14 MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



what could be done without our range riders possibilities of our state are astounding. The When forest fires are extensive there is an 



and their system of fighting fires? Sometimes time will come sooner or later when more over-producti( n of lumber because of the cut- 



they are at it for forty-eight hours without a will be raised on forty acres than the present ting of burned timber to save it. Over-prfi- 



let-up. One man found two of them lying on sv-tem gets from 100. duction always means low prices. 

 the ground in the deep sleep of utter exhaus- The roots of corn have been known to go There is one loss in timber that is greatly 



tii. n. They lay as they had fallen, and the down six feet where they had a chance, yet exaggerated by forest fires. The decay fol- 



ants were running over them. Perhaps these you see men ploughing three inches deep for lowing fires causes a large increase of the 



men take a little relaxation, and then the cry corn. The side hills will not always be plant- insect enemies of growing timber. In the 



goes up: "See those lazy fellows, and the ed to corn, which gives such a chance for northern peninsula of Michigan bark bettles 



waste in the Forest Service." No figuring, washing. They will be planted to trees, which and borers attacked the burned hemlock and 



you understand, of the waste of the fires and will be mulched with straw, or else sown to pine immediately after the great fires of last 



the ax. All manner of abuse was heaped on grass, which will be well manured. Ji'ly. 



the chief forester, but there was a vision be- The strangest thing is that men will not In the future we may look for a more rapid 

 fore him, a vision of ruin and desolation, and plant trees. There are millions of acres that decay of every imperfect tree growing near 

 he wrote, talked, and pleaded, till the tide are sometimes subject to overflow which for the burned districts. Great numbers of trees 

 turned and a great victory was won. A crisis thirty years have raised nothing but weeds not burned will die from the attacks of insects- 

 came, and issues involving hundreds of mil- and which might be put to raising houses, as the indirect result of the fires. For many 

 lions. The forester broke a piece of red tape, barns, and wood-piles. Better restore the old years the owners of mixed hardwood and 

 and he must go. No matter that he stands woodshed, a'nd raise your own fuel, and give hemlock timber lands thought themselves al- 

 for a great principle. No matter that he has the coal barons the go-by. A farm is an em- most immune from fire loss. The leaf fires 

 given his means and his life to a great cause, pire in itself. If the farmer raises everything of October and November, 1908, were new to 

 "Just look at that piece of red tape! Can't he needs he will grow rich. The nation whose many owners. That year and the next it was 

 you see it is broken?" But, thank God, the imports exceed the exports is growing poor, thought little damage had been done. The 

 nation is fully aroused and our forestry system For the last few years the balance of trade contrary is now known to be true. A con- 

 is established. has been in our favor. The past year we siderable part of the burned districts are dead 



You can readily see the clashing of inter- were about $150.000,000 short, and if this or dying. This last summer we saw large 



ests. Leading men in our Pacific coast cities keeps up we shall have trouble. The farmer areas of mixed timber, containing very little 



want the bars thrown down. The future may who buys more than he sells will soon raise pine, burned so badly that the trees were all 



care for itself. They want the coal to be dug, a big crop of mortgages. True conservation killed immediately. Hardwood trees burned 



and the water powers to be exploited, and makes us work the land to advantage and like conifers. 



flocks and herds to have free range. It all save it as one of God's best gifts to man. So We have figured in the past on getting the 



makes business, and they want business now. stand up for Nebraska and make it one of bark from the burned hemlock trees. This 



There never yet was a national park laid out the most brilliant stars in our national con- year they were burned so badly that the bark 



or a national forest made but what there was stellation. already is decayed and has been fairly riddled 



a tremendous protest from this source. When by woodpeckers and sapsuckers in search of 



the government made a national forest near LUMBERMEN AND FOREST LEGISLA- the swarms of bark beetles that have infested 



Cass Lake, Minn., a howl long and deep went TION the trees. Where the timber was burned la 



up. When we tried to have a park in the Wet summer very little bark will be gathered ne 



Mountain Valley, and could have got a bill By Thornton A. Green, President of the North- season. 



through Congress for one of the sublimest ern Fcrest Protective Association. A brief description of how a lumberma 



resorts, Colorado congressmen sat down on it. A address delivered at the Lake States Con- m .^' es mone y / rom our forests may not ' 



But slowly and surely, the people are going ference . St . Paul. December 6. without interest. 



to rule. This country is going to be saved. Assume that he has paid $15.000 for a grou. 



