on good agricultural soil, particu- 

 larly where they can be grown under a short 

 rotation for posts, poles and similar uses. 



In your neighboring state of Ohio, locust 

 plantations have given a net annual profit of 

 more than $10 per acre. Where it is pos- 

 sible to grow locust to post size in a rotation 

 of from twelve to eighteen years, and when 

 a full stand will produce from 1,000 to 2,000 

 posts, which even now are worth from ten 

 cents to twenty-five cents apiece, there may 

 be more money growing posts than in grow- 

 ing wheat. 



Forestry Yet Young in America. 



We should remember that forestry is yet 

 young in this country. Only in recent years 

 has it taken a vigorous, healthy growth. But 

 we, as a nation, are growing away from our 

 former antipathy to the forest. We should 

 remember that when our forefathers came to 

 this country the whole of what is now eastern 

 America was one unbroken, pathless forest. 

 To the east was the storm-tossed sea, on every 

 other side the deep, dark, unknown wood. 

 It was there that our forefathers cleared away 

 the great trees of centuries' growth and built 

 themselves houses. From the depths of the 

 forest came the bear and deer to feed upon 

 their crops, and the wolf to destroy their 

 herds. The children wandered into it and 

 were lost. From its hidden recesses came 

 the Indian, not only to destroy the crops, but 

 to burn their homes and threaten their very 

 lives. Our forefathers looked upon the forest 

 as the great enemy to progress and civiliza- 

 tion, as it surely was in those days. Is it 

 any wonder that a sentiment adverse to forest 

 growth early took possession of the American 

 people? 



As time passed the clearings along the coast 

 became larger and larger. Settlers, the sons 

 of settlers, and their sons, turned their faces 

 toward the unknown west, and penetrated 



