582 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 174. 



fectly capable not only to continue as a 

 forest, but also to re-clotbe old burned-over 

 slashings on all kinds of soil. But it is 

 equally certain that the great mass of pine 

 slashings have remained and will continue 

 to remain barren wastes, and that of the 

 8,000,000 acres of cut-over lands in north 

 Wisconsin not one-tenth is stocked with 

 growing timber. And the swamp woods 

 have no future, for it is here among the 

 tall marsh grass and masses of dead poles 

 that most of the fires start. 



" In this way an area now nearing 8,- 

 000,000 acres, and rapidly increasing in 

 extent, remains unproductive. Counting 

 only 20 cubic feet, or 100 feet B. M., as the 

 annual growth per acre on lands entirely 

 without any care or protection against fire> 

 the State of "Wisconsin loses annually 

 by this condition of things 800,000,000 feet 

 B. M. of marketable saw timber ; nor is 

 this all, for even with primitive manage- 

 ment this amount could be largely increased- 



" The assertion that this land is needed 

 for agriculture, that it soon will all be set- 

 tled, and that even the sandy soils produce 

 potatoes and are profitably farmed by im- 

 proved methods, may well be answered by 

 a concrete case. The old settled counties 

 "Waushara, Adams, and Marquette have an 

 aggregate area of 1,144,000 acres ; their im- 

 proved land amounts to 340,000 acres, leav- 

 ing fully 70 per cent., or 804,000 acres, in 

 brush and waste lands. In 1895 these 

 counties supported wood industries whose 

 products amounted to the pitiful sum of 

 $13,000, and probably the material for these 

 was imported, instead of having 80,000,000 

 feet of pine to sell, which under simple 

 methods of care might have been derived 

 from these brush and waste lands." 



It will be seen that in this preliminary 

 survey and report an important and valu- 

 able contribution has been made, which has 

 opened the problem for further investiga- 

 tion, demonstrating meanwhile the extent 



of the interests that are involved in its 

 practical study. The Forestry Commission 

 of "Wisconsin fully realizes this, and is 

 actively at work with plans for the future. 

 The similarity of conditions in the two 

 States and the solid progress already made 

 in Wisconsin suggest that we can probably 

 do no better at present than to adopt sub- 

 stantially the same measures, namely, to 

 obtain through the State Legislature enough 

 to pay for the services of an expert for, say, 

 six months — -long enough to give sufficient 

 data to go to work on — and meanwhile 

 secure also, through the Legislature, the ap- 

 pointment of an unpaid State Forestry Com- 

 mission to formulate plans for the future. 

 Such a course as this can not possibly be 

 open to the charge of political jobbery ; the 

 initial expense to the State is so little as to 

 be hardly worth mentioning, and the end 

 to be obtained is of such far-reaching im- 

 portance as to warrant, or rather impera- 

 tively demand, the earnest work and per- 

 sonal sacrifice that will be involved in this 

 patriotic effort to restore in some measure 

 the forest wealth of Michigan and to make 

 forever impossible the frightful waste of 

 natural resources that has been so con- 

 spicuous a factor of our recent history. 



It will naturally be asked : Is this all 

 that the Michigan Academy of Science is 

 to do in formulating plans for a Natural 

 History Survey of the State? Workers, 

 many of us, in pure science, are we to rest 

 satisfied with merely formulating a plan by 

 means of which the material interests of 

 the State are to be subserved ? Ought we 

 not rather to develop a comprehensive plan 

 by means of which biological relations of 

 every kind shall be brought under scientific 

 investigation ? Shall we not leave practi- 

 cal matters to practical men and give our- 

 selves to that to which we were called — 

 our laboratories, our students, and the pur- 

 suit of science for its own sake ? 



Such questions lead finally, as it seems to 



