MICHIGAN EXPERIMENT STATION 11 



the geuuine forest fire where great blazing brands go whirling, whizzing, 

 hissing, ten, twenty, and in high winds, , even forty rods through the air, 

 spreading fire so swiftly that no human power can stop it. The only 

 place to stamp it out is before the match is lighted. Proper legislation 

 along these lines will, we believe, do more to maintain our forest areas 

 than any other method. If our land owners in both the southern and 

 n rthern portions of Michigan would plant the sides of gulleys, hills, and 

 rough, stony and unusually valueless ground for agricultural purposes, to 

 forest seedlings, we would soon have an abundance of growing timber and 

 to bring this about, the State should furnish seedlings or seeds of the 

 ash, basswood, butternut, elms, maples, oaks, pines, walnuts and other 

 valuable timbers to those who will use them, and also set aside similar 

 places in its own holdings which are yet covered with forest or which 

 have been denuded of forest by lumbermen or fires, and plant forests and 

 properly care for them. 



This brings us to the consideration of the stump lands, and by the 

 stump lands we mean those lands which, within the memory of man, have 

 been covered with timber, but which now are divested of everything of 

 value and are patiently waiting for something to make them again valu- 

 able. We do not in any sense include the Jack pine plains. The e are, 

 however, oases in every desert, and we find them on the plains wherever 

 the clay subsoil comes near enough the surface to retain the moisture, and 

 we usually find here standifag the Norway pine, or traces of its having 

 been here; but there are hundreds of thousands of acres of good, fertile 

 stump lands that will have ample time to grow another forest before they 

 are wanted for agricultural purposes, and let us put our efforts here 

 where we can show results. It is possible that the time may come when 

 these plains may be utilized for other than grazing purposes, but it will be 

 when our population has increased to such an extent that proper fertiliza- 

 tion and irrigation can be brought with the people and not until then. 



The legislation suggested for the maintenance of the present forest 

 areas is also applicable to the stump lands in every feature, but there is 

 need of more study and more clearly defined legislation along this line 

 than the former. Most of these stump lands are or were at one time owned 

 by some one of the wealthy lumber firms which have helped to build our 

 State. In so far as possible, these men and firms should be induced to 

 deed back to the State the lands for which they have no further use, and 

 upon which most of them have ceased to pay taxes, thus again placing the 

 lands under State control. Our present tax law introduces one of the 

 most vexatious problems that we have to solve. If the State cannot give 

 a good title to all tax lands, then there is no use of forestry legislation 

 regarding these vast areas, for if she cannot give title, she has none her- 

 self, and we would not advocate the use of public money on the lands of 

 men who only sit back and wait for them to become valuable before again 

 claiming title and taking possession. The State cannot afford to carry on 

 forestry experiments upon lands which she thinks she owns. The State 

 of Michigan should never plant a tree upon lands over which the public 

 has not absolute control and to which she has not a clear title and under 

 the present tax law and the supreme court decisions regarding the same, 

 it would be folly to try to re-forest the larger portion of the stump lands 

 of this State. But once get the lands under the ownership of the Com- 

 monwealth and we can, by keeping out fires, reproduce a forest at 

 little expense, of as much or more value than the original, and this by 



