estry Commission, and in many counties the duty of educating 

 people in forestry matters has been prosecuted with vigor and 

 success. 



The women's clubs of Michigan have taken up the subject 

 of forestry as a topic in their regular schedules for discussion, 

 and in a good many instances very valuable papers upon the 

 subject have been written and published, exhibiting thereby 

 an interest in the work of the Commission that is encouraging 

 and highly satisfactory. 



At the suggestion of the Commission, Prof. C. D. Smith, 

 superintendent of farmers' institutes in Michigan, inducted 

 into his plan for 1901-2 a technical work along forestry lines, 

 to be carried out in each one of the farmers' institutes in the 

 State. The members of the Commission, Mr. F. E. Skeels, 

 Prof. C. A. Davis and Prof. Spaulding, together with some 

 of the professors at the Agricultural College, have rendered 

 valuable assistance by leading discussions at these institutes 

 upon subjects connected with forestry. Everywhere these 

 discussions have been well received, and there has been great 

 interest shown. The Commission has been called upon for 

 pamphlets, documents and reports that give statistical infor- 

 mation, but we are unfortunate in having a very limited 

 number of our reports, and we have exhausted all other docu- 

 ments in our hands for distribution. It is the hope of the 

 Commission during the year 1902 to gather some very effective 

 statistics from within our own borders to use in impressing the 

 people with regard to the rapid growth of timber, and the 



promise that lies in the growth of a timber lot as an adjunct 

 to the farm. We also hope to get exact information as to the 

 serious loss to agriculture in Michigan which has resulted 

 from cutting off so large a portion of the forest cover. 



In connection with the publication of the numerous articles 

 upon that vast region which has been spoken of as the "jack 

 pine barrens," there have been very many things stated which 

 have created wrong impressions in the minds of the people 

 with regard to the purposes of the Commission. We hope in 

 the future to rectify these false interpretations of our pur- 

 pose, and prove that while our methods may be open to 

 criticism, we are in earnest in our desire to utilize the poorest 

 lands of the State so that they will be of the largest possible 

 benefit to the future of our commonwealth. The Commission 

 has never maintained that all the lands in the vicinity of the 

 jack pine plains were valueless for agriculture, but it has 

 contended that the agriculture carried on upon such lands as 

 are adapted to these purposes would be more productive if the 

 non-agricultural lands could be successfully handled under a 

 forest cover. 



The Commission has become satisfied that most of the large 

 fortunes of the State have been made out of the value in the 

 virgin forest, and it has conceived the hope that as a result of 

 the investigation we are carrying forward, and the information 

 we have been able to obtain with regard to the needs of the 

 State, some of these men who have become wealthy out of 

 forest products would take up the matter of reforestation on 



