COMMEKCIAL KEFORESTATION 749 



time when conditions will not be so far different in Michigan. He calculates 

 carefully upon the fact that twenty years hence there will be none of the 

 waste that characterizes the lumbering operations of today and he takes this 

 into consideration in his outline of a schedule of lumbtring upon his reforesting 

 tract. When this forest matures to this point where cutting for his mill may 

 be begun, a new era will have set in and the same acreage will be yielding 

 greater returns. 



"As has been indicated, with all this carefully calculated knowledge of 

 what the conditions will be some fifteen or tv^'enty years hence, he has been 

 able to outline a tentative schedule and he has figured this 2,000 acres with 

 perhai)s a few hundred more to be obtained as the years pass, will be ample 

 to keep the Glen Haven mill busy indefinitely. Under his plan of conservation 

 and economy, nature simpl}' will keep the saws constantly supplied. His 

 forest tract will be no different in commercial aspect than his orchards. Each 

 year he will harvest a crop of logs sufficient for his mill. When his children 

 assume direction of his interests the mill always will have its raw product 

 at hand. Indefinitely this cycle of things will continue, while the price of 

 lumber and the demand constantly are increasing. 



"Off hand Mr. Day could not tell how many acres he owns. It approxi- 

 mates some 5,000, however. And he has some of the finest tracts of virgin 

 timber left standing in the lower peninsula. In fact he has enough of this 

 standing timber to keep his mill constantly in operation until that time when 

 the realization of his dreams and plans for the 2,000 acres of reforesting shall 

 come. 



"Probably nowhere in Michigan is there a more beautiful piece of timber 

 land than this forest park of David H. Day. He makes no secret of the 

 fact that had he no future plans for it he would have been more than repaid 

 for his trouble and care in the simple grandeur of his acreage. There is nothing 

 commercial about it. As one drives through its innumerable winding road- 

 ways it resembles nothing more than a magnificent park. There is a fine assort- 

 ment of trees and they are growing just as nature intended they should, 

 straight up and sturdy. There is a fine growth of oak, pine, maple, ash, 

 cherry, hemlock, poplar, birch, etc. 



"When these trees, aided as they have been by Mr. Day's conservation 

 ideas, reach that point of maturity where they are ready for the market they 

 will offer fine long, uniform logs, such as only that primeval forest gave to the 

 saws of the pioneer lumbermen. And they will come to thf market in the 

 days when the very scarcity of the material has created a different regime of 

 manufacture. For instance, the oak and the cherry and the ash will go to the 

 veneering machines rather than to be pushed through the conventional log 

 saw, where there is often more than 25 per cent waste in sawdust alone. 

 The white birches, those most ornamental of all trees, such as have been 

 prematurely sacrificed in order that the Grand Rapids Apple show be suit- 

 ably and appropriately embellished, will be conserved to the last square inch in 



