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 ra- 

 tional system of forestry in Michigan. The society is managed by the following roster of officers: President, Hon. Chas. W. Garfield, of Grand 

 Rapids; Vice-President, John H. Bissell, of Detroit; Secretary, Filibert Roth, of Ann Arbor; Assistant Secretary, Henry G. Stevens, Detroit; 

 Treasurer, W. B. Mershon, Saginaw, W. S. Board of Directors Hon. J. E. Beal, Ann Arbor ; J. J. Hubbell, Manistee ; Mrs. Lena E. Mautner, 

 Saginaw; Prof. James Satterlee, Lansing; Fremont E. Skeels, Cadillac; W. E. Williams, Pittsford; Dr. Lucius L. Hubbard, Houghton; Mrs. 

 John C. Sharp, Jackson. 



THE SECRETARY'S CORNER. 



WHAT THE STATES HAVE 



DONE AND ARE DOING 



(PART IV) 



EXISTING OBSTACLES TO FORESTRY WHICH 

 STATE ACTION ALONE CAN REMOVE. 



As pointed out more or less in the preceding 

 articles, there exists today in every state of the 

 t'niun certain great obstacles to forestry as a 

 bii-ines:-, and some of these threaten seriously 

 even our present and rapidly vanishing timber 

 supplier These obstacles offer no extraord- 

 inary difficulties, they can be and will be over- 

 r. inio as MM >n a> the legislatures of our states 

 catch the "forestry spirit" which is now so un- 

 mistakably among our people. Unfortunately, 

 the legislatures lu.ve been reluctant in this 

 matter: they havt- treated it as of the "re- 

 form" sort of thing, to be looked upon sus- 

 piciously and to put off for future and better 

 consideration ami understanding. It is a re- 

 markable fact that in this matter of forestry, 

 which is a purely economic matter, and to the 

 legislator means only the adjustment of law 

 to the needs of a useful and necessary branch 

 cf agriculture, that in this matter where 90 

 per cent of our people are agreed that the 

 proper measures should no longer be delayed, 

 that in this we still find the legislatures hang- 

 ing hack; in fact, there are few legislatures 

 i if the last five years where 2 per cent of the 

 legislators displayed any interest in the mat- 

 ter and still fewei where even a single man 

 could be found who was willing to put 

 shoulder to the vheel to accomplish what 90 

 per cent of the people would be glad to sup- 

 port. 



Xnr is the matter so technical. There are 

 various ways in which the obstacles may be 

 removed, and almost any effort can be modi- 

 fied and improved as time goes on. Good 

 will and good sen:,e are the only requisites. 



The obstacles to forestry which state ac- 

 tion alone can remove may be grouped under 

 the following four heads: 



Taxation to the Point of Confiscation. 



Lack of Protection of Forest Property. 



Personal Liberty to the Point of License. 



Mistaken Policies Regulating State Lands 

 and the Holding of Lands by All Public Cor- 

 porations, Counties, Towns and Cities. 



Unfair Taxation Every owner of forest 

 land in almost every state of the Union is 

 agreed that unjust taxation has led to prema- 

 ture and hasty removal of forests. 



Here again the conditions existing in Michi- 

 gan, which apply exactly to most of the states, 

 will help to illiterate. We distinguish here 

 between the assessment and the rate of tax- 

 ation, for especially the latter has operated 

 injuriously. 



The assessment, according to present law, 

 is at "full cash value" of the property, it as- 

 sesses the growing crop as well as the land. 

 How this would affect a case of reforestation. 

 has already been pointed out; it makes the 

 tree farmer distinct from the corn farmer, it 

 assesses only the land for the latter, and the 

 land and crop for the former besides piling up 



the assessment all through the life of the 

 trees. This method of assessment, then, is ab- 

 olutely prohibitive to any effort at reforesta- 

 tion. 



In the case of the man who owns and holds 

 a forest already in existence, the case is less 

 unfair; he can cut and-seH timber, but even 

 here it- is in danger of becoming unfair, and 

 it usually does become unfair in practice, since 

 this assessment in nowise takes into conid- 

 eration what the property is making for the 

 owner. 



In the case where the forest is bought mere- 

 ly to lumber it, this assessment is fair and 

 correct in principle. 



The unfair practices of excessive assessment 

 of the forest of the non-resident owner, and 

 the lack of satisfactory safeguards against 

 this, need not here be considered, though 

 these, too, have worked a great deal of harm 

 to the forest. 



The total tax rate is made up of state, 

 county and local (town, highway, schools, 

 etc.) tax rates. The first two are usually not 

 high in any state. Thus for 1905 we have 

 Michigan: 



State tax $2.40 per $1.000 of property. 



County tax $2.40 per $1,000 of property. 



Township, school and highway- $10.00 per 

 $1,000 of property. 



Total average rate for the state $17.40 per 

 $1.000. 



