212 



served not only the valuable lumbering industry, but also cli- 

 matic conditions of the greatest importance. As it is, we have 

 left only vast sandy wastes covered with jack-pines, and these of 

 the smallest and meanest description. There is no shade, and 

 the plains are arid and desolate, affording apparently no oppor- 

 tunities for even ordinary agricultural operations. In Oscoda 

 and Au Sable, contiguous towns except for the intervening Au 

 Sable River, the twenty-odd saw-mills are now reduced to four, 

 and these are fed principally upon " dead-heads," — snags dragged 

 out from the bed of the river. A population of ten or twelve 



ttw 



and has 



reduce 





with a 



This depressing picture is repeated a thousand times through- 

 out the once rich lumbering regions of the United States, and 

 marks one of the most brutal cases of looting of the prop- 

 erty of a future generation that the world has ever witnessed. 

 It is probably not too much to say that the reforestration that is 

 now recognized as a necessity will cost a hundred fold what it 

 would have done to preserve the existing forests, and many times 

 the price that has been obtained for the lumber cut. A still 

 worse feature is that this cannot be done at all until special 

 methods are devised. Experimental work in this direction is now 

 proceeding, especially under the direction of Mr. Carl Schmidt, 

 of Detroit, who has bought Cedar Lake and a large area in its 

 vicinity. 



Other industries, except beyond the limits of the sand bar- 

 rens, are unimportant. Great quantities of blueberries, chiefly 

 the low sweet blueberry ( Vaccinium pennsylvanicum) are exported, 

 the picking being done chiefly by Chippewa Indians, who have a 

 settlement near by and establish temporary camps from place to 

 place, as the harvest proceeds. Both the large and small cran- 

 berry are found in the bogs, the latter being more common, but 

 less esteemed. Some use is made of the high bush cranberry 

 ( Viburnum Opulus), which grows in the edges of the swamps. 

 Checkerberries, bearberries and bunchberries abound, but are 

 not commercial elements, the same being true of the choke-berry. 

 The wild red cherry {Primus pennsylvamcd) is not uncommon. 



