MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



SCIENTIFIC VERSUS 



NATURAL FORESTRY 



In a letter to Charles E. Blair of Grand 

 Rapids, a member of the committee author- 

 ized by the last Michigan legislature to inves- 

 tigate the subject of reforestration in the state, 

 Henry Xelson Loud of Au Sable writes: 



I think you would get a splendid personal 

 knowledge of the 1,000 miles of area which 

 you have in mind if you would come to Au 

 Sable and go over the Au Sable & North- 

 western railway to Comins. From the car 

 window you can get a view, say ten miles on 

 either side for about fifty miles. In my 

 opinion there is room for both scientific for- 

 estry and for natural forestry. 



In the area referred to there are millions 

 of oak trees. This is practically the only 

 growing supply of timber suitable for railroad 

 ties. Now, where these oak trees are growing 

 thickest, I think the natural growth should be 

 assisted by planting acorns, as the soil would 

 produce in all probability ten times as many 

 trees as are now growing on the land. This 

 could be done either by sewing broadcast or 

 by the corn planter, of suitable size and 

 mechanism. You will see on this territory 

 trees from a small bush to trees twelve to fif- 

 teen inches in diameter, fifty feet high some- 

 times with trunk long enough to make four or 

 five tie-cuts, and some of the cuts large enough 

 to make two ties. For such ties the railroads 

 pay from 60 to 80 cents each. An acre should 

 produce from 600 to 1,000 trees. I do not 

 believe this land would produce oak trees of 

 much larger growth. The soil does not seem 

 to be of a strong enough character as the trees 

 commence to decay at the heart after they 

 grow to measure twelve to fifteen inches at 

 the butt. 



White and Norway Pine Forests. 



There are other large sections of land com- 

 ing up to pine, which, if taken care of and 

 protected from fire, would soon become valu- 

 able groves. These also, I think, could by 

 small assistance, be made far more profitable. 

 The same territory, if given fire and timber 

 thief protection, would produce five to ten 

 times as great a crop. It frequently happens 

 that the ground is fairly thick with small 

 seedlings. These if left to nature must fight 

 each other until a few kill off the many. I 

 think nature could be cheaply assisted by 

 transplanting these young seedlings, filling out 

 all the open places and enlarging the grove 

 to the extent of the seedlings available for 

 this purpose. Six by six seems to be the com- 

 mon accepted spacing. 



I would not think it necessary in the work- 

 ing out of this plan that any great pains 

 should be taken to line up the trees. I would 

 merely give them approximately the breathing 

 space required. Trees grown in this manner 

 would be fully double the value of trees grown 

 in the open, where they grow short-bodied and 

 practically all coarse lumber and limbs. 



Present State Policy Criminal. 



At the present time the state is selling large 

 bodies of land on which the timber, which 

 has grown since the lumbermen have left it, 

 runs from seedlings up to trees eight to twelve 

 inches in diameter. The state sells this land 

 for less than it would cost to plant the trees 

 and the party who buys the land thinks he is 

 amply compensated if he goes in and does 

 a good winter's work. This pine is just in 

 its first commercial value and should be left 

 to grow twenty years. All of these twenty 

 years would be commercial growth and be of 

 larger value to the state. If I can I will send 

 you some photographs of some of the skid- 

 wavs of this class of logs. 



The present policy is nothing short of crim- 

 inal. The state does not need the money, but 

 it does need the forests. 



Michigan Agricultural College Forest. 

 Within twenty-five miles of Au Sable there 

 are say 300 square miles of area on which 



there is no inhabitant. The few farms that 

 we're taken up in this territory have been 

 deserted. The Michigan Agricultural College 

 has taken up say 40,000 acres of this land 

 which it will use as a forest laboratory in the 

 education of young men in forestry and the 

 probability is that sooner or later this will be 

 forested along scientific lines. 



The general government is considering es- 

 tablishing on the area still owned by the 

 United States a Great Lakes Forest Reserve. 

 This will take up about 40,000 acres and the 

 state has approximately as much more of state 

 tax land in this territory. 



All Systems of Forestry Needed: 

 The work can and must be carried on under 

 two plans. It would be an impossibility to 

 make more than a start along scientific lum- 

 bering to cover the immense areas of aban- 

 doned state lands. Not enough educated help 

 is available. Sowing the seed either broad- 

 cast or by planting is successful, and ten times 

 the area can be covered for the same money 

 and with the same help as can be covered by 

 scientific forestry, yet scientific forestry will 

 pay, and will satisfy those who are inclined 

 to think that it is the only way to reforest. 

 Broadcast planting will satisfy a class of peo- 

 ple who are entirely opposed to the German 

 method. The cleaning up and trimming up 

 of the small growing forests will satisfy an- 

 other class. We need them all and each must 

 work to carry out his own line and offer no 

 opposition to the other. 



When forestry is established on a business 

 basis we should be able to plant a million trees 

 for $5,000 covering 1,000 acres. This is some- 

 what cheaper than is being done t the present 

 time in the United States. It is being done for 

 as low as $3 to $10 per acre by the Pennsyl- 

 vania railroad. 



Spruce Forests. 



