6 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



that makes a country beautiful and attractive 

 is chief among God's blessings. 



The splendid endowment of riches our state 

 was given in its forests no longer exists in its 

 entirety, but it was not to be expected that its 

 resources of timber would not be drawn upon 

 for the needs of our people. We can and 

 should, however, by our efforts now, intelli- 

 gent and energetic, provide resources for those 

 who come after us that will prove that our 

 mission here was not alone to use and de- 

 stroy. 



"Plant a tree" should be the watchword on 

 April 30, 1909, and the farm roadside and 

 school grounds should be an evidence from 

 that date on that it was not simply a precept. 



The Commission on Country Life appointed 

 by President Roosevelt suggested that the 

 people in the rural communities come togeth- 

 er in their schoolhouses on Arbor Day and 

 form an organization with the school as the 

 center and meeting place, for the purpose of 

 developing and making better the general life 

 of the community. It is to be hoped that our 

 state will be among the pioneers in this great 

 movement, and I commend to the considera- 

 tion of the people the suggestions and the 

 program which has been prepared by the 

 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 



The Arbor Day committee of the Board of 

 Trade of Grand Rapids has decided on the 

 method of distributing the 20,000 spirea or- 

 dered from France for Arbor Day, April 30. 

 It was decided to distribute the spirea in the 

 city schools and factories at five cents a bush, 

 pretty well grown bushes being furnished. Ten 

 bushes will be given to each charitable institu- 

 tion in the city applying for them, and ten 

 each to the five townships in the good roads 

 district. Plainfield, Walker, Wyoming, Paris 

 and Grand Rapids townships. C. N. Reming- 

 ton will take pictures of the country schools 

 and churches before the planting of the spirea 

 and after they have grown other pictures will 

 be taken. Trees of various kinds from the 

 Michigan Agricultural College will also be 

 distributed. 



THIS WILL HELP. 



Representative Guy A. Miller's bill in the 

 Michigan legislature, cutting the price of state 

 land advertisements from 40 to 20 cents per 

 description, which was railroaded through the 

 taxation committee in record time, was in- 

 tended merely as a check against the bill of 

 Senator Foster, introduced in the senate for 

 the purpose of repealing the act creating the 

 forestry reserve and to abolish the state for- 

 estry commission. 



Lurking behind the purpose of the Foster 

 bill appearing on its title, however, there may 

 be the proposition of a personal interest, since 

 such an act would throw these lands back upon 

 the market and would mean additional adver- 

 tisement for the Gladwin Record, which is 

 operated by Senator Foster's brother, and in 

 which it is claimed he was interested. 



cation of the tax sales, will have a measure of 

 independence, and thus be induced to join oc- 

 casionally in a rebuke to machine domination 

 and politic-al rottenness. As it is, the ma- 

 jority of papers carrying the tax descriptions 

 have been as meek as Moses and as servile as 

 a pet lamb, all because of the meager income 

 afforded by the state house pap. Pontiac 

 Press-Gazette. 



Some Good May Come of This. 



In fixing the rate for the publication of 

 delinquent tax lists at 20 cents per folio, in- 

 stead of 40 cents, the legislature may be com- 

 mended for having bestowed a blessing in 

 disguise, not only upon many of the news- 

 papers, but upon the future political welfare 

 of the state as well. No newspaper of wide 

 distribution will, of course, accept the tax 

 lists on the basis proposed, consequently they 

 will either go begging or be distributed to 

 some four corner's weekly. One result of 

 tliis action will eventually be an increased in- 

 dependence on the part of the press of the 

 state. It has always been demanded of papers 

 following the dominant political standard that 

 they endorse every candidate, principal and 

 idea that might be proposed by the bosses 

 and wire-pullers for the sake of the handful 

 of pottage distributed each year by the powers 

 that 'be Perhaps many beneficiaries of this 

 system, who find themselves disconnected from 

 the small profit resulting through the publi- 



FOSTER'S BILL A REACTIONARY 

 MOVE. 



Public sentiment will have but little sym- 

 pathy with. Senator Foster's bill presented in 

 the state legislature, repealing the law creating 

 the forest reserve and the state forestry com- 

 mission. Fortunately, the bill will never get 

 beyond the committee pigeon-hole, since the 

 body of the senate is far too conversant with 

 state needs and popular sentiment to take any 

 steps backward in the general policy of con- 

 servation of the state's timber resources. In 

 assuming this attitude, Foster can be consid" 

 ered in no other light than a reactionary, who 

 utterly fails to comprehend the urgent neces- 

 sity for the country, as a whole, taking thought 

 of the morrow on the question of the conser- 

 vation of its natural resources. 



We have no doubt he reflects some local 

 opinion when he makes the statement upon 

 the floor of the senate that the forest reserve 

 in Roscommon county is a flat failure, but he 

 ought to take more than a local and purely 

 sectional view of the matter. Perhaps he is 

 right altogether in saying that to date the 

 reserve is not a success. If he is right in this 

 it is because the legislature has failed to give 

 adequate protection against fire and provide 

 adequate funds to make reforestation by the 

 state a success. 



Senator Foster would serve his state and 

 indeed his district 'better, if he advocated a 

 forestry policy that would exclude every avail- 

 able acre of land suitable for agriculture from 

 forest reserves, but insist at the same time, 

 that all land that is not suitable for farming 

 be put into a reserve for the growth of timber, 

 no matter how great a percentage of any given 

 county that may be. If nothing but trees can 

 be grown upon the land, it is obvious such a 

 policy does no one an injustice, deprives no 

 community of prospective growth, and only ac- 

 complishes a very desirable end, the increase 

 of the wealth of the state and the protection 

 from ruthless destruction of timber supplies 

 for future generations. Sault Ste. Marie News. 



