12 A NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY. 



the same measures. The initial expense to the State is so little 

 as to be hardly worth mentioning, and the end to be obtained 

 is of such far-reaching importance as to warrant, or rather im- 

 peratively demand, the earnest work and personal sacrifice that 

 will be involved in this patriotic effort to restore in some meas- 

 ure the forest wealth of Michigan and to make forever impos- 

 sible the frightful waste of natural resources that has been so 

 conspicuous a feature of our recent history. 



It will naturally be asked: Is this all that the Michigan 

 Academy of Science is to do in formulating plans for a Nat- 

 ural History Survey of the State? Workers, many of us, in 

 pure science, are we to rest satisfied with merely formulating a 

 plan by means of which the material interests of the State are 

 to be subserved ? Ought we not rather to develop a compre- 

 hensive plan by means of which biological relations of every 

 kind shall be brought under scientific investigation ? Shall 

 we not leave practical matters to practical men and give our- 

 selves to that to which we were called our laboratories, our 

 students, and the pursuit of science for its own sake. 



Such questions lead finally, as it seems to me, to the an- 

 swer that the interest of one is in the end the interest of all. 

 Scientific investigation, in Michigan at least, is to a great extent 

 dependent on means provided by the people of the State, who 

 are paying, generally with cheerfulness, sometimes with more 

 or less questioning, for the equipment of the laboratories in 

 which we work. Such is our dependence, let us frankly ac- 

 knowledge it, and hold ourselves ready to make such return as 

 we are able. On the other hand, the people of the State are 

 dependent more so, perhaps, than is sometimes admitted on 

 trained scientific men for the working-out of nearly every 

 problem affecting their material interests. There is not a prac- 

 tical man in Michigan competent alone to successfully work 

 out the problem as to just what the State ought to do in the 

 preservation and profitable management of its forests. Here 

 the services of trained scientific experts are indispensable, and 

 fortunately this University was, eight or ten years ago, en- 



