Opportunities and Facilities. 



Certain special facilities for the study of forestry are supplied by 

 the Saginaw Forest Farm, a tract of land about one mile west of the 

 city of Ann Arbor, presented to the University by Hon. Arthur Hill, of 

 Saginaw. The farm comprises eighty acres, and is a typical example 

 of the low hilly land of the drift district, and contains as great a 

 variety of topographical and soil conditions as could be expected in 

 in an area of this extent. Its soils vary from heavy clay to sandy 

 gravel, and, in addition to its other good features, has a lake of clear 

 water, from ten to fifty feet deep and covering an area of about twelve 

 acres. 



The farm is to serve as an object lesson in forestry. Upon it 

 provision is to be made for (1) an .arboretum of all useful forest trees 

 that can grow in Michigan; (2) demonstration areas for seed-bed 

 and nursery work; (3) model plantations of forest trees, and (4) 

 special experiments in forestry, relating to the various methods of 

 propogating different kinds of timber, to the raising of particular 

 forest products, and to other practical purposes. 



The absence of any well-regulated forests, similar to those of 

 many European countries, might be regarded as a serious drawback in 

 the educational facilities, since such woods represent the goal to be 

 attained. However, here the student prepares himself for a task 

 quite different from that of managing a forest as a superior officer, 

 with the woods, the market, the forest officers and laborers all com- 

 pletely and permanently organized and prepared. His duty will 

 largely be that of caring for wild woods, for cut- and burned-over 

 pinery lands, and the improvement of badly mismanaged wood-lots, 

 where everything is new, everything yet to be done, the forest to be 

 made, the help to be organized and trained, the market to be sought 

 and improved, and the people of the district to be convinced of the 

 usefulness of the forest and the necessity of its proper protection. 

 For these reasons it is believed that the field-work under the very 

 conditions which he has to face in actual practice in forests where the 

 wild wood conditions have existed for centuries, will prove fully as 

 instructive as work under settled conditions, and perhaps even more 

 useful. 



THE COURSE IN FORESTRY 



Generally speaking, the Course in Forestry is a two-years 

 course, open only to graduate students and to properly qualified 



