A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tl^e Interests of HoqeLj Producers. 



$1.00 A YEAR. 



w. z. HOTCHINSON. Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL XI. FLINT. MICHIGAN, SEPTEMBER 10, 1898, NO 9. 



JVOHTHERN MICHIGAN. 



Some of the Conditions that have made it 

 Excellent Honey Producing Locality. 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



"Bells' ding dong, 

 And choral song, 

 Deter the bee 

 From industry: 

 But hoot of owl, 

 And 'wolf's long howl. 

 Incite to moil 

 And steady toil." 



\J ORTHERN 

 ^^ Michigan, the 

 lome of the pine 

 uid the popple, 

 )right with the 

 )eauty of the gold- 

 vd rod, gorgeous 

 with the purple of 

 the great willow 

 herb, most einpha- 

 tically illustrate the 

 truth of the old German couplet that 

 stands at the head of this article. 



Nature, having had things pretty much 

 her own way in this region until quite 

 recently, and having plenty of time at 

 her disposal, proceeded to raise a crop 

 more valuable than Michigan will proba- 

 bly ever again produce — great forests of 

 soft, white pine. But, now, alas ! to the 



stroke of the woodman's axe, and the 

 song of the circular saw, nearly all of 

 these grand old forests have been floated 

 down the rivers and out upon the sea of 

 commerce. 



Desolation, is the one word that best 

 describes that country from which the 

 lumberman has stripped the pine timber. 

 Stumps, logs, brush and fallen tree tops 

 cover the ground in a confusion that is 

 indescribable; while here and there, in 

 their loneliness, with withered limbs out- 

 stretched, stand old dead, dry pines — 

 ghosts of former grandure. 



After the summer's sun has poured 

 down for many days upon this mass of 

 resinous malarial, only a spark from 

 some settler's clearing starts a fire that 

 sweeps across the country mile after mile 

 — leaving the earth bare and blackened. 



In the wake of these fires there spring 

 up, as by magic, berry briers, goldenrod, 

 fireweed and the incomparable willow 

 herb. As all of these plants die in the 

 fall, the earth and old logs and stumps 

 are soon again covered with a mass of 

 inflamable material; and the burning is 

 almost sure to be repeated every two or 

 three years. In fact, during a recent trip 

 in northern Michigan, I learned that the 

 willow herb is inclined to "run out" in 

 two or three years; and is kept at its best 

 only by these repeated burnings. 



