418 RURAL MICniGxiN 



cally consumed. Nor is it proposed to place all or 

 any large proportion of the ten million idle acres 

 nnder the plow. Large areas should be planted to 

 new forests to replace the old ones that once occu- 

 pied these lands. Other portions will go into ranches 

 for grazing. Other parts will be employed in horti- 

 culture, whose products will be locally absorbed with- 

 out any a])preciable effect on the general market for 

 farm products. 



Those who purchase northern cut-over lands are 

 either of recent European origin, whose financial re- 

 sources are too meager to allow them to buy improved 

 farms; or they are ranchers who desire tracts much 

 more extensive than could profitably be acquired in 

 the more developed sections of the State. By all 

 means the foreign population should be encouraged 

 to get back to the land. Many cannot afford high- 

 priced improved lands ; but with labor and sweat they 

 will improve the rough stump areas, make a home in 

 what was recently a wilderness, and develop taxable 

 property where formerly lands went delinquent for 

 the non-payment of taxes, thereby easing the tax 

 burden for the entire State. 



The progressive improvement of cut-over areas 

 diminishes the forest-fire and brush-fire danger. The 

 source of the grasshopper pest is in these same tracts 

 of wild grass and brush lands. Finally it should 

 be recognized that the productivity of the farms in 

 the older sections of the State is declining because 

 of the too continuous cropping of the land and soil 

 erosion. It would be better to turn to the virgin 



