30 MICHIGAN FORESTRY. 



was still so invested in 1900, and instead of Michigan being one of the greatest 

 export states of lumber in the world, we are today importing timber and lum- 

 ber. The Seattle cedar, the California redwood, the cypress from the gulf, the 

 pine from the Carolinas and the south Atlantic are filling our lumberyards and 

 our people are paying every year large sums of money for a necessity which 

 our state should never have to import, but should be able to export for centu- 

 ries to come. Our people, in paying this fine for short-sightedness and careless 

 misuse of the greatest natural resource found ready in the state, are pajdng 

 out not only for the material, but are also paying for its shipment, partly 

 at least, over the two great mountain systems of the new world, and in 

 all cases for long distant railway transportation, little coming less than 

 one thousand miles, and a very large amount over two thousand miles dis- 

 tance. 



The woodworking industry of our towns, notably the manufacture of furni- 

 ture which has added so much to the building up of some of our towns, finds 

 no longer a home supply, but is going as far as Arkansas and Tennessee for its 

 raw material, and the enterprising manufacturer is exposed to the severest 

 competition and is in danger, at all times, of being ruined by the competitor, 

 who has located at the source of these supplies. Such a condition is little cal- 

 culated to encourage further development in this direction and the outlook 

 for this important branch of enterprise is anything but encouraging. What a 

 loss this is to the state may be inferred from the census statistics of the lumber 

 industry. In 1890 this industry employed 129 millions of dollars, in 1900 only 

 sixty-seven millions and while it might be held that this decrease meant only 

 a change in employment, it is quite generally known that such is not the case, 

 but that the Michigan lumberman has gone south and west, that he and his 

 capital, much to our deteriment, have left the state. 



The present condition of the forests, once the greatest natural resource of 

 the state, may be briefly summed up as follows: The great hardwood belt of 

 the southern tiers of counties and the belt of fertile land extending from Sag- 

 inaw Bay west and formerly stocked with a mixed forest of pine and hardwood 

 is today, a well-settled farm district, and what is left of the former forest is in 

 form of wood lots from a few to a few hundred acres in size. The condition, the 

 value, and probable future of these wood lots, which in their aggregate form a 

 very important part of our forests, is fully discussed in this volume in the 

 paper of Dr. J. F. Clark. 



The forests north of this, now well settled district, were generally of three 

 great types. A large portion of them was almost pure pine forest stocked on 

 rather light sandy lands. A small portion of this forest was composed of open 

 and broken stands of Jack pine dotted with openings and known as the Jack 

 Pine Plains. A second portion of this north woods was a mixed forest of hard- 

 woods, largely maple, elm, basswood, ash, beech and birch (hardly any oak) 

 and mixed with hemlock and pine, which here was nearly all white pine of 

 large size and fine quality. These mixed forests were stocked on good land, 

 sandy loam, gravel, and even heavy clay lands running in irregular broad 

 belts across the peninsula and skirting portions of the shore lines. Through- 

 out these regions are dotted with lakes and swamps and it is in these swamps 

 that we meet the third form of the forest, the swamp forest of cedar and tam- 

 arack, usually mixed with more or less of spruce and balsam and a little of in- 

 ferior hardwoods. 



The forests of almost pure pine or pinery proper have practically all been 

 cut and as has been stated before, the fire consuming the large amount of in- 

 ilammable material left in cutting, led to complete destruction of the forest. 



