If you travel around the state and ask questions, the chances are 

 that almost everybody you meet will agree that it would be a right 

 good idea for somebody to start in growing some timber as a sort 

 of regular crop. If you ask where it would be practicable to begin, 

 probably you would be told that the Government was doing something 

 or other out West. Weren't there national forests or something? 

 Haven't we a state forest some place up-state? There are and we 

 have. But of all the timber left in the United States less than 15 per 

 cent is on the national forests, and of all the timber cut last year less 

 than 3 per cent came from the national forests, the balance being 

 from privately owned forests. 



RAGGED LITTLE PATCHES. 



And the state forests of Michigan consist of ragged little patches of 

 country so thoroughly logged off and so burned over that the owners 

 quit paying taxes on them. Altogether, the state forests aggregate a 

 fraction of a million acres and the state has a full 10,000,000 acres of 

 idle lands not in the state forests. So the existing Federal and state 

 forests are not going to help very soon or very much. 



If you inquire you will find that the bulk of the idle lands are owned 

 by lumbermen or former lumbermen. If you look sharply you may 

 discover that it is written into the Washington records that some 30-odd 

 concerns "own" some 6,000,000 acres of Michigan a sixth of the state. 

 If you interview some of these concerns and ask how they managed to 

 pick up so much land you will not be treated with courtesy. If you 

 ask what they propose to do with so much land you will be told that it 

 is none of your business. If you ask why they prefer idle and non- 

 productive land to land covered with growing timber you will be sneered 

 at and told about the fires. If you ask why they don't keep the fires 

 out you will get an impatient answer to the effect that fire and idle 

 brush land go together as do fleas and a dog and that, anyway, it is 

 up to the state to keep out the fires. 



WHAT STATE SAYS. 



If you ask about it at Lansing y.ou will find out that the game war- 

 den is also the fire warden; that he reports to the Public Domain Com- 

 mission, and that the Public. Domain Commission feels very strongly 

 that fires are quite a misfortune in the state. The secretary of the 

 Public Domain Commission is also immigration commissioner, and, 

 if you ask, he will give you some nicely illustrated literature concerning 

 the wonderful agricultural possibilities of the cut-over country, concern- 

 ing further details of which you are referred to the state geologist and 

 the Agricultural College. 



If you want to make a nuisance of yourself and travel further 

 around the spiral the state geologist will tell you that he has nothing 

 like a soil survey of the idle lands; that he would like to have and 

 regrets that he has not and, therefore, that he can not, unfortunately, 

 furnish the details concerning which you ask. 



DETAILS ARE SCARCE. 



Then you can try the Agricultural College and the folks there will 

 also regret that no real soil survey has ever been made; that detailed 

 information concerning the location, nature, value an.d possibilities of 



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