16 A NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY. 



4. The survey should be projected on a broad, liberal 

 and comprehensive plan, but it should include at the outset a 

 specific problem of practical importance and at the same time 

 of scientific interest. 



5. Such a problem is presented in the future of the waste 

 lands once covered by the pine forests of Michigan. It is cer- 

 tain before long to attract enough public attention to become a 

 subject of legislation, and our present attitude may do much 

 to determine the course of events in this direction. 



6. Meantime there is every reason in favor of proceed- 

 ing as rapidly as practicable, along lines already suggested, in 

 the development of our State Biological Survey. This, in 

 fact, if not in form, has long been in progress, as the studies 

 of ' Unionidse in Michigan,' the ' Birds of Michigan,' the 

 'Michigan Flora,' and various other pieces of work of high 

 scientific merit abundantly testify. But it is time now that the 

 undertaking should be organized, that the State should recog- 

 nize its duty to this form of scientific work, and that we our- 

 selves should be forming clear conceptions of the problems 

 that, in wonderful, if perplexing, interest, are sure to attend 

 into the twentieth century the Natural History Survey of 

 Michigan. 



