INTRODUCTION xli 



up near a large lumbering center can appreciate 

 what it means when a town vanishes ; when all that 

 is left of a thriving town of 5,000 or more souls is 

 empty streets, empty houses, and heaps of tin cans. 

 In the days of the Golden Age of lumbering in 

 Michigan many towns flourished in the midst of the 

 forests. These towns had thrifty,, busy people, 

 with schools, churches, banks, and other conven- 

 iences. These people were engaged in exploiting 

 the forests. The beautiful white pine forests were 

 converted into boards at the rate of thousands of 

 feet every day. When these magnificent forests 

 were laid low, the lumbermen left to seek virgin 

 timber elsewhere. They left behind them empty 

 towns and barren lands ; only a few charred stumps 

 remained to show where the forests once stood. 

 But this is not an incident peculiar to the Golden 

 Age of lumbering in Michigan. Even to-day this 

 very thing is happening. The town of Crossfork, 

 Potter County, Pennsylvania, had a population of 

 over 2,500 souls in 1909. When the near-by timber 

 was exhausted, practically the whole town was 

 abandoned. In 1913 it had a population of 50. 

 . In direct contrast to this short-sighted policy of 

 the State of Michigan (and many others also) is 



