MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



13 



Our great iron ore beds do not replace them- 

 selves. Our oil and gas wells go dry. The 

 wholesale destruction of the forest cover on 

 a great watershed may spread ruin over thous- 

 ands of square miles of territory and choke 

 up the channels for miles. When our de- 

 posits of coal and iron and oil are used up. 

 they will be gone forever, and only through 

 a revolution of the methods of conducting the 

 industries dependent upon them will it be 

 possible for these industries to succeed and 

 for the wants which they supply to be filled; 

 hence too great emphasis can not be given 

 to the movement to husband these resources 

 and utilize them in the most economical man- 

 ner. 



Timber Can Be Reproduced. 



Fortunately, timber is our one great natural 

 resource which can be reproduced, though 

 the reproduction of it on a scale commensur- 

 ate with the needs may require scores of 

 years and millions of dollars. The realiza- 

 tion is also coming to us that we must as 

 a nation depend almost entirely upon our- 

 selves for our timber supplies. In the main, 

 we must produce our timber at home or go 

 without it. How important is the importa- 

 tion of a billion feet of timber from Canada in 

 a year compared with the cutting of forty 

 billion feet from our own forests in the same 

 time! For years we have been hearing of the 

 great forest resources of Canada, and the press 

 has been filled with stories of the boundless 

 tracts of spruce and pine and fir which were 

 supposed to exist beyond our northern bor- 

 der. We are learning better, however, and 

 when, as within the past year, the greatest 

 forest economist in America tells us that the 

 area of commercial timber in Canada is not 

 more than half that in the United States, and 

 when the Superintendent of Forestry of the 

 Dominion Government says that the total 

 stand of commercial timber in British America 

 is some 530 billion feet, we can make intelli- 

 gent comparison with our own conditions. It 

 is probable, then, that the amount of standing 

 timber in Canada does not exceed one-fourth 

 to one-third of that in the United States; and 

 there is, to compete with our demands for 

 timber, the rapid development taking place 

 in Canada, particularly in the interior prairie 

 provinces, where only last year forty-six 

 thousand homesteads were filed. This is a 

 region where almost every stick of timber re- 

 quired must be shipped in from forests many 

 miles away, as has been the case in our own 

 Dakotas. Canadian timber supplies, then, will 

 eventually be no greater than Canadian needs; 

 neither can we turn to South America or the 

 Philippines for any great amount of timber, 

 notwithstanding the current stories about their 

 vast forests. They will undoubtedly serve as 

 a source of supply for small quantities of 

 high-grade hardwoods, but it is hopeless to 

 expect to obtain from them the timber we 

 annually require for structural purposes. The 

 great coniferous forests afe confined to the 

 northern hemisphere and four-fifths of the 

 lumber which we consume is of coniferous 

 varieties. 



Present Forest Area Sufficient. 



Our present forest area is sufficient, if 

 right managed, to produce eventually timber 

 enough to supply our needs. A great tim- 

 ber shortage came in Germany more than 100 

 years ago and was met by vigorous State 

 and National action, in setting aside large for- 

 ests areas for the permanent production of 

 timber, in which the annual cut was not to 

 exceed the annual growth. This policy has 

 been steadily maintained, and, because of the 

 excellent attention which they have received 

 and the right principles of management which 

 liave been applied, it is now possible in the 

 Prussian forests to cut three times as much 

 timber every year as could be cut in 1820. 

 Every acre of German state, municipal and 

 private forest, is now paving 5 per cent an- 

 nually on a valuation of $50 per acre, and 



furnishes a regular supply of timber for the 

 people. It is only by such methods as these 

 that a timber famine in the United States cau 

 be averted. 



TAXATION OF TIMBER LANDS. 



Exhaustive study of the forest taxation 

 problem as presented, by the actual workings 

 of existing laws is to be attempted for the 

 first time by the New Hampshire forestry 

 commission in co-operation with the United 

 States forest service. The study will take in 

 the many questions of forest land taxation and 

 the protection of New Hampshire forests from 

 fires. J. H. Foster, of the forest service, has 

 been sent from Washington to make the in- 

 vestigations on the ground. 



Because of its thoroughness, New Hamp- 

 shire's study is sure to be followed with great 

 interest by New York, Maine, Michigan, Penn- 

 syuvania and other states which find the tax 

 problem a serious check to forest preserva- 

 tion. Mr. Foster will find out by painstaking 

 inquiry in different parts of the state and 

 among all classes of citizens how the laws 

 are administered, how they are regarded and 

 what their effect is on the lumber industry 

 and on forest preservation. The result will 

 be to provide New Hampshire with a better 

 basis for revising its system of taxing forest 

 lands than any state has ever had, if changes 

 in the present laws are found to be needed. 



Taxation of timber land is regarded by of- 

 ficers of the forest service as one of the most 

 important matters up for discussion. They 

 believe that upon the right settlement of this 

 question depends largely the rapidity with 

 which private owners adopt forestry. Agita- 

 tion for a change is taking place along two 

 directly opposite lines for an increase in the 

 amount of taxes to be paid by wild lands on 

 the one hand, and on the other for laws 

 which will partly or. wholly exempt from tax- 

 ation reforested lands, or defer the collection 

 of taxes on the forest crop until it is har- 

 vested. 