Not only conserved, but made more beautiful The lumbermen of Minnesota. Wisconsin of A timl)l-r and up , ;]1 1 cutti / g it and afte r pay- 



and attractive. and Michigan do not seem to have paid a ing a]] the j,ill s and selling his lumber he has 



The rich soil of Nebraska is hungry for gre at deal of attention to forest legislation in $17,000 In other words, he has made two 



In '72 there was not a shrub or tree h f , aws h thousand dollars. Then he finds he - 



on the tounsite of York. Now it is called ^ , " , ** unnecessary burden more timber. He tries to replace the acreajr 



*L&*L*5L ^n &J&LF3J5* P" then, Until very recently the^ legisla- he has. cut and is compelled to pay $1T^ 



would make over 1,000 feet of .timber. Timber g ot ' these smeshaS enacieTfew pna^ic'a, for it/just what he took out of the first trac 

 "'<: In scores of instances men have cut . mi ^-j _<v ..... 



u laws. The lumbermen now are fully awake This performance is repeated year after y 

 $.500 worth of cottonwood lumber per acre. h necessit for somc action that win yive in t he hope that future manufacturing pro 

 besides the firewood which was enough to h protection to their timber lands, may be larger. lie rarely makes a dol 

 coyer the cost The land was eft all the changes in the statutes are , ike , to be ma ,, e .awing lumber and often loses. If he in- 

 better because it was subsoiled by those vigor- [n a ,f tnree states this coming w ? Uer a|u , (h( , , wim i his operation wit* about 



lumbermen ase most vitally interested in any much timber as he started with, he msj 



The side hills must and will be defended changes that may be made. money because of the natural increase in t; 



from erosion and washing. You see farms file lumbermen's chief asset is standing 1>er values. If some of the timber land 



with deep gullies ploughed through the corn- timber. Mills, railroads and equipment are ha* been burned over, the operation lik' 



field: too deep, almost, to get a team across, practically valueless if there are no timber '" show a loss and not a gain. 



Sometimes a grain of sense will come to the re srurces behind them. business is largely one of book profits tod 



owner and he will dump in a load of straw, There is a marked increase in the amount Cash dividends do not come with regularit 



and s stop the wash. One year ago we had r f t j m h e r offered for sale by the non-opera- These are some of the reasons win 1 



a fearful dust storm in the spring, and in t ing timber owners as well as bv the opera- lumbermen are interested in laws for the p 



Mime cases entire furrows on the hills were tors The prices that have prevailed for sev- tection of forests, but I do not mean to im 



blown away. In one instance the rich soil of ( , ral years are he ; nR shaded in consequence, that they alone are interested. The cut 



a neighbor drifted three feet deep on one ot F orest fires have had much to do with this country is aroused to the necessity for acti 



my hedge- I told him I wished he would weakening of timber values. It has been difficult in the past to convi 



lariat his farm and keep it at home. Groves Many lumbermen must, of necessity, resort the residents of the unforested parts of 



and windbreaks are needed to stop the fierce to bolu] j ssues in these times of high values lake states that they have a common in;. 



gales which for ages have swept over our pf stu mpage and high cost of labor and sup- with the lumbermen in the protection of tin 



pran Buffer-crops can be sown on the p ]j eSi COU pled with the low price of lumber at f-rests. They are beginning to uncli-i 



long, -doping side hills. 1 once saw in the the po j llt nf production. Standing timber is that the lumbermen are less interested in pro 



Republican Valley a large held of alfalfa tne principal security for these bonds. It is tecting the remaining forests than they are 



which was catching the wash from the long ,, n ]y hy exercising great care in the protection The owners have an average value in then 



slopes above it. The time will come when of Ollr timber resources that timber bonds stnmpage of about $2.:iO a thousand and the* 



instead of the man moving his barn to get it can be kt , pt at par disburse, in the process of reducing the m- 



away from the manure pile, he will get a Insurance upon the plants and output of the to a marketable product, about four times tha 



spreader and put tt on bu tarm. [he man ],, nl | K . r companies always has been compara- amount. 



who feeds cattle will learn sooner or later tivc]v njj , h Unless something is done to les- The public, realizing at last that the wantoi 



that corn thai u fed manure is wi rth a small sen t]le r j sk from f orest f iri . exposure many destruction of the forests means a distinc 



t will pav to save. lumbermen and lumber towns will find it diffi- loss to everyone, demands that something b 



People arc waking up to their possibilities, cult to obtain adequate insurance at reason- done: and something will be done. Such va- 



The boys of the future are going to show their able prices. resources have been destroyed by lire in re 



fathers how things w j]| be done and That When the modern lumberman builds his cent years, coupled with a heavy loss of li 



farming will pay. Two boys in North Cam- mills and railroads he estimates the probable th:'t the people will not be denied. There i 



lina raised 1-'". bushels of corn per acre, where life of his plant by the amount of timber he only one way open to them the law. N'c* 



their neighbors were raising twelve. A boy has. Any loss of timber follows through laws and amendments to existing laws ar 



near West Point, last year, raised 114 bushels, every st,-p of his operations. In many cases pn posed on every hand. Some of them sing' 



where the neighboring men were yetting forty, the added expense of producing logs from out the lumberman as the scapegoat, a fe* 



Never yet ha- an acre of rich land west of burned timber is more than the actual loss place the burden upon the railroads, 



the Missouri River been put to its best. The of stumpage. records of Forester Griffith, of Wisconsn 



