While the world suff 'ers from a shortage of 'fore ft, products, millions of 

 acres of Michigan land that once yielded vast iffio[tJl ^Ainber'^y^today 

 waste lands, fire-swept and deteriorating year by year, Fpryjard-Jojoking, men 

 who are wrestling with the problem belie-ve ihoA>'tJie\beoffie*&f/^icjtigaw up 

 not realize the gravity of the situation or the possibility of remedy. Their 

 plan is to restore to the wasted areas of this state the forest industry. 



The series of articles to follow will present a study of the causes and con- 

 ditions creating Michigan's waste areas in the northern part of the state, 

 and give an account of what is being done to restore them to use. 



P. S Lovejoy, who contributes the first article of the series, is a member 

 of the University of Michigan forestry faculty, a scientist and a practical 

 woodsman of long experience. 



By P. S. LOVEJOY 



Of the Forestry Faculty, University of Michigan. 



A third of Michigan virtually is bankrupt, unable to pay its way with 

 schools and roads, getting poorer instead of richer from year to year, 

 producing less and less of value. 



This third of Michigan takes 10,000,000 acres or so, the most of it 

 being in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, the rest in the 

 Upper Peninsula. 



The bulk of these bankrupt lands were originally in pine forest. 

 From 1870 to 1900 Michigan led the world in the quantity, quality and 

 value of its timber exports. Today Michigan is a tremendous importer 

 of timber and other forest products. This is unusual but not in itself a 

 proof that anything is radically wrong. Ohio, also, was covered origin- 

 ally with timber and is now a great timber importer, and is, neverthe- 

 less, prosperous and thriving. 



LAND GOES TO DISUSE. 



But in the case of Ohio, the removal of the forests was followed 

 promptly by intensive agricultural development; the land went from a 

 lower to a higher kind of use. In Michigan the removal of the orig- 

 inal forests has not been followed by any other profitable use of the 

 land save on about two-thirds of the state, the balance of the land, being 

 today non-productive and "waste." The bulk of these idle lands has 

 been deserted and has been non-productive for upward of 20 years and 

 there is no accident about it. Most of the idle lands are sandy and poor. 

 As a rule, pine follows the sands as willows follow the creeks. 



If Iowa were to be forced to import corn from New York or if 

 California sent to Florida for oranges, it would be no more preposterous 

 than to have Michigan, with 10,000,000 acres of idle stump land, import- 

 ing great quantities of forest products. We do that. 



Michigan-grown hemlock, shipped 200 miles, sells at the same price 

 in Detroit as does fir grown on the Pacific Coast and shipped 2,000 

 miles. The hickory for the wheels of Michigan automobiles is coming 

 from Arkansas and Mississippi. The oak for Grand Rapids furniture is 

 being cut in Louisiana and Tennessee. Michigan does not even supply 

 itself with enough telephone poles and railroad ties, but imports poles 

 from Idaho and ties from Virginia. 



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