good; steps have been taken looking toward a real inventory of our 

 state's lands. 



But to complete such a job properly will take years and years, and 

 in the meantime settlers are settling, assessors are assessing, ^tourists 

 are touring, fires are burning, forests are disappearing and a 'third of 

 the state loafs in desolation. There are those, perhaps, who, hesitating 

 over the prospects, may recommend that nothing be done until the 

 big inventory job is all complete. A good excuse for doing nothing 

 can always find a welcome home, but not that excuse for this occasion. 



MAPS TO BE AVAILABLE. 



It was reported at the Academy of Science meeting that .a set of 

 maps was already in existence, which, with a little editing, would 

 serve excellently as a stop-gap between the almost total lack of 

 information under which we now labor, and the final completion of the 

 big-job inventory. Those maps will shortly be made available, no 

 doubt. 



According to the Academy of Science, the most urgent step in 

 any program calculated to put all the state's acres to permanent and 

 profitable work is the stopping of the fires. This can be done: is 

 perfectly practicable, said the Academy. This is the job of the Public 

 Domain Commission, and it is up to the Commission" to get after 

 the job in the very near future, said the Academy. All of which is 

 just more "dope," perhaps. 



BIG TREE NURSERY. 



To be sure, the forest rangers on the National Forests are catching 

 fires while they are little, and putting up their lookouts and telephone 

 lines and working their heliographs and caching their fire-tools along 

 the trails and making arrests when somebody gets inexcusably careless 

 with fire in the woods, and, of course, up at the State Forest near 

 Grayling, the state forester is putting tractor-plowed fire lines about 

 his plantations, and keeping out the fire in spite of the* fact that the 

 counry all around him burns over every little while. And, of course, 

 he is running one of the biggest forest tree nurseries in the world and 

 planting millions of little pines on the poor old lumbered-over. 

 burned-off, tax-reverted "waste" lands of the state, and making them 

 grow right along as nicely as can be. even though the lumberman 

 knew that "pine would not follow pine." 



An.d, to be sure, the secretary of one of the development associations 

 says that "Wisconsin is getting ten good settlers to Michigan's one. 

 Wisconsin has a real soil survey and acts as though she wanted to 

 get settlers, whereas Michigan but what's the use?" 



PLAYING IT SAFE. 



Seeing that things are as they are, and that we are practical people, 

 not visionary; with our fee-t on the ground; progressive, to be sure, 

 but not carried away by theories and radical notions; playing it safe 

 and sound, rather than fussing about the hypothetical future, the mere 

 fact that a third of Michigan, 10,000,000 acres or so,, is idle, barren, fire- 

 spent, getting poorer and more desolate, is nothing of any particular 

 importance. Hemlock lumber is only $60 a thousand and newsprint 

 only 4 cents a pound. If, for any reason, the future should bring, hem- 

 lock to $100 a thousand and newsprint to 10 cents per pound, why, 

 then, if it seems an appropriate thing to do, the matter may receive 

 adequate attention. Or it may not. Timber is a long-time crop and 

 l\o degree of urgency and no amount of money can hurry it to maturity. 



-u- 



