10 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



Michigan Forestry Association. 



The Michigan Forestry Association was organized in Grand Rapids August 30, 1905, having for its object the promotion of a rational system 

 of forestry in Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers: President, John H. Bissell, of Detroit; Vice-President, R. 

 Hanson, Grayling; Secretary, J. Fred Baker, Lansing; Treasurer, J. J. Hubbell, Manistee. Board of Directors Mrs. Francis King, Alma; Hon. 

 Arthur Hill, Saginaw ; S. M. Lemon, Grand Rapids; H. N. Loud, Au Sable; Thos. B. Wyman, Munising; Prof. Filibert Roth, Ann Arbor. 



The State Forestry Commission Charles W. Garfield, Grand Rapids ; Hon. W. B. Mershon, Saginaw ; William H. Rose, Lansing. 



FOREST FIRES 



NEED CLOSE ATTENTION. 



The question of which is the most effective 

 way to fight forest fires has during the past 

 few years received much attention from th,e 

 officials and others connected with the land 

 department of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Com- 

 pany. Representatives of the corporation have 

 attended meetings held by land officials of the 

 state and individual companies in different 

 parts of the northwest where the question has 

 been discussed. 



The big forest fires east of Marquette, near 

 Gordon and Chocolay, in August, furnished an 

 excellent opportunity for effective work, but 

 the men who fought them did not have very 

 much success. A Negaunee landlooker, who 

 was in the Gordon district, said that the fire 

 could easily have been put out if the men in 

 the district had taken hold when it was first 

 started. The fire was allowed to burn some 

 time, until finally the South Shore manage- 

 ment sent down a party of men to fight it. 

 A considerable area was then ablaze and the 

 wind was so high that the men realized that 

 they cojdd do nothing. That night the wind 

 went down and on the following- day the 

 flames did not make very much headway. They 

 burned, however, until showers put them out. 

 A considerable area was burned over and the 

 landlooker estimated that 8,000 cords of young 

 pine, desirable for the lighter class of mine 

 timber, was destroyed. Most of the timber 

 was regeneration pine about twenty years of 

 age, all of it being merchantable. 



The Negaunee man said that he had found 

 during his many years' experience in fighting 

 forest fires that the most effective way is to 

 use shovels and overturn the burning sods, 

 covering them with sand wherever the latter 

 is available. After the fire gets into the trees 

 it is seldom that it can be fought effectively. 

 During his several years' experience in the 

 upper peninsula he has found that much of the 

 damage caused by forest fires could be avoided 

 if the men in the neighborhood <vhere they 

 started would take off their coats and do a 

 little work. He said it was regrettable that so 

 much fine timber, 'especially regenerated pine, 

 is from time to time being destroyed on ac- 

 count of the carelessness of land owners and 

 others in not fighting the fires at the proper 

 time. 



The Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company's offi- 

 cials are perhaps giving the question of how 

 to successfully combat the forest fires more 

 careful consideration than any other body of 

 men in the upper peninsula. The corporation 

 has an immense acreage scattered throughout 

 the district, and the officials are doing every- 

 thing possible to encourage the growth of 

 young timber. During the past few years they 

 have planted many thousands of pine seed- 

 lings, as well as other trees, in Marquette and 

 adjoining counties. Forest fires similar to. the 

 one near Gordon generally cause timber losses 

 aggregating thousands of dollars, and once the 

 young timber is burned over its growth is 

 killed. 



There was a bad fire near Gwinn and the 

 Princeton location, but heavy showers finally 

 put it out. For a time much damage was 

 threatened at both places, and the people of 

 the location were considerably alarmed. 



spilling out the live ashes from his pipe," says 

 D. Whittaker. "When we were building the ex- 

 tension from Champion to L'Anse years ago 

 some of the boys thought they would go down 

 to. Champion lor a time. Coming back one of 

 them lit his pipe and threw the match into the 

 dry grass. Before that lire burned itself put 

 it had traversed a strip of territory sixty miles 

 long and five or six miles wide. We lost hun- 

 dreds of thousands of ties by the fire, to say 

 nothing of the timber that was burned over 

 all because a man was not careful where he 

 threw a lighted match. When such fires once 

 get started they burn themselves out; you can't 

 stop them. 



"And they play some queer freaks. I have 

 seen great pine trees, standing out alone in a 

 little clearing one hundred yards or more from 

 anything, and suddenly the fire would jump out 

 and a few minutes later nothing would be left 

 of the trees but the trunks and scarred and 

 burned limbs. I remember one case of the 

 kind wheyre a handsome big pine stood out 

 alone. Suddenly the flames seemed to gather 

 themselves into a big ball and burst over the 

 top of the tree like a shell, enveloping it in 

 fire. It burned as though it had been kiln 

 dried. Somehow the fire seems to take all the 

 sap out of trees. That tree was completely de- 

 stroyed in a short time, the fire sweeping on 

 and leaving it a grotesque and blackened trunk 

 where before was a beautiful picture. 



