MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



18 





MICHIGAN'S PINE BARRENS. 



The lower peninsula of Michigan is rapidly 

 recovering from the devastating scourge that 

 swept over it not many years ago when the ax 

 leveled everything of value and when the 

 flames that followed in the wake of the lum- 

 berjack destroyed all vestige of life than re- 

 mained, according to reports in the land com- 

 missioner's office, says a Lansing correspond- 

 ent. If the cutting of the forests had been 

 done in an intelligent manner there would 

 have been a supply of pine for all time, but 

 the only policy followed was to get every 

 penny possible out of the trees and the land 

 suffered as a result of the wholesale destruc- 

 tion. 



The departure of the lumbermen has wrought 

 a great change throughout the lower penin- 

 sula, for the cities that grew up around the 

 sawmills have gradually dropped lumber for 

 manufacturing and agriculture. But there are 

 still enormous stretches of country that are 

 bleak and forbidding because they have not 

 fully recovered and become adapted to the 

 new conditions, and it is in such places that 

 the hard work of rehabilitation must be done. 



Only a small portion of the once enormous 

 pine forest is standing and these trees are be- 

 ing cut, principally, it is said, for the reason 

 that it costs too much to keep them standing, 

 instead of encouraging the re-creation of the 

 forests the state taxes the trees. Hence the 

 owners convert them into lumber as speedily 

 as possible. 



Muskegon and Manistee are notable exam- 

 ples of the change that has taken place. Their 

 great rows of sawmills have vanished during 

 the last fifteen or twenty years. Only a few 

 of the mills remain and these can see the end 

 in sight. These places are now manufacturing 

 centers and are on a much more certain foot- 

 ing than they were when the fast disappearing 

 pine was depended upon for prosperity. 



In some portions of the peninsula there are 

 two classes of land that present problems now 

 being successfully solved. These are the jack 

 pine and the cut-over timber lands. In the 

 cut-over lands clearing presents difficulties, al- 

 though not serious, but the fanners have their 

 greatest difficulty in overcoming the effect of 

 the former fires, which often swept over large 

 areas unchecked. 



Land is cheap in the jack pine districts and 

 is therefore attractive to many, but the dis- 

 covery was soon made that some special treat- 

 ment of the soil was necessary in order to 

 make the soil productive. This problem was 

 taken tip by the United States department of 

 agriculture in farmers' bulletin 323, under the 

 title "Clover Farming on the Sandy Jack Pine 

 Lands of the North." The bulletin is for the 

 benefit of farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota 

 as well as Michigan. 



In this bulletin it is indicated that the num- 

 ber of people who have left such land during 

 the last thirty years is larger than the number 

 of those who have moved on. The point is 

 made that if clover of the mammoth variety 

 is grown, either for seed or forage, the land 

 can soon be built up into state of productive- 

 ness and that farming will then prove profita- 

 ble. There are approximately 2,000,000 acres 

 of jack pine lands and 8.000,000 or more acres 

 of the cut-over land, where the soil is un- 

 usually light and requires special treatment. 



Experts who prepared the bulletin warn the 

 farmer that failure results f-rom deep plowing, 

 burning off the humus, clearing the land at the 

 wrong season of the year and failure to recog- 

 nize that the soil is light and not adapted to 

 general farming. The land needs, first of all, 

 to be built up with humus and nitrogen, be- 

 fore either satisfactory crops of grain, roots, 

 vegetables or fruit can be grown. "Success in 

 farming this land," it is asserted, "will come 

 from growing special, crops like cloverseed, 

 potatoes or truck not from general farming." 



ANOTHER TREE PEST TO FIGHT. 

 The fall web-worm, one of the worst tree 

 pests, is making its appearance, and unless 



active steps are now taken the worm will 

 make trees most unsightly. 



The pest is not particular upon what variety 

 of tree it settles, all kinds of tree foliage seem- 

 ing to suit its appetite. 



Never in many seasons has this worm made 

 its appearance so early or in such numbers, 

 and already its untidy looking nests are seen 

 in nearly every tree, especially the apple tree, 

 the foliage and fruit both of which are affected. 



A special bulletin issued from the entomo- 

 logical department of the Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College has the following to say in re- 

 gard to the fall web-worm: 



"During the latter part of the season one 

 often sees the large, forbidding web of the fall 

 web-worm, sometimes three feet in length and 

 including leaves and branches. Inside the nest 

 is the colony of caterpillars, each when full 

 grown, more than an inch in length, and cov- 

 ered with long straight white hairs. The 

 members of a colony come from a single clus- 

 ter of eggs laid on a leafT The caterpillars de- 

 scend, when full-grown, to the ground, and 

 either burrow slightly under the surface, or 

 else hide in rubbish and spin cocoons in which 

 to pupate. 



"The adult is a moth usually pure white in 

 color and measures about \ 1 A inches from tip 

 to tip of the wings. Some of the moths are 

 more or less spotted with black. In the south 

 this insect is said to be two-brooded. The 

 work of this caterpillar can easily be distin- 

 guished from that of the ten-caterpillar by the 

 hairy larvae and the fact that the nest is ex- 

 tended as the colony grows iarger. The larvae 

 of the tent-caterpillar being nearly smooth, 

 and leaving the tent to forage, after they be- 

 come partially grown. 



"Paris green, applied early, usually keeps the 

 tree clear, but after the nest is well under way 

 it must be removed by hand or burned out. A 

 torch made of rags, wired to a long pole, and 

 saturated with kerosene, will prove just the 

 thing. It should be held soem distance under 

 the nest in order to cook the caterpillars and 

 destroy the nest without injuring the branch. 

