SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 27 



woodlands, mostly culled, to be sure, and paid on an aggregate over $3.60 per 

 acre. And even at this price New York has made money by buying the lands. 

 New Yoik, like Pennsylvania, proposes to care for its woods and to restock the 

 poor lands with woods as fast as seems practicable. 



The experience of New England is similar to that of the states mentioned. 

 Here too much land was settled in farms that has proved useless. The area 

 of improved land in New England has decreased for the last twenty years so 

 that in 1900 it was only about sixty per cent of what it was in 1880, and the 

 forest is allowed to spread and efforts are being made by the states and by 

 many private persons and corporations to assist in this spread and in the im- 

 proven:ent of the forest. 



Here in Michigan the fight against the wilderness proceeded much as it did 

 in the old world centuries ago, and as it did in the older states of our country 

 until about the middle of the last century. From that time on it went along 

 two rather distinct lines. In the southern more settled and better agricul- 

 tural regions it continued as before, acre after acre was cut and cleared and the 

 wild lands step by step gave way to the plow lands. Incidentally, manj' an 

 acre of rather inferior land was cleared, and will no doubt sooner or later 

 revert to forest ; but on the other hand, the good sense and conservative spirit 

 of the farmer prevented a total clearing, and, thanks to this good sense and the 

 safety from fire, due to close settlements and roads, there is today over twenty- 

 five per cent of the land area of the southern portion of Michigan in forest. 

 It is in small tracts, the farmers' woodlots, rather badly cut over and too much 

 pastured, but in woods, and adds much to the safe comfort of the people, and 

 every year yields several million cords of fuel and timber. 



In the northern counties in the pinery region of our state, however, the 

 fight against the wilderness was entirely different. Here settlement did not 

 follow the cutting of timber, the forest was cut over solely for its timber, and 

 whole sections were cut during a single winter. In the pinery portion the 

 forests on the lighter, drier soils, the tops of the cut timber led to fires, 

 the forest was destroyed. Usually the first fire was followed by others, until 

 many thousands of acres were converted into the well-known cut and burned 

 over, fire-scarred waste which has done so much to retard the healthy process 

 of development of portions of the state, and has failed for years to contribute 

 to its wealth, having remained in an utterly non-productive, waste condi- 

 tion. 



On the better lands where the pine, formerly almost the only timber cut, 

 was scattered among a heavy growth of hardwoods the forest has generally 

 held its own, and it is often difficult to see that the forest has ever been vis- 

 ited by the hand of man. In these districts the hardwood is now being cut by 

 the lumberman and the farm settler is following to subdue the land and build 

 homes as fast as the forest disappears. It is here where the real settlement 

 of our state is continued and where it will continue for many years to come. 



From these considerations it appears that Michigan, like several other 

 states of the Union, repeated the experience of the old world. Centuries of 

 experience indicate that in the settlement of forested lands the clearing of the 

 part of the forest is a necessity, that this good work is always carried too far 

 and is extended to lands which are not suited to permanent agriculture, that 

 the farming of such poor lands is an injury to the state, and that the countries 

 having most experience in this matter have fully demonstrated that : 



1. Not all land is plowland. This probably applies to every state in the 

 world. In Europe we find in Great Britain over one-fourth of the land culti- 

 vated and less plowland now than thirty years ago; in Germany but little 