"In the old days the Indians were very care- 

 ful of fire. When they broke camp in the morn- 

 ing after going a short distance one of the 

 band would go back to see that there was no 

 spark unextinguished. If there was he would be 

 sure to fiut it out. If he did not return to the 

 waiting band soon two or three others would 

 go back and if there was any fire they would 

 help him extinguish it. In that way forest fires 

 were prevented. Nowadays with white campers 

 and picnickers going into the woods and leav- 

 ing without care whether they leave sparks 

 which .may cause a blaze or not, it is 

 hard to preserve the forests. I presume it was 

 something of that kind which started the fires 

 in that country up in British Columbia. I know 

 the country; it is densely timbered and a fire 

 there will mean the loss of hundreds of thous- 

 ands of dollars in. standing timber, to say noth- 

 ing of the lives said to have b.een lost." 



"These forest fires are more often started by 

 someone throwing down a match carelessly or 



"Careless lumbering is in no small measure 

 responsible for the annual forest fires," a Mar- 

 quette man said in talking of the fires that 

 have occurred in Marquette county this month. 

 "Practically all of the lumbermen, when they 

 go through a tract leave the "slashings" behind 

 them, with no attempt to clear the ground and 

 make, conditions safe. 



"The second season this stuff is thoroughly 

 dried out. and if there chances to be a pro- 

 longed dry spell, such as we have had this 

 summer, it becomes so much tinder, ready to 

 burst into flames at the slightest spark of fire. 

 It is very inflammable and develops a great 

 heat. Witli the slashings as a starting point a 

 fire is developed that burns over much terri- 

 tory and cannot be fought successfully, it 

 usually continuing until it burns itself out or 

 until it is quenched by the rains. 



There should be a law requiring lumbermen, 

 under heavy penalties, to oversee the burning 

 out of all 'slashings,' and thus make provisions 

 against this danger. Such a law, if it were 

 rigorously enforced, would do much good." 



The actual damage occasioned by the recent 

 fires is not very great. B. J Goodman, of 

 Sands, was the heaviest loser, a 'tract owned by 



him on which stood much merchantable small 

 timber, having been burned over, though it is 

 said that he can save some of it by. lumbering 

 it immediately. One thing the periodical fires 

 do is serious, however, though the loss at the 

 time may be small. They prevent the seed- 

 lings which in time would develop new forests 

 from growing as they would otherwise. 



PINE SEEDS IN DEMAND. 



Had the prediction been made to woodsmen 

 fifty years ago that in 1908 Michigan would be 

 so denuded of its pine forests that there would 

 not be enough mature piries left for seed pur- 

 poses, they would probably have laughed and 

 tossed the prophet into the air on a bunk 

 blanket. 



Yet this is just the state of affairs in Michi- 

 gan today and the state agricultural college, 

 which is being continually called upon for 

 white pine seedlings for reforestration pur- 

 poses is compelled to send to Clear Lake Junc- 

 tion. X. Y., for seeds enough to supply the 

 demand. The forestry department received 

 last fall 250 pounds of white pine seeds from 

 the Xew York nursery, and is now plainting 

 them in its nursery. Twenty-five beds are be- 

 ing planted and these beds in dimension are 

 four feet wide and 317 feet long and should 

 all the white pine seeds germinate, an even 

 1,000,000 trees will be the result, which when 

 they mature in thirty years will mean many 

 million feet of lumber. 



The seedlings arc shipped to many owners 

 of pasture land in the northern part of the 

 state and are set out six feet apart, a distance 

 which means 1,200 trees to the acre. With the_ 

 million seedlings, nearly a thousand acres of 

 waste land may be reforested. 



The owners of a tract of white pine trees is 

 assured of a steady income without convert- 

 ing them into lumber, as the cones which 

 drop from the trees are eagerly sought by col- 

 lege forestry departments, railroad companies 

 and lumbermen who own and conduct their 

 own white pine nurseries. 



COPPER COUNTRY SHOULD LEAD. 



That Houghton, meaning the entire copper 

 country district, should be among the first to 

 take steps urging reforestation of the barren 

 woodlands of this country, because of its de- 

 pendency upon cheap mining timber, is the 

 contention made by James Colquhon, a prom- 

 inent resident of Tunbridge. Wells, England. 

 who, with E. B. Lockhart, of London, recent- 

 ly paid a visit to the copper country. 



Mr. Colquhon said his attention to the mat- 

 ter of reforestation was attracted by the evi- 

 dent sparseness of timber through the region 

 they had traveled in reaching Houghton, and 

 he was anxious to know if any steps had been 

 taken toward providing for the future. In- 

 formed that a national movement had been 

 started by President Roosevelt towards re- 

 forestation, which was backed by many states, 

 Mr. Colquhon expressed himself as pleased, 

 and urged the desirability of concerted action 

 >n the part of the newspapers. It was at this 

 juncture that he called attention to Houghton, 

 by which he meant the entire copper district, 

 saying it should take the initiative. 



Mr. Colquhon recommended that a mass 

 meeting be held and that resolutions endors- 



T reforestation be prepared, to be turned 

 over to the United States senators and other 

 legislators for national action. 



Forest fires did a great deal of damage at 

 Mohawk and Ahmeek, in the upper peninsula, 

 this month. 



