45 r i \ \in.\ \ FORESTS! iSBOOl t//\ 



FATHER Bt RKE. Have you n<> <>ilu-r .l-'mv-t iv-n-vr l.c-i<!" that ? 



Mr. ROTH. No, we have no federal reserves. To be sure there are wild lands in 

 our State, some belonging to the lumber firms of former days, some belonging to the 

 speculators who have bought them with a view of making grazing tracts of them; 

 and we have a small amount of federal government land in the State yet, but the great 

 mass of real State land, I venture to say, is delinquent tax title land. 



Mr. BERTRAM. The reason I ask is, I have had some communication with the 

 President of the Bureau in Michigan, asking information as to how those lands could 

 be re-forested, and one of the greatest difficulties they had was the getting of sufficient 

 quantities of land together in one place. For instance, I have been in Michigan where 

 the forest has burnt over hundreds of acres and where there was hardly a tree on it. 

 I do not very well see or understand how in Michigan you can get a proper forest re- 

 serve in an area more suitable for agriculture. Have you gone to private individuals 

 and bought it ? Have you gone that length ? 



Mr. ROTH. No, the land has reverted to the State, and the State claims to be 

 the owner of the area from the day the man ceases to pay taxes. The State says, ' I 

 am part owner of that land, according to the amount of taxes that are due upon it.' 

 After a certain number of years which the man has to redeem that land, the title is 

 in the State. The title has been disputed and some of the lower courts have stated 

 that the title is not a good one. New York State, it is true, has decreed that a tax 

 title is as good a title as one can have to the land. We have a great deal of land there 

 in tracts of one section or more, and I would say here that it is a question altogether 

 of forest management whether it is not better to have a whole lot of people scattered 

 through your forest reserve than to have a stretch 40 miles in extent without a man to 

 help you in case of fire. We have found our ranger has had to ride a day's ride to get 

 help, and then he could not do anything with the fire when he did get help. What we 

 would like to have in Michigan at least that is my own personal opinion is to have 

 the lands in this way : that we take the poor "land and the agriculturist may have 

 the good land and make farms of it in order that he may help us and we may help him. 



Mr. BERTRAM. That is very good so far, but that was not the idea in my mind 

 when I asked you the question. Take an area of, say 100,000 acres, altogether unfit 

 for farm land, or nearly so, and one part of it comes into your possession in the way 

 you say, by tax sale, and you get possession of it. But here is another part of the very 

 same kind of land, utterly unfit, and no means of getting possession of it. It seems 

 to me that if you are going to be successful in the establishment of a forest reserve 

 you should have some means of getting possession of this land. Whether you have 

 succeeded in getting possession of it I do not know. 



Mr. ROTH. I agree with you most heartily. Our State of Michigan could do 

 nothing better than pass a law right away which would enable the State Land Com- 

 missioner to buy every acre of waste land. More, it ought to enable him to say to a 

 man, ' Very well, you keep it, and you see to it that a fire does not start on your land 

 and we will see, that a fire does not start on our side.' In other words, we should quit 