BROUGHT LEGISLATORS TO TIME. 



W. B. Mershon, of Saginaw, in his talk to 

 the finance and appropriations committee of 

 the senate of the Michigan legislature, told the 

 senators he would refuse to longer serve on 

 the forestry commission if the senate did not 

 immediately pass the emergency appropriation 

 bill for $1,500 to cover the deficiency due to 

 the expense of fighting recent forest fires and 

 protecting state property. 



He explained to the committee that it had 

 been necessary to protect thousands of dollars 

 worth of state property and the property of 

 private individuals, to expend all the ready 

 money in the hands of the commission, and if 

 the great state of Michigan couldn't afford to 

 take care of such a worthy matter he couldn't 

 afford to serve longer. 



The talk, together with one of a similar vein 

 by Charles W. Garfield, of Grand Rapids, had 

 the desired effect. The committee reported out 

 the bill and it was speedily passed and given 

 immediate effect. 



527 seedlings have been sent out to the fa 

 mers in different parts of the state. Thel 

 seedlings have all been produced in the colleg 

 forestry nursery, which is one of the largest i 

 this part of the country. Prof. J. Fred Bake 

 head of the foresto' department, is planning t 

 carry on the woodlot reforestation work on 

 larger scale next year than ever before. Ov< 

 a thousand pounds of forest seeds will 't 

 planted in the nursery soon and they will t 

 ready for distribution next spring. 



G. T. Backus, who is connected with the si 

 viculturc department of the forest reserve ; 

 Washington, D. C., has been reaping remarl 

 able results in every locality he has visited th 

 winter. Mr. Backus, under the direction of tl 

 college department, has spent most of h 

 time in the vicinity of Detroit and in Monro 

 Berrien, Cass, Van Buren and Livingstot 

 counties, where he has induced a large nun 

 her of farmers to reforest the waste places o 

 their farms. The farmers are greatly interes 

 ed in the plan, it being the greatest desire < 

 many to have an abundance of fence posts o 

 their farms. Many farmers who have fl 

 waste places on their farms or who have B 

 woodlots, are planting a portion of their cult 

 nated fields with locust seedlings or other goo 

 fence-post producing trees. By following tl 

 plan submitted by the college department, a 

 average of 800 posts to the acre may be rea 

 ized every ten years. The posts are alwai 

 worth from 15 to 25 cents apiece and if tt 

 farmer does not need to. use them, they ca 

 find a ready market. Many farmers prefi 

 timber to fence 'posts and these are plantin 

 seedlings of the best pines, spruces and po] 

 lars. In return for the seedlings, which ai 

 furnished at cost by the college forestry d' 

 partment, the farmer enters into an agreemei 

 to furnish the college with any desired info 

 mation or statistics regarding the progress i 

 his reforested lands. 



FURNISH FARMERS WITH SEEDLINGS. 



Between two and three hundred farmers in 

 the southern part of Michigan have been fur- 

 nished with seedlings by the forestry depart- 

 ment of the Michigan Agricultural College for 

 the purpose of reforesting their wood lots, 

 since the first of January. Most of the seed- 

 lings furnished are those of native forest trees, 

 the white and red pine, Norway spruce, ash, 

 Carolina poplar and the locust being in great- 

 est demand. Since the first of the year, 295,- 



TREES CONTRIBUTE TO HAPPINESS 

 The tree is a life contributor to our con 

 mon fund of happiness. Have we estatd 

 The tree adorns them. Have we changif 

 seasons? The tree proclaims them. Hai 

 we floods? The tree stays them. Have v 

 dro.uths? The tree modifies them. Have v 

 tempests? The tree abates their fury ai 

 removes their sting. The desk at which,* 

 write, the chair on which I sit, the floor b 

 neuth, the building, the rows of building 

 the city, the multitude of cities, the who 

 land, attests the boundless bounty of the trf 

 For these gifts, gratitude. But the tree ^iv 

 more, and merits more. It has the heart-no 

 of lifelong companionship, not to be ignofm 

 Who has not truly loved some tree loved: 

 for itself, its memories, its associations: lov 

 it too well to destroy it has not truly livt 

 The tree is childhood's tower and stronghfflj 

 the tree is the castle whose leafy parafl 

 shelter "love's young dream"; the 

 weary labor's summer tent; upon the frienc 

 tree that knew his childhood sports, age leaij 

 a child again, looking toward sunset. Thit 

 al last, when dust has returned to dust, t 

 tree becomes a temple of memory Ihroii 

 whose arches come whispers and beckoniiil 

 from the world beyond. 



Would you destroy that tree? Spare' I 

 trees for its sake. Or if this seem to jj 

 but idle sentiment, then spare all trees for 11 

 sake of your children's children for the s;f 

 of the human race. This is not sentime 

 this is but an act of justice. Through - j 

 spoliations of our generation, stark want si 

 knock at countless doors in years to be. SpJ 

 and repair! If each tree cut shall bringij 

 curse to blight the days unborn, so each 

 saved and each tree set shall mitigate 

 penalty of our wrong. Spare and repair, 

 the world may grow rich and beautifu 

 trees, and that our despoiled trust func 

 forests may be some day restored to all r 

 kind, forever restored to its rightful bel 

 ciaries under the will of God. Charles 

 Barnes, Battle Creek, 