The town, highway and school taxes, the 

 local taxes, are levied by the local people. The 

 few residents of one of the thinly settled 

 towns levy these taxes and there is no law 

 to set a limit or maximum. These few people 

 can and do levy the taxes, they build roads 

 and bridges, schoolhouses, etc., whether need- 

 ed cr justified or not. They can and often 

 have made a large part of their living by 

 doing these job.-, which consume the local 

 tax. It is argued: "Yes, but they tax them- 

 selves as high us anyone." True, but their 

 own little properties represent but a small 

 part of the total property of the town, it is 

 the non-resident who commonly pays 95 per 

 cent of all taxes levied. And it is by work- 

 ing (?) out this 05 per cent that they make 

 their living and the "representative" man or 

 local politician makes his money. What this 

 leads to is well illustrated by the following: 



In 1901 the average tax rate of one county 

 in Michigan was over $6:U)0 per $1,000 of 

 property! 



And in five oilier counties this average tax 

 rate exceeded $40.00, while in i:i mere it ex- 

 ceeded $:!0.00 per $1,000. And every one of 

 these high taxed counties was a timber county, 

 a thinly settled district where the non-resi- 

 dent owning tax property was bled for all he 

 would stand. In some instances the combi- 

 nation of assessment and rate led to the levy- 

 ing of a tax rate amounting to over $100.00 

 per $1,000. Confiscation in 10 years! 



For this reason it has been one of the com- 

 mon questions in the timber owner's office, 

 when deciding on where to cut next winter: 

 "I low do we fare in - - township, as re- 

 gards taxation?" If the answer is "good," 

 tin- cut is not made, if "had" the decision is: 

 "'I ,ien we will locate a camp there." 



There is no claim here that if the tax rate 

 hail been low or reasonable and honest, that 

 the forest would not have been cut, but tin- 

 writer does claim this: 



If the state kcal people had treated the 



owners of timber honestly and had spent a 

 reasonable part of the taxes in giving the pro- 

 tection which the owner had a right to expect 

 under the constitution there would still be 

 more than half of our pinery lands covered 

 by forest. But this was not and is not the 

 case A certain foiest owner in Michigan paid 

 during the last 23 years over $600,000 in taxes 

 and it would be difficult to prove that a cent 

 had ever been expended in the protection or 

 real good of this property. 



The result of all this is also well illus- 

 trated by Michigan conditions: 



As early as 1875 over nine million acres of 

 land, one-half of the north half of the state, 

 was returned as deliquent or "in spak'-* for 

 taxes. The owners could not afford to hold 

 the lands, and as soon as the then market- 

 able stuff was cut they let it revert to the 

 state. 



The Lack of Protection has been partly 

 discussed above. There has never been 

 any responsibility anywhere, the town, 

 county and state acted as if the for- 

 est were not property in the ordinary 

 sense. This was and is still true, especially 

 in case of protection against fire. The town 

 officials in most states as here in Michigan, 

 were supposed to act, but they were not com- 

 pelled to, the county officials never concerned 

 themselves at all. With us in Michigan, even 

 of late years (since 1903), the case has been 

 better. Now and then a bit of fire fighting 

 is done to keep the fires out of the settle- 

 ments, but even then there is no head, no 

 method, no responsibility; and in some cases 

 it seemed chiefly a case of earning $2.00 per 

 day. As stated before, the new law here in 

 Michigan has helped nothing, for the very 

 head takes evidently no interest in the mat- 

 ter. Besides this utter lack of responsibility 

 in the execution of law and the fighting and 

 prevention of fires, there is an amount of per- 

 sonal liberty allowed which has long degen- 

 erated into the worst form of license. 



Every one is allowed to go onto any un- 

 occupied lands irrespective of the wishes of 

 the owners. In consequence these thinly set- 

 tled districts have long been the biding places 

 of the irresponsible and even the criminal. 

 Everyone, irrespective of character and pre- 

 vious record, is allowed to travel over these 

 lands and hunt, fish, pick berries and camp 

 where he please. In this way the woods are 

 overrun by persons unknown as to name and 

 character to any of the local authorities. Dur- 

 ing the dangerous months of each year and 

 during dangerous dry seasons some of these 

 ^people are constantly setting fires, but the 

 large area, the difficulty of finding fire and 

 people makes it practically impossible for the 

 few tt.wn officers to apprehend them. Again, 

 everyone is allowed to fire to clean land, and 

 though the danger of this practice has long 

 been recognized even in our old fire laws, 

 nothing effective has ever been done to regu- 

 late it. Under the pretext of fighting fires 

 or of protecting property by backfires, thou- 

 sands of acre.-- are burned over every year. 

 In no case does the law prescribe sufficient 

 care. Even in the driest season, when the 

 cutover lands especially are far more danger- 

 ous than any ordinary sawmill or similar 

 rMablishment. the pernicious cigar and pipe 

 is in everyone's mouth; matches are struck 

 and thrown into the dry. infiamable brush; 

 camptires are built without any regard .to 

 safety; shooting is done without excuse and 



