and slash lands and isolated farms on the clay oases in the sand coun- 

 try, the old, old fallacies about the woods and the clearings are clearly 

 perceptible, lurking in shadowy corners. All these people are Michi- 

 gan men, most of them native to the soil of the barren lands or next 

 door neighbors steeped in the traditions of the north country. 



"The early settler regarded the forest as a foe to be conquered. It 

 impeded agriculture, and it harbored wild beasts," said Orlando F. 

 Barnes the other day. He is chairman of the State Board of Tax 

 Commissioners, and was discussing laws that are inimical in their 

 effects to the restoration of forests on bankrupt lands. 



It is not fanciful to suspect that the age-old tradition has its oper- 

 ative effect in the Michigan forest fire protection organization. 



JUST ANOTHER ASPECT. 



And there is another fact, especially appealing to the official mind. 

 The game department pays its own way; the fire protection depart- 

 ment, naturally, does not. Every dollar spent educating the north- 

 woods public in how not to start fires, every dollar spent stopping the 

 fires when they start by act of man or act of Providence in sending a 

 lightning bolt on an old and dry jack pine or a heap of slash, has to 

 come from the Legislature, that is from the taxpayer. And if the 

 public official, on the average, isn't modest about asking for money, 

 he is at least cautious about what he asks it for. And so long as so few 

 people realize how penny-wise and pound-foolish it is to let the north 

 country burn, just so long, undoubtedly, will the forest fire protection 

 arm of the state government hesitate to make its legitimate monetary 

 needs known. 



Its legitimate money needs are known, at least have been figured 

 out by one man having as good knowledge of the whole problem as 

 any man in Michigan. Prof. Roth has done it. Besides being one of 

 the world's foremost teachers of forestry, he has been Michigan's 

 forester in years past, planted with his own hands waste areas up in 

 Roscommon and Crawford counties and along the Au Sable River. 



HAS PREPARED FIGURES. 



He has prepared figures for a forthcoming report of the Public 

 Domain Commission. In Prof. Roth's calculated study of the problem 

 the citizen who foots the bills will have something clear, concise and 

 determinative to go by. 



Before Prof. Roth's figures are presented it remains to be told 

 what the fire protection organization is getting now. The report of 

 the game, fish and forest fire commissioner, in the Public Domain 

 Commission report for 1916-18, covers eleven and two-thirds pages 

 for game, and has a one-page summary for the forest fire report. 

 Turning back to the biennial report preceding, one finds eight pages 

 in the fire report six pages of tables giving dates, areas and damage 

 wrought by fires, and costs of extinguishment. From July 1, 1914, to 

 June 30, 1916, what fires were put out and didn't burn out, did $8,276 

 damage in the Upper Peninsula, and cost $2,743.45 to put out; in the 

 Lower Peninsula they did damage, according to this report, of $24,827 

 and cost $6,842 to extinguish. In the 1916-18 period the cost to put 

 out fires totals $12,808. Putting out fires is small part of the fire 

 fighters' work. They have to patrol the lands, post notices, put up 

 towers and phone lines for watchmen, and do many other things. 



EXACT COST LACKING. 



The exact total cost of forest protection, outside of the public 

 domain devoted to state forests, is impossible to get at, because the 



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