FORESTRY AND THE UTILIZATION OF LAND 401 



which several uiillion acres have drifted back into the hands of the state for 

 non-payment of taxes, and of which thousands of acres have been settled and 

 abandoned during the last forty years. The facts in the case are so thoroughly 

 established by sad experience, that everybody knows about the pinery lands 

 and their uselessness for agriculture. But a few interested land dealers and 

 politicians are making money out of the traffic in these poor useless lands. 



Theirs is a clear-cut dollar statesmanship which the legislature fully 

 api)reciates and the result is that today the state of Michigan sells these 

 lands at about one to two dollars per acre, though they are worth ten dollars 

 for forestry, and that the state established an Immigration Bureau to help 

 along the bad work of advertising these lands. 



Michigan is not alone. The Heyburn arguments in Congress are exactly 

 of this same order. 



The fact is clearly before our people. We have today in the United States 

 many millions of acres of land which demand attention. We have the choice 

 of allowing them to become waste lands, some of them hopeless, permanent 

 waste, or of having them cared for and preserved or returned to a productive 

 useful condition. 



While thus in our country the states and people generally work to clear 

 away the forest, the people of Europe, though they have more and better 

 forests than we, have adopted the motto. Extension and improvement of the 

 forest. 



And it is quite a surprise to the traveler to find this extension and restora- 

 tion of the forest in places where exactly the opposite might be expected. 



Thus in Belgium, the most densely populated country in Europe, one sees 

 beautiful forests of beech and spruce and in addition, one finds the state 

 restoring worn out and abandoned sand lands by the thousands of acres and at 

 great expense. These are not sand dunes along the coast, but large areas 

 inland, and some of them only two hours' ride from Antwerp, one of the great 

 markets and shipping places of the world. 



Similar conditions occur in Germany. The Liireburger Heath is a surprise 

 to anyone interested in the material welfare of any country. A district settled 

 before the beginning of our era is largely today an unused waste. It is neither 

 grazing land nor field, sparsely populated, largely deserted. Here, too, the 

 fallacy of "It is needed for agriculture," has borne its bitter fruit and the 

 present and future generations have to expend millions to restore these vast 

 areas to some kind of usefulness, for the experience of centuries has taught 

 Europe that these waste lands are not only a waste but even a menace. They 

 are the haunt and breeding ground of the ''undesirable," of poverty, vice, and 

 degradation. And if our politicians in the United States care to see and to 

 learn, they need not go far to find similar conditions already existing here 

 at home. 



What the forest can do for just such lands is well illustrated by the fine 

 stands of beech and pine and spruce in the city forest of Nelzen and other 

 places. 



In the vicinity of Berlin, one of the large and busy cities of the world, in 

 the midst of the best markets to be found anywhere, we again find the pinery 

 sands making people land-poor, abandoned, and finally restored to the only 

 crop that will be permanent, the forest. 



Four hours east of l>erlin in the vicinity of Kreutz. in the same great 

 North German plain the government has tried and is now trying every known 

 remedy to aid in the development of the country. Large farms, up to GOO 

 acres and more had gradually degenerated into waste land. The people were 

 leaving the country to find work elsewhere. As a last resort the government 



