FORESTRY COMMISSION. 109 



Men learn from experience. The pinch in fuel two years ago did much 

 in the way of calling attention to the value of woodlands. Farmers who 

 were so willing to cut off their timber that they might have more land 

 for crops, began to ask themselves if it was not really practicable to 

 plant some of the poorer acres of the farm with trees, so that they might 

 be sure of fuel within a reasonable time. The vineyard interests, which 

 Tise a great many stakes that cost a high price, are beginning to inquire 

 if they cannot raise their own stakes and posts. The wood-pulp men, 

 who are slaughtering forest acreage at a tremendous rate, are beginning 

 to ask if it is not practicable to grow pulp wood at a profit. In answer- 

 ing these and other questions, which economic necessity is beginning 

 to suggest, forestry advocates and forestry commissions are gaining 

 some listeners to their contentions, and in a small way there are indica- 

 tions that within the next few years there will be a number of experi- 

 mental woodlots planted; but as we are slow in getting started along 

 practical lines, the larger question of the State's responsibility and duty, 

 as well as opportunity, in connection with the lands that have neither 

 private owner nor occupant, but are turned over to speculators and 

 dealers in tax titles, is of immediate and great importance. 



With reference to the arable lands, which determine with inerrant 

 certainty the number of people who can be supported, according to the 

 American standard of living, on a given area, the condition that con- 

 fronts the people of Michigan is of a most serious character. Every 

 census since 1880 has revealed a decline in the population of the strictly 

 agricultural towns in southern Michigan, and the decline from 1900 to 

 1901 was more rapid that ever. The capacity of the soil to support 

 inhabitants is the test of the number who will remain on it and cultivate 

 it. As the land becomes poorer, the population is sure to fall off. This 

 may not be Avholly attributable to a single cause, but history and ex- 

 perience teach the lesson that in all countries where the rainfall and 

 climatic conditions were at least as favorable for production as they 

 are in Michigan, the destruction of the forests has been followed by dis- 

 astrous consequences. It is folly to expect that Michigan, or any other 

 portion of the United States, can escape what has been proven to be the 

 inevitable result of too great a destruction of the forests. The law of 

 cause and effect is the same for all. We can save our arable land and 

 increase its productive ability only by the maintenance of the protection 

 of a proper percentage of woodlands. 



Dr. Felix L. Oswald, a wide traveler, observer and student, tells us 

 what has taken place in other countries. In an article in the National 

 Magazine, he says : "The climatic history of the Old World will repeat 

 itself in America. If forest destruction, at its present state of reckless- 

 ness, should continue much longer, our continent will have to dry up. 

 So will an orator who should venture to urge that fact upon a boodle 

 Legislature, in this era of lumber trusts. But the fact remains, and its 

 significance may be inferred from the experience of the Mediterranean 

 coast lands, where thousands of god-gardens have been turned into 

 Gehennas of wretchedness and desolation. By tree destruction alone, 

 a territory of 4,500,000 square miles has been withdrawn from the hab- 

 itable area of our planet. The physical history of the eastern hemi- 

 sphere is the history of a desert, that originated somewhere near the 



