GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 401 



mission in 1899, and its siipplanter, the Public Do- 

 main Commission, definite areas of land, now aggre- 

 gating 157,064.74 acres, have been set apart as State 

 forests in the northern counties of the southern penin- 

 sula and another on the Lake Superior shore of the 

 northern peninsula. Fire-lines have been run, steel 

 watch-towers have been erected, a small fire fighting 

 force has been organized in relation to both the State 

 and private forests, a small tree nursery for growing 

 seedlings has boon established at Higgins Lake in 

 Crawford County, plantations of several varieties of 

 evergreen trees (at present white, Norway, Jack and 

 Scotch pine) have been instituted in various State 

 forests, amounting in 1920 to 9,124 acres. Exchanges 

 of State lands with the United States and with pri- 

 vate owners have been consummated for the purpose 

 of consolidating present holdings; but the net result 

 is egregiously inadequate in comparison with the 

 demands of the existing situation. There are ten 

 to twelve million acres of cut-over and undeveloped 

 lands requiring attention, which it seems physically 

 impossible to re-stock with a new forest-cover by arti- 

 ficial means. Nature would accomplish very much 

 unaided, but her efforts are frustrated by the lack 

 of fire control and the utter inadequacy of the meas- 

 ures taken. The efforts of the Public Domain Com- 

 mission up to 1921 have been largely of a routine 

 character. The laws relating to the burning of 

 slashings and forest waste that constitute a fire men- 

 ace, and to the malicious or careless starting of forest 

 and grass fires, remain unenforced in most instances, 



