106 STATE OF MICHIGAN. 



One strong reason for the reforestation of the hillsides and hilltops 

 of Southern Michigan is to protect and save the best arable areas of the 

 valleys and the level stretches of the table lands for intensive cultiva- 

 tion, and thereby preventing the steady depletion, which has been tak- 

 ing place for the past twenty years, of its rural population. It is not 

 saying too much to affirm that, really, the future welfare of our people, 

 or of any people, will depend, in some not far distant time, in some 

 nearby generation, on forestry laws and their observance. 



IMichigan is comparatively a new State. Some persons are living who 

 remember the time when it was an almost unbroken forest. The best 

 agricultural results are obtained if one-third of the area in States where 

 the annual rainfall averages from thirty to forty inches is in forest, but 

 in some of our counties not more than one-tenth to one-twelfth of their 

 surface is woods of any kind, and generally these are not so distributed 

 as to give to the arable land the best obtainable protection. The farm 

 of eighty acres, with twenty-five acres in a permanent woodlot, from 

 which timber is cut to save it, is worth a great deal more than one that 

 is entirely cleared. If half of our area was forested and the other half 

 subjected to intensive cultivation, the total yield of all crops would be 

 greater than it can be under present conditions, and the rural towns 

 would be able to support an increasing instead of a declining popula- 

 tion. The acreage of cleared land is too large for the best results; and 

 the acreage of the profitable arable land would not be decreased by 

 covering one-third of our area with forest trees of the useful and rap- 

 idly growing kinds that are best adapted to our soil and climate. 



Farmers sometimes think they are wasting too much land when they 

 devote a few acres to trees that do not produce fruit, and at most onlj^ 

 a row or two can be permitted to grow on the outer border of the farm, 

 next to the fence, perhaps; for they shade too much ground, or the 

 roots sap the soil and rob the crops. These are some of the objections 

 urged to bodies of trees. The objections are delusive. The benefits are 

 lost sight of. The salutary intiuences of heavy belts of trees far out- 

 weigh the injury done to a few rows of corn. More acres of corn, 

 wheat, clover and other crops are not needed; for the time, money and 

 fertilization devoted to fewer acres of arable land that is protected 

 hy forest windbreaks will bring more satisfactory results. 



What is needed now in Michigan is not theories and plans, but prac- 

 tical tree planting; not words, but works; and all efforts should be 

 turned in that direction. The actual planting of trees is the thing that 

 should be done. To plant trees noM' is more important than to spend a 

 year in thinking about it. True, there are many things to be learned 

 in American forestry. What trees to plant for earliest maturity, what 

 distance apart to plant for greatest economy of time and labor, with 

 the largest possible income for the investment, as well as for the pro- 

 tection of the best arable land, are questions to be considered, as they 

 are vital to successful forest perpetuation. 



Unless methods are adopted that shall increase the productiveness and 

 value of the arable land of southern Michigan, nothing seems more cer- 

 tain than that the population of the rural towns, many of which lost 

 from fifty to seventy-five inhabitants between the time of taking the 

 United States census in 1!)()0 and the State census in 1904, will con- 



