(In the article leading this series, devoted to a study of Michigan's 

 waste land problem and a project for making the disused areas once more 

 productive, P. S.^Lovejoy of the University of Michigan Forestry faculty, 

 stated that "a third of Michigan 'virtually is bankrupt," told of the wealth 

 in forest products that this area once produced, and outlined a program of 

 restoration. He covered a vast geographical area and a far-reaching econ- 

 omic problem in a condensed statement. The Detroit News has undertaken 

 to explain the details from sources of information arising on the land 

 itself, and to try to make clear what is being done to cope with the prob- 

 lem, ivhat might be done, what the benefits would be to the whole State and 

 to users of forest products which is everybody everywhere and how the 

 individual citizen of Michigan can help. The following ten articles are de- 

 voted to that purpose.) 



By FRED E. JANETTE. 



(of The Detroit News Staff) 



ARTICLE I. 



Two errors of judgment, not unnatural to their day and generation, 

 the same misjudgment that operated to produce bankrupt lands in many 

 sections of the country, worked in the minds of Michigan citizens in the 

 palmy days of the lumber industry. These errors of judgment were, 

 first, that there was sp much forest that the supply of lumber and other 

 forest products was practically inexhaustible; and, second, that farms 

 would follow and keep relative pace with forest clearing. 



Everybody now sees and feels the effects of these mistakes. On the 

 one hand we have a lumber shortage which means costs of dizzy height 

 lumber in general has advanced 97 per cent in price in the last 12 

 months and on the other hand we have, here in Michigan alone, 

 3,000,000 acres' of one-time forest land in arrears for taxes; a record of 

 more than 2,300,000 acres in arrears for 5 years running, reverted to the 

 state, literally bankrupt and foreclosed; with millions more so unproduc- 

 tive that they have to lean on wealthier sections of the state for support 

 for their roads and schools and other public necessities. And there are 

 5,000,000 acres on the tax rolls of an assessed valuation of $5 an acre, 

 average; the taxes not collectable on vast stretches of them. 



SECOND OF ERRORS. 



This is the picture in plain black and white, and merely outlined, of 

 a non-productive and sometimes absolutely bankrupt area three times as 

 large as the whole state of Connecticut. 



There are 36,000,000 land acres within Michigan. In round numbers, 

 sufficient for comparative purposes, 18,000,000 are in farms. Now one 

 comes to consideration of the second of the primal errors of Michigan's 

 citizenry in the palmy days of the lumber industry that "farms would 

 follow the lumberman." They actually thought that the denudation of 

 the land in those days, with no replacement of the forest wealth, was a 

 blessing that the forest was a foe that had to be conquered to give the 

 agriculturist his chance. There is a remnant of that tradition still to be 

 found lurking in the remoter sections of northern Michigan. But it 

 has finally sifted down, in the main, to the minds of that species of gen- 

 try with which the state is all too familiar the sort engaged in selling 

 lands of starvation quality to ignorant home seekers. The lumber in- 

 dustry is pretty well gone, or going, in upper Michigan, but the "sucker" 

 industry is still going, with growing handicaps. 



-It- 