Those who urge increasing the tax believe 

 this class of property does not pay its just 

 share. Those who advocate laws to lighten 

 the weight of taxation on forest lands in one 

 way or another maintain that the public wel- 

 fare is promoted by the preservation of for- 

 ests, and that the more heavily they are taxed 

 the more nearly certain it is that they will be 

 wiped out or will lose most of their value 

 through destructive lumbering. 



In Maine and New York proposed changes 

 in existing laws are under discussion. In 

 Maine a tax commission appointed by the last 

 legislature is about to hold public hearings, 

 and the report is that it will be asked to rec- 

 ommend a plan whereby wild lands may be 

 taxed on the same basis as municipal property, 

 or about 2 per cent annually. In the New 

 York legislature a bill has been introduced 

 which would tax timber land managed with 

 the approval of the forest, fish and game com- 

 mission at a rate not higher than that for bar- 

 ren in the same tax district, with an addi- 

 tional tax of 3 per cent on the stumpage value 

 of the timber when it is cut. 



In Maine the value of standing timber would 

 be regarded as a part of the value of the land, 

 and the owner would pay a rising tax as his 

 timber grows more valuable, until he cuts it. 

 In the New York bill the timber is regarded 

 as a growing crop, which, like other growing 

 crops, should be exempt until it is harvested. 

 The New York bill seeks to encourage for- 

 estry as a means of increasing the wealth of 

 the state; the Maine plan would discourage it. 



The New Hampshire study has been under- 

 taken in the belief that it will help solve what 

 is undeniably a knotty problem. A forest tax- 

 ation law which is both wise and practical is 

 by no means easy to frame. 



PRINCIPAL USE. 



Jack -"The forests should be conserved." 

 Stella "Oh, I guess there are enough left 

 to carve pur initials on. New York Sun. 



PRACTICAL WORK HAS BEGUN. 



Practical work resulting from the recent 

 conference of governors at the White House 

 began with the organization of the national 

 conservation commission this month. The 

 governors joined in a declaration favoring the 

 appointment of federal as well as state commis- 

 sions to co-operate in a plan for the conserva- 

 tion of the natural resources of the country. 

 Under the direction of Gifford Pinchot, chair- 

 man of the national commission, plans are 

 under way for beginning the work of collect- 

 ing information upon which to base the pre- 

 liminary report of the commission, to be made 

 next January. In these words of President 

 Roosevelt is the keynote for the work of the 

 commission: "Every effort should be made to 

 prevent destruction, to reduce waste, and to 

 distribute the enjoyment of our natural wealth 

 in such a way as to promote the greatest good 

 for the greatest number for the longest time." 

 The commission will begin its inquiry in look- 

 ing toward development of water transporta- 

 tion, judicious development of forests, control 

 of streams, with a view of reducing soil waste 

 and permitting American farms to increase in 

 fertility and productiveness, proper use of pub- 

 lic lands of the country, and judicious de- 

 velopment of its mineral resources. 



Almost simultaneously with the appoint- 

 ment of the commission .the president issued 

 an order authorizing the federal departments 

 to 'give the commission such help as it may 

 require. Information will also be sought in 

 other quarters, and the commission is divided 

 into sub-committees to more effectively ob- 

 tain information on the various subjects to be 

 considered. The executive committee of the 

 commission consists of Chairman Pinchot and 

 the chairman and secretary of each section 

 waters, forests, lands and minerals. On each 

 section of the commission there are two Un- 

 ited States senators and three representatives 

 in Congress. 



Several large phases of the conservation 

 movement are represented by such men as 

 Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill, John Mitchell 

 and John' Hays Hammond. Other members 

 who may be less prominent are well known 

 experts in the various lines of work to be 

 considered by the commission. The present 

 Inland Waterways commission, with two ad- 

 ditional members, Senator Allison of Iowa and 

 Representative Ransdell of Louisiana, presi- 

 dent of the national rivers and harbors con- 

 gress, forms the section of waters in the new 

 commission, with Representative Burton of 

 Ohio at its head. Senator Smoot of Utah 

 is chairman of the section of forests; Senator 

 Nelson of Minnesota, chairman of the senate 

 committee on public lands, chairman of the 

 section on lands; and Representative Dalzell 

 of Pennsylvania, chairman of the mineral sec- 

 tion. The secretaries of the four sections 

 are: Dr. J. A. Holmes, minerals; Assistant 

 Attorney General George W. Woodruff, lands; 

 W. J. McGee, secretary of the inland water- 

 ways commission, waters, and Overtoil W. 

 Price, associate forester of the government 

 forests. 



U. S. FOREST RESERVE LANDS. 



In compliance with instructions from the 

 federal land office, the Marquette office has 

 withdrawn from entry some 50,000 acres of 

 land in Lower Michigan, mostly in losco, Os- 

 coda, Montmorency, Alpena and Presque Isle 

 counties, to serve as a nucleus of a govern- 

 ment forest reserve in Michigan. This with- 

 drawal is one of the results of the recent con- 

 servation conference of the governors held in 

 Washington. That no upper peninsula lands 

 are withdrawn is due in large part to the 

 efforts of Chase S. Osborn, of Sault Ste. 

 Marie, who maintained that what the upper 

 peninsula needs more than anything else is 

 settlers on its lands. He opposed the plan of 

 including any lands in this region in the with- 

 drawals. 



