g34 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



through Federal grants. The "twilight zone" condition is, however, 

 not confined to States which became forest owners through grants 

 from the old public domain. It is found in some of the Eastern 

 States which have become possessed of forest lands under the process 

 which is creating the "new public domain," made up of abandoned 

 private holdings. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are out- 

 standing examples. 



STATE FOREST LAND ADMINISTRATION IN THE LAKE STATES 



Except for the prairie portion of northwestern Minnesota, in all 

 three of these States a large fraction of the northern portions cannot 

 be successfully used for agriculture. Because of the magnificant 

 stands of virgin timber, the land became a rich prize for the lumber- 

 men, and for several decades the Lake States led the country in 

 lumber production. It was generally assumed that the cut-over 

 areas would soon be converted into prosperous farms; but the hope of a 

 flourishing general agricultural development in succession to the 

 great pineries proved delusive. Great portions of the stump lands, 

 in spite of vigorous efforts to dispose of them to settlers, either 

 remained unsold or were cleared only to be abandoned after years of 

 wasted effort, save where the soil proved to be of exceptional quality 

 or where the occupant, for lack of courage or initiative to try again 

 elsewhere, clung to his submarginal acres and eked out a scanty 

 livelihood as best he might. Now, belatedly, it is realized that the 

 best hope of prosperity for the country of the "Great North Woods" 

 is to restore the nonagricultural and submarginal agricultural lands 

 to forest production, and that this will necessitate extensive public 

 ownership and reforestation, at a heavy expense for years. 



Some of the sparsely settled northern counties are bankrupt, and 

 many are a burden on their State, drawing much more from the 

 treasury in the form of contributions toward the cost of local govern- 

 ment than they return. At the same time the tax rate on such property 

 as remains to be taxed in the poorer counties is as a rule very high, 

 and tending to go higher. Tax delinquency has reached such pro- 

 portions that the problem of the "new public domain" cannot 

 possibly be ignored. Its magnitude is illustrated by the fact that 

 from 18 million to 20 million acres of forest land in the Lake States 

 is tax delinquent and at least in major part virtually abandoned by 

 its owners, with a rate of increase in the amount which bids fair in 

 another decade, if it continues undiminished, to place in public 

 ownership well on toward one half of the forest area of the region. 



Already Michigan has, in addition to several hundred thousand 

 acres which have been included in her present State forests, 1,250,000 

 acres of tax-forfeited lands, with perhaps 4 million acres more that 

 is at some stage of tax-delinquency. In Wisconsin tax-forfeited 

 lands pass not to the State but to the county; the amount is uncer- 

 tain, but according to some estimates seems to approach 1,900,000 

 acres with more than 3 million acres addition estimated to be tax 

 delinquent. In Minnesota before the close of 1933 the tax-forfeited 

 lands will total 4 million acres. The reverting lands, naturally, 

 have been stripped of their salable timber and in large part are idle, 

 fire-devastated waste. State policies designed to work out the per- 

 manent retention of large aggregates of these lands for permanent 



