MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



11 



THE FORESTS OF 



THE UNITED STATES 



(Selections from Circular 171, U. S. Forest 

 Service.) 



What Forests Do. 



Our industries which subsist wholly pr main- 

 ly upon wood pay the wages of more than 

 1,500.000 men and women. 



F' nests not only grow timber, but they hold 

 the soil and they conserve the streams. They 

 abate the wind and give protection from ex- 

 cessive heat or cold. Woodlands make for 

 the fiber, health, and happiness of each citizen 

 and of the nation. 



The fish which live in forest waters furnish 

 each year $21,000,000 worth of food, and not 

 less than half as much is furnished by the 

 which could not exist without the forest. 



What We Have. 



Our forest > now cover 550,000,000 acres, cr 

 it one-fourth of the United States. The 

 inal fore.-ts covered not les-s than 850,000,- 



cres. 



Forests publicly owned contain one-fifth of 



a'l timber standing. Forests privately owned 



ain at least four-fifths of the standing 



timber. The timber privately owned is not 



only four times that publicly owned, but it 



ucrally more valuable. 



Forestry is now practiced on 70 per cent of 

 the forests publicly owned and on less than 

 1 per cent of the forests privately owned, or 

 i n i nly 18 per cent of the total area of forests. 



What is Produced. 



The yearly growth of wood in our forests 

 not a\ erage more than 12 cubic feet per 

 This gives a total yearly growth of less 

 than T. 000.000,000 cubic feet. 



Nearly all c ur native commercial trees grow 

 much faster than those cf Europe. We already 

 -t timber in twenty to thirty years, 

 mine timber in twenty-five to thirty-five years, 

 tie timber in thirty-five to forty years, and saw 

 timber in thirty to seventy-five years. 



\\V have 200.000,000 acres of mature forests, 



in which yearly growth is balanced by decay; 



25ii. <>:MI. lino acres partly cut over or burned 



. but restocking naturally with enough 



tr. produce a merchantable crop; 



I'm. (inc. oiio acres cut over and burned 



over, upon which young growth is either whol- 



ly lacking or too scanty to make merchantable 



timber. 



What is Used. 



\\ e take from our forests yearly, including 

 waste in 1 '^gine and in manufacture, 20,000,- 

 000.000 cubic feet of wood. 



\\ use in a normal year 90.000,000 cords 

 of firew. od. 40.000,000,000 board feet of lumber, 

 118,000,000 hewn ties, 1,500,000,0000 staves, 

 over 133,000,000 sets of heading, nearly 50,000,- 

 barrel hoops, 3,000,000 cords of native 

 pulp wood', Ifi5, 000,000 cubic feet of round mine 

 timbers, and 1,250,000 ccrds of wood for dis- 

 tillation. 



What is Wasted. 



Forest fires burn over millions of acres and 



roy billions of feet of timber annually. 



iing growth destroyed by fire is worth 



far more than the merchantable timber burn- 



ed. 



One-fourth of the standing timber is left 

 or otherwise 1: st in logging. The boxing of 

 longleaf pine for turpentine has destroyed 

 one-fifth of the forests worked. The loss in 

 the mill is from one-third to two-thirds of the 

 timber sawed. The loss in the mill product 

 through seas uing and fitting for use is from 

 -eventh to ome-fourth. Great damage is 

 done by insects to forests and forest products. 

 \u average of only 320 feet of lumber is used 

 lor each 1,000 feet which stood in the forest. 



Where We Stand. 



\Ve take from cur forests each year, not 



counting the loss by fire, three times their 



rly growth. We take 36 cubic feet per 



acre for each 12 cubic feet grown; we take 



230 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 

 37 cubic feet and France 25 cubic feet. 



We invite by overtaxation the misuse of 

 our forests. We should plant, to protect farms 

 from wind and to make stripped or treeless 

 lands productive, an area larger than that cf 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia com- 

 bined. But so far, lands successfully planted 

 to trees vnaUe a total area smaller than Rhode 

 Island. And year by y-ear, through careless 

 cutting and fires, we lower the capacity of 

 existing forests to produce their like again, 

 or totally destroy them. 



The condition of the world supply of timber 

 makes us already dependent upon what we 

 produce. We send out of our country one 

 and one-half times as much timber as we bring 

 in. Except for finishing woods, relatively in- 

 significant in quantity, we must grow our own 

 supply or go without. 



What Should Be Done. 



We should stop--forest fires. By careful log- 

 ging we should both reduce waste and leave 

 cut-over lands productive. We should make the 

 timber logged go further by preservative 

 treatment and by avoiding needless loss in 

 the woods, the mill, -the factory', and in use. 

 We should plant up 'those lands now treeless 

 which will be most useful under forest. We 

 should so adjust taxation that cut-over lands 

 can be held for a second crop. We should 

 recognize that it costs to grow timber as well 

 as to log and saw it. 



We should continue and perfect, by state 

 and nation, the preservation by use of forests 

 already publicly owned; and we should ex- 

 tend it to ether mountain forests more val- 

 uable for the permanent benefit of the many 

 than for the temporary profit for a few. 



For each million acres of forest in public 

 ownership over 4,000,000 are privately owned. 

 The conservation of public forests is the 

 smaller task before the nation and the states. 

 The larger task is to induce private forest 

 owners, which means 3,00,000 men, to take 

 care of what they have, and to teach wood 

 users, which means everyone, how not to 

 waste. 



