The AuSable Cooperative 



309 



Georgia, between 50,000 and 10,000 of 

 these small sales are made annually to 

 local people. The total enterprise is 

 far-reaching in its benefits. It will con- 

 tinue through the years. The contri- 

 butions to the well-being of many 

 country people and to the stabilization 

 of local industries and communities 

 are substantial. By the same token, 

 those people working with their Gov- 

 ernment, but not for it, observe the 

 gradual reclothing of the devastated 

 slopes of their native mountains and 

 the progress toward restoration of the 

 basic resource that nature placed there 

 in the beginning. They feel they have 

 a part in the process. No other residents 

 have a greater interest in the control 



of forest fires, in the rehabilitation of 

 fish and game, or in other associated 

 benefits of well-managed forest prop- 

 erty than those who make all or a 

 part of their living from the products 

 harvested from it. 



M. A. MATTOON is the assistant 

 regional forester in charge of timber, 

 range, and wildlife management in the 

 Eastern Region of the Forest Service. 

 After 4 years as forester in the Pisgah 

 National Forest in North Carolina, he 

 was supervisor, successively, of the 

 Cherokee National Forest in Tennes- 

 see and Georgia; Pisgah National For- 

 est; and White Mountain National 

 Forest in New Hampshire and Maine. 



THE AUSABLE COOPERATIVE 



JOHN E. FRANSON 



The Huron National Forest is in the 

 east-central part of the Lower Michi- 

 gan Peninsula. It embraces some of the 

 land that grew the famous Michigan 

 white pine. The present annual cut in 

 the forest consists largely of jack pine 

 in scattered blocks of poor stocking 

 and quality. The best blocks of this re- 

 maining timber were sold in the 1930's 

 to large pulpwood operators. Between 

 1938 and 1940, several blocks of the 

 remaining jack pine were advertised 

 for sale on the Tawas District. But 

 for a significant reason that gives point 

 to this article no bids were received 

 on those offers. 



In an effort to harvest the mature 

 timber and to establish a group of local 

 experienced cutters who would receive 

 the benefit of part-time employment to 

 supplement their farm income, men in 

 the Department of Agriculture consid- 

 ered the possibility of forming a co- 

 operative. One was established in 1940, 

 the AuSable Forest Products Associa- 

 tion, a nonprofit organization, which 

 was incorporated under the State laws 

 as a timber-marketing cooperative and 

 whose membership is restricted to resi- 



dents within or near the Huron Na- 

 tional Forest. 



Before then, the timber had been 

 sold by bid to contractors the so- 

 called "gyppo" operators. Those con- 

 tractors had recruited transient labor, 

 some with families, others single, who 

 would move to the woods and there 

 live in shacks or huts with poor sanita- 

 tion and unsatisfactory social condi- 

 tions. Wages paid to cutters were low ; 

 failure of the contractor to live up to 

 the usual codes of conduct made local 

 laborers refuse to work at pulpwood 

 cutting; and county officials held the 

 operations to be liabilities because of 

 the added drain on their meager re- 

 sources. When the work was finished, 

 some cutters and their families re- 

 mained to become public charges. 

 Worse, the sales to large operators ne- 

 gated the previously favorable public 

 relationship with local residents and 

 authorities; the large advertised sales 

 were more economical to administer, 

 but citizens strongly objected to them 

 and officials had to spend considerable 

 time in attempting to justify them. 



For those reasons, and others, no 



