MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



13 



the market and with the increased business 



that has sprung up during the past few weeks 



the railroads again want to do repair work, but 



rom present indications ties will not be suffi- 



Kentlv plentiful to meet all of the demands for 



at least a few weeks yet. The price has ad- 



Banced several cents during the past week or 



wo and it is now thought that during the 



pming winter the small dealers will make up 



their losses of last year. 



U. OF M. FORESTRY 



STUDENTS SAVE FOREST 



LOG LIFTING CONCERNS 



ARE HARD HIT. 



Fire, threatening the last stand of white pine 

 in the lower peninsula, was checked by U. of 

 M. forestry students, after old experienced 

 lumbermen had almost given up in despair. 

 The pine is owned by Sailing, Hanson & Co., 

 ' irayling. It lies five miles east of that 

 village; There are 8,000,000 feet of it. 



Several university students joined the camp 

 lat the close of summer school, says the Tra- 

 Jperse City Record. Their course requires 

 several weeks work in the woods. The boys 

 Worked hard. They arose in the morning to 

 -see the sun come up in a thin haze of smoke. 

 -They quit at night, watching it sink into the 

 *west, a dull, molten ball. Weeks passed. The 

 smoke became thicker. 



There are not many farmers in that part 



. f the country. Their combined efforts could 



*iot stop the flames that were crawling through 



he second growth, going nearer and nearer the 



edges of the pine each day. 



I At times, when the wind blew from the 

 jortheast, the smoke hung low and thick 

 over (lie little lumber camp. At other times 

 the sun would shine weakly through the pall. 

 But the fire advanced steadily through the dry i 

 Bindcrbrush. 



Work in the camp continued without a 

 break. The foreman gave no thought to the 

 fire. Xo rain had fallen for weeks. It was 

 expected every day. Several hours of steady 

 downfall would eliminate the danger. But the 

 rain did not come. 



One night a swamper, covered with dirt and 

 dust, walked into the bunk house. 



"1 worked on the butt of a tree this mornin' 

 an' the top \viis buniin'," he told the boss. 



Xext morning a half dozen men were sent 



out inward the lire. They found several 



places ablaze on the edges of the pine. They 



tamped out the lire. And a mile further on 



the lire stiil ran through the underbrush and 



curled around stumps and saplings. 



I That night the back firing began. The wind 



ose. It drove the lire faster and faster. It 



jumped one stretch that had been fired. It 



began eating into the pine. 



"I low the dickens did those instructions for 

 tack firing that we boned on last spring start 

 off anyway:" asked one college boy of an- 

 other. 



I "Oh. it was this way," and his pal began to 

 xplain the scientific method that is taught in 



niversity. 



I Then these students began to work. It was 

 I clearly their first practical experience. They 

 (worked hard. By noon ot' the next clay the 

 lire had been headed away from one corner of 

 I the pine. When darkness came another cor- 

 ner was saved. Then the entire camp turned 

 IpUt. followed the instructions of the students, 

 [worked like fiends until morning and the fire 

 Ivas checked. 



The underbrush burned on. But the lire 



: Was traveling in another direction. The camp 



slept all the next day. The smoke pall thinned. 



And 8.000,1100 feet of white pine had been 



- 



Log lifting companies in Michigan in order 

 to conduct their operations successfully will 

 have to make terms with the persons owning 

 property bordering on the different streams, 

 according to a decision of Judge Sessions of 

 the Muskegon circuit court. The case was 

 that of Robert T. Lane against the Muskegon 

 Log Lifting and Operating Company. 



It will be remembered that last year a Mr. 

 Whitman brought suit against the company, 

 seeking to enjoin it from recovering the logs 

 in the Muskegon river on which his property 

 abutted, claiming the logs under riparian 

 rights. The supreme court decided that the 

 logs were the property of the original owners, 

 and that the company could reclaim them if it 

 had purchased the logs orwas acting as agent 

 of the original owner. 



The result of the conclusion of the Mus- 

 kegon court is that a man's property is his 

 to use as he chooses regardless of the con- 

 venience of others, and the judge issued a 

 permanent injunction forbidding the company 

 from trespassing on the property of Mr. Lane 

 or using it in any way. 



The decision is of far-reaching importance 

 to the company in its further operation in 

 taking deadhead logs from the river and dry- 

 ing them before floating them to the mills in 

 Muskegon. The company is entirely at the 

 mercy of the farmers along the banks of the 

 river and will be obliged to make such terms 

 with them as it can or leave the logs where 

 they are. 



Judge Sessions devoted his entire discussion 

 to the legal point involved in the case, whether 

 or no the landowner on the shores of a navi- 

 gable river has the right to forbid the use of 

 his banks to persons driving logs in the stream. 

 His decision is that the owner of the land is 

 absolute dictator as to its use. 



