72 RURAL MICHIGAN 



at Lansing. The data there contained have not been 

 assembled in such a way as to show what timber 

 remains standing in Michigan ; and the Tax Com- 

 mission seems unable — and the Public Domain 

 Commission seemed unable or unwilling — to under- 

 take the necessary investigation of these records. 

 The Public Domain (now Conservation) Commis- 

 sion, charged with the duty of maintaining the 

 forests belonging to the State itself and of protect- 

 ing those of private owners, is quite without defi- 

 nite information concerning the magnitude of the 

 task which it has been set to do. Therefore, one 

 must continue to suppose that there is a certain 

 quantity of each sort of timber still standing in 

 Michigan, and that this is disappearing at a rate 

 which even the most optimistic lumbermen do not 

 assert will leave any marketable standing timber in 

 the State at the end of fifty years, if present methods 

 are not radically revised. This must necessarily 

 ensue, if the present estimated annual cut in Michi- 

 gan of 1,000,000,000 feet is adhered to. It will nor- 

 mally increase. 



The extraordinary abundance and excellence of 

 the forest growth in Michigan has already been noted. 

 So inexhaustible did it appear that three generations 

 of settlers took no pains to preserve or reestablish 

 it. Black walnut was worked into fence-rails ; white 

 oak made good "sheeting" for dwellings; bird's-eye 

 maple would make excellent stove wood; and potash 

 was more prized than the splendid trees of which 

 it was the residue gathered in from the "burn-pile.'' 



