FORESTS SPREAD OVER STATE. 



The eight state forests mentioned are widely dispersed through the 

 barren lands, and they are of diverse areas. The Lake Superior forest, 

 on the north shore of Luce County and beginning about 20 miles 

 west of Whitefish bay, runs westward to the Alger County line in a 

 strip 30 miles long and six miles deep. It is the largest, embracing 

 over 62,000 acres. The Ogemaw forest, just above West Branch the 

 Michigan Central railroad line, is the smallest -4,200 acres. A "map 

 of the state forests," issued by the Public Domain Commission, neatly 

 spotted in blue to show the forest areas, shows 74 of -these, one of 

 them down as far as Gratiot County; but this map reflects plans and 

 aspirations, not performances. The eight largest areas have been 

 opened. The others will be, some time, and they will be larger than 

 they now are. The commission is constantly making deals to extend 

 the forest reserve lines and to buy out such private parties as own 

 little tracts within the confines of all the areas. 



If you ever take it into your head to have a look at the Michigan 

 enterprise of reclothing the barren lands with forests, the place to be- 

 gin is at the Higgins Lake reserve. Here are field headquarters. Here 

 is the state nursery, and the field office of the state forester. His 

 business office is in Grayling, 12 miles distant. 



The ride from the railway station, past the state military reservation 

 at Portage Lake, is over graveled roads about half the way, then over 

 the typical sand roads of the cut-over country. The end of the road 

 is a group of modern buildings on the sh'ore of Higgins Lake a 

 crystal clear body of water nine miles long and three miles wide, its 

 shoreline sparsely pre-empted by resorters, as yet, but gaining yearly 

 in popularity. 



The largest building at forestry headquarters is the two-story 

 cement block residence of the custodian, electric lighted and steam 

 heated. All the buildings requiring it have running water. A hydraulic" 

 ram operating in a swale between the reservation buildings and the 

 lake shore, where a spring creek has been dammed to form a pond 

 in front of headquarters, supplies the buildings here and the nursery, 

 back from the lake a couple of minutes' walk. 



Each of the opened forests has a resident custodian. The custodian 

 at the Higgins Lake reserve is also superintendent of the nursery. 



SUPPLIES ALL FORESTS. 



This nursery is the source of supply of seeding trees for all the 

 forests. It also supplies seedlings at cost price to private persons, in 

 lots of never less than 500 little trees. The nursery area is less than ' 

 30 acres, and the building is not much to look at a mere shed; but 

 the nursery grows seedling trees by the millions every year. The 

 planting practice, on land wholly denuded, is to put in 1,700 seedlings 

 to the acre. An acre with 50 full grown trees on it is a good "stand." 

 The surplusage provided in planting is the allowance for loss by death, 

 and the thinning processes pursued in silviculture raising forests as a 

 crop. 



"It is high time that we began cropping our forest lands instead 

 of mining them," as Orlando F. Barns recently remarked. 



Artificial planting by the state began back in 1904, on a very small 

 scale with the Higgins and the Houghton Lake reserves as the operat- 

 ing grounds. Prof. Roth was then in charge of the field work. 



The appropriation at that time was but $7,500 a year. By the close 



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