The very words of the defendant company 

 are quoted against it by the judge, who says: 



"In the opinion in the Whitman case (the 

 case recently decided in favor of the same 

 company by the supreme court where Whit- 

 man claimed the deadhead logs were aban- 

 doned property and belonged to the owners of 

 the adjoining land) it is said: 'Defendant very 

 properly disclaims, in oral argument, and right 

 to put these logs on complainant's land. Its 

 agents and servants in so doing are unlawful 

 trespassers upon the complainant's premises.' 



"Xotwithstand its disclaimer so expressed in 

 that case and the rule of law thus stated by 

 the supreme court, the defendant has now 

 changed front and strenuously insists that the 

 use of the banks for piling deadhead logs 

 thereon is a necessary incident to the naviga- 

 tion of the stream with such logs and that it 

 not a trespasser, but is entirely within its legal 

 rights in so using the premises of complain- 

 ant. This contention cannot be sustained. 



"Navigable rivers are public highways, but 

 the easement or right of travel upon the same 

 is confined within its banks. * * * The 

 public has no greater rights in a navigable 

 waterway than it has in a highway on land, 

 yet no one would contend that, because of 

 either convenience of necessity, any person 

 would have the right to pile saw logs_ upon the 

 land of another outside of the limits of the 

 highway. 



"If the defendant has the legal right to 

 place its logs upon complainant's land and 

 leave them there for a period of six months 

 or more, then, if the necessity should arise, it 

 would have the right to establish a sawmill or 

 lumber yard upon complainant's premises and 

 there to convert these logs into lumber and 

 other products which could more readily be 

 transported and floated down the river." 



The opinion quotes voluminously from de- 

 cisions of the supreme court to uphold the 

 decisions reached. 



The other contention of the company was 

 that, supposing it is a trespasser on Mr. Lane's 



land, he has an adequate remedy in a court of 

 law and can sue for and recover all damages 

 sustained. It was also contended that the 

 amount of damage to Mr. Lane from the use 

 of his banks would be insignificant compared 

 with that the company would sustain if it is 

 unable to secure its logs from the bed of the 

 stream. On this point the decision is as fol- 

 lows: 



"It would be a novel rule of law which 

 would require a court of equity to weigh in 

 the balance the benefits to accrue to a wrong- 

 doer from his own unlawful and unwarranted 

 acts and the injury to result to the innocent 

 sufferer from such wrongdoing and to refuse 

 aid unless the damage to the latter out- 

 weighed the advantage of the former." 



Although the decision of Judge Sessions in 

 the log lifting company case on the face of it 

 appears to put the company in a bad way 

 should the farmers who own land along the 

 river choose to be nasty about it, as a matter 

 of fact there is small probability that the com- 

 pany will be greatly hampered in its work of 

 getting its logs out of the river, says a Muske- 

 gon correspondent. 



The only real effect of the decision, which 

 it seems likely will stand in the higher court if 

 appealed, will be that any farmer who does 

 not desire to have the company's deadhead 

 logs placed on his land does not have to have 

 them there. 



But the company is favored by the geo- 

 graphical and geological and geometrical fact 

 that a river has two banks. True, both banks 

 belong to the farmers who live along the river, 

 but even five cents a log will net the farmer 

 quite a comfortable rental for whatever por- 

 tion of his land it is found necessary to cover 

 with logs. 



Therefore, it is hardly likely that farmers 

 will be found at any point along the river 

 who will combine on both sides to hold up the 

 company. More than that the fact was brought 

 out in the testimony in the case that the com- 

 pany already has contracts with many of the 

 farmers along the banks of the river. IYi 

 Muskegon county almost the entire length of 

 the stream has been secured on one side or 

 the other of the river. 



It is safe to say, therefore, that the real 

 loss to the company will not be great if any- 

 thing at all. 



LOGGERS HOLDING OFF. 



The lumber concerns and individual jobbers 

 who operate in the district south of Marquette 

 on the line of the Chicago & Northwestern 

 railway, have not yet made a start on their 

 season's work, and a Negaunee contractor 

 says that no preparations are being made for 

 an early resumption. The forest fires have 

 kept some from starting and others have de- 

 layed because they have not made any ar- 

 rangements for the disposal of their output. 

 Practically no work is being done, whereas a 

 year ago this month several jobbers had start- 

 ed on their season's work. There is very little 

 demand for either lumber or poles of any de- 

 scription. It is reported that most of the 

 larger concerns still have a considerable 

 quantity of lumber on hand. 



The prices for various kinds of fimber are 

 a little off at present and this is another rea- 

 son why the owners of stumpage who usually 

 cut their own timber are not pushing opera- 

 tions. Most of the stumpage owners have 

 made up their minds to not sell their timber 

 right now, but will wait until they get a good 

 figure for it, as they believe prices will be 

 much better next season. Stumpage is now 

 being held at a stiff price, in spite of the fact 

 that ties, cedar poles, pulp wood, and other 

 classes of timber are much below the prices 

 prevailing this time last year. 



The C. H. Worcester Co. recently had sawed 

 at the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company's mill at 

 Munising some of the finest clear pine planks 

 ever seen there. The planks are 16 feet long, 

 30 inches wide and three inches thick. 



