NEED GROWS DA1LV. 



"But," the reclamationists rightly argue, "the size of the job is no 

 argument against beginning the work. Certainly not when the necessi- 

 ties of the case can be seen to be daily increasing, as well as the mag- 

 nitude of the work of catching up. We can't begin sooner than now, 

 and we can speed up according to our abilities as we go along." 



"According to our abilities" means according to the amount of 

 money the people who own the devastated land, the Michigan taxpayer, 

 is willing to invest in the job to get it going and keep it going until 

 the crop begins to return money that will make investment on capital 

 account no longer necessary. 



One hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year put into the job 

 would mean for the average taxpayer about the price of one cheap 

 cigar each year. The trouble the reclamationists appear to be in is 

 to make the average citizens see the advantage of denying himself that 

 one cigar a year. The trouble with the reclamationist is that he hasn't 

 taken the public by the ear and made him listen. 



The public will have an ear more sensitive to the argument when it 

 knows more about the job and what progress is being made by the 

 State to accomplish it, so furnishing an example for other land owners 

 to follow. This leads back to operations on the state forest reserves, 

 where tree-planting is but one of the two most important phases of 

 the work. And this leads to the subjects of fire lines, fire towers, 

 telephone system in the forests and similar matters. They will be 

 discussed in the next article. 



ARTICLE IX 



A long, narrow road, a mere trail, rises in a sinuous line from the 

 Jack Pine plain, in the Higgins Lake State Forest Reserve, to the top 

 of a hill whereon looms against the sky the spidery tracerv of a watch 

 tower. 



Sixty feet above the hilltop and far above tire tops of trees on the 

 hill slopes and in the valleys, on the square platform atop the tower, a 

 youth in a vivid red sweater was lounging on the rail and casting his 

 eyes around the horizon. This was on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks 

 ago. 



The season was far enough advanced to have brought on the early 

 fire period in the forests. Spring is the worst time of the year; for 

 then the green growth has not started and on the ground lies dead and 

 dry as tinder the leaf fall of the year just past. Michigan's most ex- 

 pensive forest fires have occurred in May. It is true that the fires one 

 hears most about often have raged in summer and fall. They were the 

 spectacular fires occurring where tourists go and where newspaper 

 correspondents have an eye trained for news. The fires that cost Michi- 

 gan the most money have burned without publicity. 



The youth in the red sweater knew all about this, as does every 

 watchman, ranger and day laborer on the Michigan forest reserves. He 

 was watching fires burn at this moment, but still he lounged, impassive. 

 There was smoke all around the horizon to the southwest and the 

 wind was coming from that direction. It was a breeze that barely 

 stirred one's coat tails, down on the ground, but aloft it was whistling 

 through the wire netting of the watch tower guard rail. It was bringing 



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