 If placed too close to the nest, at first, the nest 

 will burn like a flash and allow the larvae to 

 drop to the ground unhurt." 



FOREST FIRE PROTECTION. 



In connection with the co-operation which 

 the Northwestern Railway Company has de- 

 cided to give the Wisconsin Forestry Com- 

 mission in the matter of protecting the forest 

 along its right-of-way from fires, an important 

 and interesting meeting was held at Ironwood. 

 Of the Wisconsin Forestry Commission there 

 were present: E. M. Griffith, state forester, 

 and D. L. Newman, state forest inspector. A 

 private car of the Munising railway brought 

 the following gentlemen, who are connected 

 with the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, to 

 attend the meeting: C. V. R. Townsend, land 

 agent; F. H. Noble, superintendent wood de- 

 partment; F. J. Merriam, general manager Up- 

 per Peninsula Land Company; R. C. Young, 

 chief engineer, and H. R. Harris, general man- 

 ager Munising Railway. The Northwestern 

 road was represented by W. D. Cantillion, of 

 Chicago, assistant general manager; G. J. Quig- 

 ley. of Antigo, superintendent of the Ashland 

 division, and S. .G Graham, of Kaukauna, mas- 

 ter mechanic. There were also present at the 

 meeting about one hundred employes of the 

 Northwestern road, principally section fore- 

 men. 



Mr. Cantillion opened the meeting with a 

 few remarks, explaining the attitude of the 

 Northwestern road in its co-operation with 

 the forestry commission, and then introduced 

 Mr. Griffith, who made a most interesting and 

 instructive address. While he illustrated the 

 importance of the general practice of forestry, 

 the principal part of his address was devoted 

 to the subject of the importance of protecting 

 forests from fires, and the best methods of 

 doing this. He called attention to the well- 

 known fact that not only are our forests neces- 

 sary to furnish us with matrial for building 

 and manufaoturing, but their preservation 



is necessary to protect the sources of the riv- 

 ers, that an equable flow of water may be had 

 and floods and drouths be thus prevented. The 

 address was profusely illustrated with stereop- 

 ticon views, some of the most interesting be- 

 ing from photographs taken in portions of 

 China, where the forests have been entirely 

 destroyed, and the country thus made a bar- 

 ren waste. 



FRANCE'S FAR-SIGHTED FOREST 

 POLICY. 



France has under way a far-sighted forest 

 policy which will require two centuries before 

 the work reaches its greatest efficiency. The 

 plan covers the reforestation of vast tracts of 

 denuded land and the work is in the hands of 

 4,000 trained foresters in the pay of the repub- 

 lic, and a large number of men employed by 

 the communal governments. 



Consul General R. P. Skinner tells how this 

 work is being done by a great nation keenly 

 alive to the necessity of doing it, and deter- 

 mined that it shall be done well, though years 

 and centuries are consumed in the doing. Col- 

 bert, in the reign of Louis XIV., exclaimed: 

 "France will perish for lack of wood," and his 

 prophecy was coming true a century and a 

 half later, when the French people awakened 

 to the peril which threatened them, and called 

 a halt. 



Their forests were vanishing as are those in 

 the United States today, but the depletion had 

 gone even farther than it has yet gone in 

 America. France commenced protecting and 

 restoring its wooded areas nearly a century 

 ago, and has stuck to the task ever since, but 

 so much yet remains to do that Mr. Skinner 

 says in his report: 



"The work is slow. It will require probably 

 two hundred years to bring it up to its maxi- 

 mum effectiveness. But the time is foreseen 

 when existing damaged forests will be recon- 

 stituted, and when all the waste spaces will be 

 replanted to the point of proper proportion to 

 insure the conservation of the water supply, 

 and to furnish the timber and wood required 

 by the population. The effect upon private 

 landowners of the public work has been most 

 salutary. Where bald mountains have been re- 

 planted, very surprising local results are now 

 visible to all observers. This is especially true 

 in the Hautes Alpes, which had the enviable 

 reputation of being the poorest department of 

 France, and is, in fact, one of the few from 

 which the United States has received several 

 thousand French immigrants. There are now 

 many artificially planted forests in this depart- 

 ment of twenty-five years' standing, and in the 

 bottomland below, conditions have so im- 

 proved that a .state of general prosperity pre- 

 vails." 



The plan of the French foresters is compre- 

 hensive. I't embraces the care of forest land, 

 planting of trees, fixation of dunes near the 

 coasts to prevent the drifting of sand upon 

 agricultural land, utilization of water in pas- 

 toral and forest regions, and the surveillance 

 of river fishing and fish culture. This com- 

 prehensive service extends to every part of 

 the republic. 



The area of the national forests of the 

 United States exceeds twenty-fold the national 

 and communal forests of France, but the prob- 

 lems are the same. France has been longer at 

 the work and when it began i^s forests were 

 in a worse condition than ours are now, but no 

 worse than our privately owned forests will be 

 if present methods continue. 



Consul General Skinner concludes his report 

 with the suggestion to those in America who 

 have shown sufficient interest in the matter 

 to write him on the subject: 



"If correspondents could penetrate, as the 

 writer has done, the almost inaccessible moun- 

 tain villages of this country, and there discover 

 the enthusiastic French forester at work, ap- 

 plying scientific methods which cannot come 

 to fruition before two or three hundred years, 

 they would retire full of admiration and sur- 

 prise and carry the lesson back to the United 

 States." Forestry & Irrigation. 