If these things are done, they will conserve 

 our streams as well as our forests. If they 

 are not dene, the usefulness of our streams 

 will decrease no less than the usefulness of 

 our forests. 



Where We Might Stand. 



By reasonable thrift we can produce a con- 

 stant timber supply beyond our present need, 

 and with it conserve the usefulness of our 

 streams for irrigation, water supply, naviga- 

 tion, and power. 



Under right management our forests will 

 yield over four times as much as now. We 

 can reduce waste in the woods and in the mill 

 at least one-third, with present as well as 

 future profit. We can perpetuate the naval- 

 stores industry. Preservative treatment will 

 reduce by one-fifth the quantity of timber 

 used in the water or in the ground. We can 

 practically stop forest fires at a total yearly 

 cost of one-fifth the value of the standing tim- 

 ber burned each year. 



We shall suffer for timber to meet our needs 

 until our forests have had time to grow again. 

 But if we act vigorously and at once, we shall 

 escape permanent timber scarcity. 



PUTS A CRIMP IN SPECULATION. 



What will eventually mean the curtailing 

 of one of the rank frauds that have been in 

 vogue in Michigan for many years has been 

 nipped by the public domain commission. 



Ten or 13 years ago a certain Chicago firm 

 purchased from the state several hundred acres 

 of land in Roscommon county, which they 

 afterwards platted into lots 20-300 feet. This 

 land, which 'cost the schemers from $3 to $4 

 1 ! acre, was for the most part situated some 

 distance from any town. From 20 to 30 lots 

 were platted from each acre of land. In some 

 sections of the county there are sites which 

 are either owned by private individuals or by 

 the state which are really pretty places and 



some fine houses are situated on them. These 

 places were photographed, and it is alleged 

 that in selling the lots the promoters of tjhe 

 scheme used the photographs to deceive buy- 

 ers. Purchasers who bit on the proposition, 

 and, according to Secretary Carton of the 

 commission, there were hundreds of them, 

 soon found that they had been ''done," and of 

 course let the lots revert back to the state 

 for taxes. Now there are some 20,000 to 

 30,000 of these lots that have been deeded by 

 the auditor-general's department back to the 

 state for non-payment of taxes. 



Secretary Carton proposed at a recent meet- 

 ing to put all thjs land- into, the state re- 

 serve, thereby taking "it off the -market, for it 

 is generally understood that the same schem- 

 ers who originally purchased the land are 

 figuring on buying it back again. In order 

 to frustrate their scheme Secretary Carton's 

 proposition will be adopted by the commis- 

 sion. ' The company, it is said, have made 

 thousands of dollars in the transaction. The 

 cost to the state, however, has been consid- 

 erable, for every description has had to he 

 advertised for the past five years, and it has 

 cost the state nearly $40 per acre already, 

 and they again have the same land on their 

 hands that originally, as stated, was sold from 

 $3 to $4 per acre. 



It is certainly refreshing to see the St4te 

 take its stand on the right side iri this matter 

 of cheap, non-agricuJtural lands. 



Secretary Carton and the Commission are 

 to -be congratulated? for trrey are -right and 

 absolutely right. There is not only every 

 contemptible form of land deal .involved in the 

 handling of these cheap lands; b'ut there is 

 every appearance that some of this "lake lot," 

 etc., business was inaugurated solely for the 

 benefit of the papers which did the advertis- 

 ing. And it is relief to see the State at last, 

 adopt the right policy and withdraw from its 

 former position of helping the "deal" along. 

 The new policy wiU work for true develop- 

 ment, while the old policy only worked mis- 

 chief and left the 'lands idle and waste. 



FORESTRY FOR PROFIT. 



M. W. Wentworth, steward of the Sanitar- 

 ium of Battle Creek, has embarked in an ex- 

 tensive experiment in forestry. He has bought 

 the Sanitarium farm of 200 acres at the south 

 end of Lake Goguac, formerly known as the 

 Gregory homestead, and will plant 10,000 trees. 

 The varieties that will be planted are the 

 black locust, the catalpa, and the spruce. 



The spruce will be grown for Christmas 

 tree's and the locust for fence posts and rail- 

 road ties. The catalpa and locust will be 

 grown on the marsh land of which there is 

 quite an extensive area adjacent to the lake. 

 This will utilize land that has hitherto been 

 useless for cultivation. Mr. Wentworth is the 

 second person in that section of Michigan to 

 make the experiment. 



The first person to make an experiment in 

 this line was Clayton Strait of the township 

 of Emmett, Calhoun county, who three years 

 ago set out 300 sweet chestnut trees on a 

 piece of land on the shores of Beadle lake. 

 The trees were obtained from the Michigan 

 Agricultural College and at that time were 

 only a few inches in height. They have nearly 

 all lived and are now from five to six feet in 

 height. So far Mr. Strait's experiment has 

 been a success. 



The experiment of Mr. Wentworth will be 

 watched with much interest, as it is on a much 

 larger scale than Mr. Strait's. If the black 

 locust and catalpa will grow in marsh land 

 there are thousands of acres in Michigan that 

 can be devoted to tree growing. 



The Calumet township, Houghton county, 

 beard has decided to construct a highway in 

 the Trap Rock valley. A committee has also 

 visited the proposed route of a road along the 

 lake shore, and an estimate of the cost of such 

 improvement will be furnished the board. The 

 Trap Rock road is about two miles in length 

 and it is expected that the highway can be 

 completed during the summer. 



