ROADS AND TRAILS 173 



few general principles can be laid down for its development. On 

 a property of Michigan cut over lands with practically nothing to 

 haul, uncertain reproduction and slow growth, the matter of roads 

 may well be deferred. In an Adirondack forest park where money 

 is supplied and where the object is to make the forest accessible for 

 pleasure, a system of good macadam roads is appropriate and ad- 

 visable ; it will pay. In a well timbered property in the South where 

 logging goes per railway, a set of fire lines, merely kept open for 

 accessibility may be all that is necessary for some years. Practically 

 the same applies in a large part of our western mountain forests. 



The basis for a road system is profitable use ; there must be 

 something to haul and the road must make hauling more effective 

 and economical. Generally the value of a road system as part of 

 development of a forest property has been underrated. And this is 

 as true of the forests of the old world as of our own country. 

 Thousands of -acres of forest in the Tyrol, in the Southern Alps of 

 France are, today, inaccessible and have practically no income. In 

 the Great Lakes District conditions for years have been such that the 

 putting back on the land of one dollar per acre would have developed 

 a road system, and with it a forest division and protection and closer 

 utilization which would have made these forest properties into well- 

 paying business enterprises and would have changed the attitude 

 of the people toward them, and resulted in more satisfactory taxation 

 and protection. The same is true in part of the Southern Pinery. 

 Here a rapid growth, easy and cheap logging and proximity to 

 market are sure to 'develop a most intensive practice with regular 

 thinnings and artificial reproduction. If some of the income in cut- 

 ting the virgin stand is put back on the land in reproduction and 

 roads, the property is ready for continuous intensive work. With- 

 out this development of the roads, there is either long delay in 

 proper income or else a sudden demand for large sums for roads; 

 both unsatisfactory. 



The same principles apply everywhere ; good site, rapid growth 

 and fair topography will justify road-development; poor, cold or 

 dry sites, box canyons, rockslide and cliff situations for long dis- 

 tances, necessarily hinder. In more remote and difficult situations 

 it is often better to defer building roads and get on with trails. In 

 this case it is of value to locate the trail at once on a wagon road 

 grade, and allow the trail to develop into a road if need be. 



