NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 189 



of having all lands placed in private hands. We now know that we made a 

 mistake in the care of forest lands, or all lands only doubtfully suited to 

 agriculture. For over 30 years the State of Michigan has had from 15 to 

 257 of its land area "in soak for taxes." These tax lands have coat us 



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millions of dollars to advertise and try to get into private hands and all ex- 

 pense has been in vain ; we have them still. Our experience merely con- 

 firms that of Europe which has declared that the State is the best forest 

 owner, and in case of poor soils, is the only good proprietor, for it is only 

 the State who can afford to carry out the long time plans needed to keep 

 .such lands from becoming waste. We want State forests here and we are 

 working to get them. 



3. A large part of all our trouble and loss is due to the fact that we 

 never decided on any definite policy beyond the mere "Get rid of the lands.' 

 Just as a farmer decides on what he wants to do with his lands, so the State 

 should have a well matured plan and work according^. We, here, are dis- 

 cussing now such a plan and policy. 



4. The State of Michigan as such and also many individual owners of 

 large holdings have suffered (and the woods with them) on account of long 

 lived contracts or interests given to people to exploit the forest. We, here, 

 fully realize that the time is passed when such contract should be given to 

 anybody and that forests can be utilized and the timber be sold and removed 

 without such contracts. 



In every case the exploiting interest protest step by step against any 

 innovation and the whole treatment of the forest is based on a series of com- 

 promises in which the forest gets the worst end of the bargain. 



Our little State Reserve where we are now selling the fire-killed material 

 of cedar and pine, the main question is never : Is the price right, is the 

 scale right, it is always : Will it effect the forest growth favorably or un- 

 favorably ? and we believe that this should be the only deciding question and 

 all others should be held secondary, whenever the state handles a forest. 



We here in Michigan have lost much in forest wealth and time and 

 land because the men who have handled our State forest lands and private 

 lands could never "See the woods on account of the trees ;" they could see 

 only merchantable timber and the forest never meant anything to them b 

 yond just so and so many million feet of timber or logs. They were ab 

 men, our Michigan lumbermen, they knew timber and knew how to log ; they 



