750 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



argued with me as to the stumpage increment reason- 

 ably to be expected during 60 years, and whether the 

 planting of 100,000 acres of pine a year would be 

 enough. 



The Commissioner Stands Up In Meeting 



The Commissioner of Agriculture stood up in meet- 

 ing to demand that the lumbermen, foresters and tax 

 experts fix up the timberland tax laws so that a land- 



WilKHK FOKEST SCHOOL STUDENTS IN 1905 DRAGGED 



A SURVEYOR'S CHAIN IS NOW A FOREST OF POPPLE 



AND OAK AND PINE. 



owner might have a decent chance to grow a crop of 

 timber on lands not yet profitably available for farm 

 crops. And the head of the Conservation Department 

 stood up in meeting to say that the fires must be 

 stopped, and the fire chief said that half a million dol- 

 lars a year would not be too much to do the job. 



Then the lumbermen and farm-bureau and develop- 

 ment men, and the foresters and colonization agents 

 and professors all said "Amen" and the ayes had it, 

 and it was so ordered. In Michigan, June, 1922. As- 

 tonishing. 



How all that happened to happen is the history of 

 it, I suppose. But the regular historians like to handle 

 it cold and this is hot stuflf; so it has to be handled 

 irregularly and all that it proves is that the Automatic 

 Fool Killer is still working. 



Charles W. Garfield, of Grand Rapids, went broke 

 in the nursery business, but remained interested in 

 growing trees while becoming a big banker, State Sen- 

 ator and so forth. Way back in the nineties he tried 

 to persuade the Agricultural College to teach some 

 forestry, but he couldn't sell the idea. So he tried it 

 on the University, but without much chance of success. 



The Cowpuncher From Texas 



It happened, however, that Professor Spaulding of 

 the University's botany department had promised Dr. 

 Fernow to write a monograph on the white pine, Michi- 

 gan being that pine's favorite state. But in trying to 

 write a monograph for Dr. Fernow the professor bit 

 oflf more than he could chew. Luckily he was able 

 to wish off part of the work on one of his advanced 

 students, named Roth, recently a cowpuncher in Texas 

 who had pointed north. So Dr. Fernow met young 

 Mr. Roth and presently took him to Washington to 

 get him properly indurated. Leaving Washington for 

 the young Mr. Pinchot to untangle. Dr. Fernow and 

 the now Professor Roth started the new school of 

 forestry at Cornell. 



Senator Garfield and his associates somehow found 

 a way to reach the University authorities, and, when 

 the New York legislature in 1902 ditched the Cornell 

 school. Professor Roth came back to Ann Arbor to 

 open a department of forestry ; his equipment in 1903 

 consisting of some warped cali[:)ers, a set of Schlich 

 and a part-time botanist. 



Attendance at the school grew distressingly fast, 

 even though the Agricultural College soon opened an- 

 other school of forestry. Besides running his depart- 

 ment and teaching a dozen courses. Professor Roth was 

 traveling the state, winter and summer for many 

 years wholly at his own expense addressing any au- 

 dience which would give him a hearing. Practical 

 business men and their organizations were not much 

 interested, but the Women's Clubs were all jazzed up 

 by the new conservation gospels. 



As Professor Roth camped on the trail a lumberman 

 would now and then approach, nibble a little, snort, 

 and disappear into the dense political brush. 



By this time many isolated individuals and organi- 

 zations had begun to afifiliate to promote forestry, and 

 the Pinchot-Roosevelt period was opening. By 1905 

 the Michigan Forestry Association was organized and 

 the Women's Clubs had badgered the legislature into 

 creating a Forestry Commission and into designating 

 two ragged little chunks of devastated and tax-reverted 

 land as "Forest Reserves." 



Six Hundred Dollars and a Title 



As Forest Warden with a salary of $1,000 a year, 

 Professor Roth and his student crews found enough 

 down cedar in the old burned swamps to make the 

 "Reserves" almost pay their way. As head of the 

 University's forest department he was meanwhile really 

 quite up against it for help with the teaching. The 

 regents having finally allowed $600 and a title, the 

 head of the department assigned his salary as State 

 Forest Warden and Assistant Professor Mulford ap- 

 pears on the scene. 



The Forestry Association was now active and im- 

 portunate. Its resolutions year after year dealt with 

 fire, taxation, devastation, land policy, deficit in forest 



