SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 23 



of keeping seventy-five per cent of its lands in a wild, waste and unproductive 

 condition, and thereby losing to the state the use and growth of millions of 

 acres involving a loss of millions of dollars. 



Forestry we must have. Michigan is losing $10,000,000 every yea,r by leav- 

 ing idle miUions of acres of land. Forestry on private lands we must have, 

 for state action will not be sufficient to cope with the problem. But if we 

 want forestry, we must first have assurance that a man's property will not be 

 confiscated by unreasonable taxation. 



WHAT THE STATE SHOULD DO AND WHY IT SHOULD DO IT 



NOW. 



BY PROF. FILIBERT ROTH, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN. 



"History repeats itself." This old statement is onljr too often true, and 

 it seems that generally the people on the whole have much more difficulty in 

 profiting by the experience of some other people than has the individual. 

 The farmer of Michigan profits by the experience of the farmer of New York, 

 the lumberman of Texas copies from his brother in Michigan, the engineer of 

 America sets pace for engineers in all parts of the world, and yet the people of 

 Pennsylvania, in spite of the prophetic warning of WiUiam Penn, the founder 

 of that colony, did not profit by the experience of Central Europe^with regard 

 to its lands and its forests ; New York, in spite of the emphatic arguments of 

 its governor two centuries ago, did not copy from the people of Switzerland or 

 Germany, but went ahead, irrespective of consequences, denuded its good 

 lands and its bad lands alike, threw away the lands of the Adriondacks at five 

 cents per acre, which it has difficulty now in buying back, slashed and burned 

 as they are, for 13.60 per acre. 



The conquest of the wilderness, with its dark forests, its swamps and moors; 

 the building up of a large civilization in Central Europe, France, Germany and 

 the neighboring countries resembled so much the same development here in 

 our state of Michigan, that a glance at the history of this development must 

 be helpful in a better understanding of our own conditions. 



To be sure, the pace at which this development proceeded was very difi^erent 

 in the two countries; there it was by hand, on foot and per raft, here it was per 

 steam railway, the bandsaw and its "shotgun feed." 



From about the year 800 to about the year 1400, the "inexhaustible" 

 forests of Central Europe were fought with fire and axe, the forest over large 

 districts was free for any one to burn and clear as he chose. Millions of acres 

 were cleared and the settlements of this part of the world took on much the 

 form and extent which they present today. Six centuries were needed for 

 this first " rough hewing" of these settlements or countries. There were no 

 distant markets, no rapid and cheap means of transportation to induce whole- 

 sale clearing of land for its timber, it was a slow, steady fight for plowland and 

 meadow and permanent homes. There was an abundance of wood everj^- 

 where and the forest suffered only in the vicinity of towns and along drivable 

 streams. At these points the cutting of timber naturally went beyond the 

 clearing; there was overcutting, and in many places this gradually led to tres- 

 pass, fire and general forest devastation, even on lands not suited and not 

 desired for agriculture. Since few and poor roads made long distance trans- 



