94 STATE OP MICHIGAN. 



this claim and the State today, as ever before, stands ready to promote 

 settlement and agriculture inside as well as outside of any Forest 

 Reserve. 



''The land is good grazing land.'' This claim is a dangerous one and 

 it is heartily to be regretted that the State of Michigan, located as it is, 

 surrounded and penetrated with natural and artificial means of com- 

 munication, with a good climate, level lands, Avith deep soil, should ever 

 fall into the errors of New Mexico and of other mountain regions and 

 advertise its lands as sheep range. 



To invite a land monopoly, a monoply of ''the second great asset of 

 the State" a monopoly which has everywhere proved inimical to settle- 

 ment and improvement is sheer folly and would be rued most by the 

 very j)eople who advocate it today. A few sheep sheds for improve- 

 ments, a few lone herders, and a dozen men at shearing will represent 

 the kind of civilization which this range business leads to and the 

 output of this boasted industry will consist of a few tons of mutton 

 and wool all going to distant markets leaving not a cent for conversion 

 or further manufacture and save the meat, furnishing no article of local 

 consumption. And the land"? It will be a Scotch heath, range desert 

 reproduced. It is rarely appreciated how thoroughly inimical such use 

 of the land is to the real settlement. But anyone with experience in 

 the west, particularly Wyoming, Nebraska, etc., will remember how 

 natural, even necessary it is for any stockman to discourage the settler 

 within the boundaries of his range. While the range on the whole 

 might not be worth fifty cents per acre, he could better afford to spend 

 twenty dollars per acre to get rid of a farmer in the midst of his hold- 

 ings. It was this very feature of range business which led to the so- 

 called "Rustler ^^'ar," (should be settlers' war) in Wyoming; has led 

 to special legislation in Congress; has caused the Department of the 

 Interior to spend many thousands of dollars in trying to remove the 

 high-handed range grabber and range fencers and it is this same feature 

 which induced the wide awake farmer of Wyoming, Montana and Wash- 

 ington to pass a law which forbids the sale of any state lands for less 

 than $10 per acre. (And this in arid regions, for sage brush lands, 

 while Michigan sells land for ten cents and accepts |1.25 for the pick, 

 ten per cent of an 80,000 acre tract.) Can it be possible that Michigan 

 will remain blind to all the experience of the west, to the experience of 

 the Old World where the range use of the Alpine lands and pinery lands 

 alike has been a detriment for ages and is the greatest stumbling blocks 

 in all efforts for the improvement of the conditions of the people and 

 their lands? 



The fourth argument in the protest demands equal and just taxation, 

 and therefore is practically sound. If the people of Michigan expect the 

 township of Denton to keep up roads and schools and protect life and 

 property and generally do those things which any civil organization is 

 expected to do, it should not take away from the few settlers living in 

 this town the wherewithal to do their duty, New York pays taxes on 

 its Forest Reserves, every state of Central Europe pays taxes on its 

 state forests and any other holdings. Why should we, in a country 

 which claims a government by the people and for the people, want to 

 shirk and throw an unfair burden on a few pioneer people who are least 



