118 STATS OF MICHIGAN. 



as coal has come into use as universally for fuel as tlie process of defores- 

 tation in this part of the State has in the last decade become, lamentably, 

 so nearly complete. The rapid increase in the price of hardwood timber 

 in recent years has been so great that some of the plaster mines have 

 entirely given up the practice of using timber supports for their roofs, 

 but nothing has yet been found to take the place of timber, except col- 

 umns of the solid plaster rock. These columns, six to eight feet in 

 diameter, are left standing at much more frequent intervals than for- 

 merly, and whether this plan of working the mines and protecting the 

 miners from cave-ins is really the most economical is doubted by many. 

 It is becoming every year more generally the practice, however. Angle- 

 iron supports are thought to be out of the question because they would 

 cost, of equal supporting- strength, more than double the price that has 

 been paid for logs, and because the life of iron supports in the damp 

 mine atmosphere is uncertain, and the cost of protecting the iron from 

 deterioration, if it can be so protected for a long series of years, is a 

 question with which Michigan mine men are wholly unfamiliar. Pillars 

 of cement ha\'e been suggested, but the actual supporting power of a 

 square foot pillar of cement is hot certainly known; nor are the possi- 

 bilities of decay or disintegration in mining conditions fully understood, 

 so the operators hesitate to make experiments with them. At the time 

 the plaster company found its second growth oak ready for firewood it 

 was thought more profitable to use it in that way than to wait another 

 15 or 20 years for the trees to reach the size necessary for logs for 

 timber supports in the mines. And so long as wood is at all generally 

 used for fuel that judgment, sound then, would remain sound. But this 

 does not preclude the possibility, nor indeed the probability that the 

 growing of oak forests for mine support logs would not prove profitable. 

 An average of 30 trees to the acre and |10i per tree for logs, Avith enough 

 other wood to pay for the cutting and hauling, would mean |30fl per 

 acre. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF EDUCATION. 



The Michigan Forestry Commission has continued during the two 

 years since the publication of its last report its campaign of education. 

 Following the establishment of a Department of Forestry in the Sta.te 

 University and the Agricultural College, the commission has sought to 

 take part, wherever it could, in any scheme of university extension which 

 has been organized in our State. Vi'e have particularly interested our- 

 selves in the Farmers' Institutes, and through the courtesy of the 

 Superintendent of Institutes we have been able to put forestry into a 

 large number of the programs for the year. 



The women's clubs of the State have been strong allies in this extension 

 work and have used the publications of the commission in spreading the 

 arguments for reforestation in our State. The aggressive and stimulating 

 work of Mrs. John Sharp of Jackson has been of great use to the com- 

 mission, and wherever in the State representatives of the commission 

 have gone to give addresses they have found women who have been studv- 



