FORESTRY COMMISSION. 67 



The superficial area of the Staie of Michigan, as given by the late Prof. 

 Winchell, is 5(1,457 s<inare miles; or in acres, that being the unit most 

 commen to the thought of business people, .")(i,]28,*i4(l acres, besides 

 40i,7r;0 acres of land on the islands belonging to the State, located in the 

 Great Lakes. Total acreage, 36,533,370. 



The number of small, or inland, lakes is something over 5,000, having a 

 total acreage of 71:^,804. It may not be an unreasonable guess to say 

 that the area covered by the cities, villages, highways, railroads, and 

 rivers of the Sfatc occupy ajiproximately 1,500,000 acres; taking this, 

 with Prof. "Wiuchcll's estimate of lake area,, from the total acreage of 

 the State, leaves 34,320,500 acres, as the approximate aera of the State, 

 available for agricultural and fore.st purposes. 



The pine forests have been by far the most valuable, but the whole 

 State was not covered with pine forests. There are twenty-three coun- 

 ties of the State where there was little or no pine. The approximate 

 acreage of these counties, having no pine of commercial value, is 7,200,- 

 OOO, ^Aliicli, so far as pine forests are concerned, reduces the area of the 

 State to 27,j 20,000 acres. 



Of this 27,120,000 acres, a portion has been brought under cultivation 

 as farms; — mainly, of course, on land formerly covered by hard wood, 

 but some of it land which has grown pine. 



The greater part of the land which was once so rich with its stand 

 of the finest Avhite pine, and Norway, is now Avaste, and much of it unfit 

 for agriculture, and, so far as we can see now, never will be brought 

 under i-ultivation. It is only fit for forest. Nature knew that ! But we 

 were talking about aci-es. 



Other parts of our 27 million acres were, and much now is, occupied 

 hy a stand of hard-wood forest. And from eighteen to twenty million 

 acres of it were in pine. This you will see assumes that from 50 to 55 

 per cent of the acreage of the entire State 's\'as originally pine forest. I 

 ask you to remember this approximate estimate of the pine area when 

 we come to sjieak of the money values. 



As there are no mountainous regions in either peninsula of the State, 

 there is no appreciable portion of this acreage not available for one of 

 the two uses mentioned. 



In searching for some definite figures to illustrate in outline, the 

 former wealth of the State in its forests, my friend, Mr. Dwight, loaned 

 me a cojty of "The History of the Lumber and Forest Industry of the 

 Noi'thwest," compiled by Mr. George W. Hotclikiss, published in 1898. 

 Wherever I give figures or estimates of the amounts or kinds of timber 

 cut and marketed, without references, I am quoting from Mr. Hotchkiss' 

 book. 



Tlie early settlement of Michigan was along its southern border. The 

 southern counties of Michigan were originally clothed with dense for- 

 ests of oak, Cottonwood, poplar, black walnut, cherry, bass-wood, maple, 

 birch, sycamore, hickory and elm, A^ith occasional "oak openings." All 

 statistics, so far as I have been able to find, show that the products of 

 the forest have been the most important factor in building up the in- 

 dustries and wealth of the State, and more wealth has been created 

 for use in industrial development of all kinds from the lumber indus- 

 tries than from any other. If this assertion is not true of all the States 



