398 RURAL MIC II I a AN 



directed to appoint a chief fire warden. His sal- 

 ary, as might be expected, was only $500 a year. 

 His duty was to enforce the provisions of ''this act 

 throughout the state." Provision was made for in- 

 vestigation and inquiry regarding the forests of 

 the State and their protection from fire through the 

 chief warden and his deputies, and such additional 

 assistants as in an emergency might be necessary. 

 With its usual niggardliness in such matters, the 

 legislature put the daily wage of fire wardens at $2, 

 one-third chargeable to the State and-Jie residue to 

 the local municipality, but it set forth emphatically 

 the responsibility and penalties for the careless or 

 malicious setting of fires in woods and grass lands, 

 provisions which, if they had ever been enforced, 

 would have done much to solve the forest fire prob- 

 lem in Michigan. An act of June 4 of the same 

 year definitely designated lands in Crawford and 

 Roscommon counties, described as "delinquent state 

 tax, homestead, swamp and primary school lands," 

 as a forest reserve under the control of the Forestry 

 Commission, which was to place them in charge of a 

 Forestry Warden and his deputies, for the purpose of 

 protection and reforestation. The tract amounted 

 to some 34,000 acres, and Filbert Roth, later head 

 of the Department of Forestry of the University of 

 Michigan, was appointed Forestry Warden. The 

 reforestation was undertaken in 1904, the running 

 of fire-lines in 1905. Restraining trespassers and 

 disposing of dead and down timber was instituted. 



