hillsides entering into the one great stream which 

 forms Boyne river. However, no individual can do 

 anything with this. It will have to be done by such 

 strength as the State or nation can give. We have 

 such lands as are not suitable for agriculture, stock 

 grazing, etc., which should be owned and protected 

 by the State, to be held as timber reserves. The dead 

 timber, brush and logs that are left on the ground by 

 the iumberman, should be cleaned up so as to give 

 protection against fire to small standing and growing 

 timber which in twenty-five or thirty years will be 

 very valuable to our country. I shall be very glad to 

 give any assistance I can to this important work of the 

 Association." 



Prof. James Satterlee, formerly of 

 An Greenville, now of Lansing, gives this 



Instance illustration from his recent experi- 



Given ence: 



"When we bought our new place in 

 town, there were a couple of Norway spruces standing 

 where they were a source of discomfort, so I decided 

 to cut them. They had been trimmed up twelve feet 

 or more and were far from ornamental. It required 

 quite a lot of courage, too, to cut a fine tree that you 

 know someone had set for shade and ornament 

 and cared for with tenderness for many years. I should 

 hate very much to see the beautiful pines in the front 

 yard of our old homestead cut and hauled away for 

 lumber, which will undoubtedly be their fate sooner or 

 later. My own remembrance of having watched their 

 growth from puny seedlings to fine trees of forty-five 

 years' growth will have no weight with some one that 

 will come after me and who 'knew not Joseph.' But 

 laying all sentiment aside, what were these two Nor- 

 ways worth for lumber? Cutting them a few inches 

 above the ground I found there were twenty-six an- 

 nual rings. They had made a fine growth and one 

 measured fifty feet in length and the other fifty-one 

 feet. One was fourteen inches in diameter and the 

 other sixteen where they were cut off. Each made 

 two twelve foot logs and I had them saw^ed into bill 

 stuff. The upper logs each made a fine 4x4 and inch 

 boards, and the butt logs made some fine strong 2x4*5, 

 besides some inch boards 162 feet in all. I cannot 

 buy such lumber in our yards at Greenville for less 

 than fifteen dollars or sixteen dollars per thousand 

 feet. 



It is easy to compute the value of an acre of such 

 timber, for on ordinarily good land two hundred such 

 trees could be grown to the age of twenty-six years on 

 an acre. Counting the trees at eighty-one feet each, 

 there would be 16,200 feet of lumber. This at $15.00 

 per thousand feet would have a value of $243.00. The 

 firewood obtained in cutting the timber would more 

 than pay for the work. If one chose to cut but one- 

 half the trees and leave the balance for another tw^enty- 

 six years there would be much of the lumber worth 

 far more than $15.00 per thousand feet, for many of 

 the outer boards of the lower cuts would be nearly 

 clear stuff. Could a farmer make any better invest- 

 ment for his children or grandchildren than the plant- 

 ing of a few acres of Norway spruce or white pines? 

 Aside from the money value of such plantations for 

 lumber, a great scarcity of which we are very soon to 

 face here in Michigan, there would be the value to the 

 country in the way of beauty and in lessening the ever 

 increasing sweep of our winter and spring winds. It 

 is time for us to look at the matter of tree planting 

 squarely on its merits as a source of wealth, to our 

 country, as well as on its sentimental side, and I 

 thought perhaps the above item might be of value in 

 your work." 