I think every paper mill should have its own 

 spruce forest growing. This can be accom- 

 plished as soon as the proper protection is 

 provided and the proper tax law is put on the 

 statute books, whereby the land is taxed and 

 not the crops. Spruce is a wood that reforests 

 itself, but I think from a look at the trees at 

 the Agricultural College that Norway spruce 

 would .give double the growth in the same 

 time. Large areas now growing aspen, a 

 worthless species of poplar, would grow a 

 valuable species of poplar that grows three 

 times as fast. The coming generation will 

 need all kinds of wood, and an area should not 

 be confined entirely to pine. The larger areas 

 of land around the Soo are especially adapted 

 to the growth of spruce. A little patch of 

 Norway spruce at the Agricultural College is 

 estimated to be growing 200 cords to the acre 

 and I do not believe this has been planted 

 over forty or fifty years. All of the trees on 

 the campus must have been planted several 

 years after the college was started. Prac- 

 tically all the trees on the capitol grounds, 

 many of them two feet in diameter, must have 

 been set out after the capitol was built, so 

 this shows what can be done in growing trees. 

 When you oppose scientific forestry you 

 should consider that there would be approxi- 

 mately the same result from random sowing 

 of forest trees as there would be sowing corn 

 at random instead of planting with the proper 

 spacing. This does not, in any way, alter the 

 proposition that you are entirely right along 

 your line of moving forward and securing the 

 ground for present growing of trees, and, if 

 you secure this, you will have accomplished 

 a large benefit to the state. 



Jack Pine Forests. 



A very large part of the waste area of Michi- 

 gan is covered with jack pines. Many of 

 them are now of merchantable value and other 

 large areas are growing. In my judgment 

 these areas should be selected for planting 

 other pines, Norways or spruces, as they will 

 act as nurse for the younger trees, making 

 them tall and straight bodied. The pines and 



spruces will seek the light and after ten to 

 twenty years' growth will overtop the jack 

 pine. The jack pine can be marketed leaving 

 a beautiful grove of straight, smooth bodied 

 timber. Timber planted in this way and cared 

 for will, in from fifty to one hundred years, 

 produce from five hundred thousand to a 

 million feet or more to a forty. 



If there are any other details o,f this prob- 

 lem in which I can be of any assistance to 

 you, or to the committee, .1 trust that you 

 will not hesitate to call upon me. 



I would be pleased to see the entire com- 

 mittee make a trip over the Au Sable & North- 

 western railway to Comins, drive overland to 

 Lewiston and then on to Grayling. 



Roscommon Forests vs. Clover Seed. 



There are, at Roscommon, some of the 

 older inhabitants who cannot, or will not, 

 comprehend the value of the forestry proposi- 

 tion. They are continually harping on the 

 question of raising clover seed on sandy jack 

 pine land. These people have been living in 

 this territory practically all their lives, prob- 

 ably on some choice piece of land which is 

 underlaid with clay and on which they can 

 raise some few crops. If the raising of clover 

 seed on this land is profitable these people 

 should have large bank accounts, should have 

 nice houses and farm buildings and nice stock. 

 I have not been in that territory for a long 

 time and possibly these farmers are in 

 affluence resulting from the profitable raising 

 of clover seed, but my recollection of the sandy 

 plain farms, for ten miles on the highway run- 

 ning east from Roscommon, is still very vivid. 

 I can remember when the people came on 

 there from the older farming sections bring- 

 ing with them money and courage, and put up 

 good houses and farm buildings and fences. 

 I am told that there is nothing left of these 

 farms but a waste of blowing sand where the 

 houses and plowed fields were, with here and 

 there a few fence posts showing the line of 

 road marking the highway. I have driven 

 over the highway ten miles east from Gray- 

 ling which is in the condition described above. 



I do know that where we have sold good 

 hardwood farming lands the farmers raising 

 clover seed have paid for their land and paid 

 for their houses. Their families are in good 

 condition and prosperous, and many of them 

 have bank accounts, all from the clover seed 

 crop. 



In these counties where large areas of land 

 have been abandoned a large amount of labor 

 can very profitably be employed in reforesting 

 and when the grand routine of marketing 

 comes, as well as planting, these lands will 

 support a large number of men profitably em- 

 ployed in the lumbering business. 



It is in no sense of the word a proposition 

 to drive citizens or farmers away from the 

 country. It is rather a proposition to give 

 them employment along lines which they and 

 their children will enjoy, as soon as they have 

 learned what forestry is, nothing more than 

 a high grade of farming. 



Christmas Trees. 



A man who sets out for his boy a few acres 

 of spruce or balsam Christmas trees, 1,500 to 

 2,500 to an acre, will, in a few years, provide 

 him with all the spending money he will need. 

 Work your pencil on this proposition. Ver- 

 mont sells trees to its citizens at a cost of 

 $2 per thousand. It costs $3 to $5 per thou- 

 sand to set them out. Seed costs about 50 

 cents. You can see just such a proposition 

 growing. at the Michigan Agricultural College. 



Let the Roscommon sand plains farmer 

 for the asking he can spare five or ten acres 

 for his boy and both will find pleasure and 

 Surely where land can be had almost as a gift 

 growing clover seed work this proposition also, 

 profit and something to keep the boy on the 

 farm. 



Frank Kelley, of Vanderbilt, manufactured 

 5,000,000 shingles last year. 



