8 LOWER PENINSULA. 



urc, the case is different. A few years after a forest is burned 

 down it sprouts again with fresh vigor, but the new growth is 

 generally of a different kind from that which preceded it. 



To the first settlers of the country, the heavily timbered forests 

 were a great impediment ; with great labor the trees had to be cut 

 down and burned, for no other purpose than to get them out of 

 the way. This system of destruction, first suggested by necessity, 

 has been continued up to recent times, and while it is true that 

 the development of agriculture has been considerably hastened by 

 it, yet it is equally true that, in the lower part of the peninsula, 

 our forests are reduced to such a degree, unnecessarily in some cases, 

 as to render it highly advisable that measures be adopted for the 

 preservation of what we have left, otherwise, I fear, our descendants 

 will sorely feel the consequences of the unwise husbandry of their 

 fathers. 



