SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 35 



heartily to be regretted that the state of Michigan, located as it is, surrounded 

 and penetrated with natural and artificial means of communication, with a 

 good climate, level lands, with deep soil, should ever fall into the errors of 

 New Mexico and of other mountam regions and advertise its lands as sheep 

 range. 



To invite a land monopoly, a monopoly of "the second great asset of the 

 state' a monopoly which has everywhere proved inimical to settlement and 

 improvement is sheer folly and would be rued most by the very people who 

 advocate it today. A few sheep sheds for improvements, a few lone herders, 

 and a dozen men at shearing will represent the kind of civilization which this 

 range business leads to and the output of this boasted industry will consist of 

 a few tons of mutton and wool all going to distant markets leaving not a 

 cent for conversion or further manufacture and save the meat, furnishing no 

 article of local consumption. And the land? It will be a Scotch heath, range 

 desert reproduced. It is rarely appreciated how thoroughly inimical such use 

 of the land is to the real settlement. But anyone with experience m the west, 

 particularly Wyoming, Nebraska, etc., will remember how natural, even 

 necessarjf it is for any stockman to discourage the settler within the boundaries 

 of his range. While the range on the whole might not be worth fifty cents per 

 acre, he should better afford to spend twenty dollars per acre to get rid of a far- 

 mer in the midst of his holdings. It is this very feature of range business 

 which led to the jo-called "rustler war, " (should be settlers' war) in Wyom- 

 ing; has led to special legislation in congress; has caused the department of the 

 interior to spend many thousands of dollars in trying to remove the high- 

 handed range grabber and range fencers and it is this same feature which in- 

 duced the wide-awake farmer of Wyoming, Montana and Washington to pass 

 a law which forbids the sale of any state lands for less than 110 per acre. (And 

 this m arid regions, for sage brush lands, while Michigan sells for ten r^eats and 

 and accepts $1.25 for the pick, ten per cent of an 80,000 acre tiact.) Can it be 

 possible that Michigan will remain blind to all the experience of the west, to 

 the expeiience of the old world where the range use of the Alpine ands and 

 pinery lands alike has been a detriment for ages and is the greatest stum.bling 

 blocks in all efforts for the improvement of the conditions of the people and 

 their lands? 



The fourth argument in the protest demands equal and just taxation, and 

 therefore is practically s .und. If the people of Michigan expect the township 

 of Denton to keep up roads and schools and protect life and property and gen- 

 erally do those things which any civil organization is expected to do, it should 

 not take away from the few settlers living in this town the wherewithal t > ao 

 their duty. New York pays taxes on its forest reserves, every state of 

 Central Europe pays taxes on its state forests and any other holdings. Why 

 should we, in a country which clainis a government by the people and for the 

 people, want to shirk and throw an unfair burden on a few pioneer people who 

 are least in position to bear it? And to the credit of our state, be it said that 

 this argument was duly considered and the legislature provided as has been 

 stated above that the town shall not lose all revenues but shall receive pay- 

 ment in lieu of these taxes, the money to be used for school and road. 

 It has therefore practically admitted the soundness of the argument and the 

 piopriety of meeting this demand and it is but natural that this matter in 

 the future will receive further consideration and be adjusted equitably and 

 satisfactorily. In this way the fourth, the most just and formidable argu- 

 ment practicady falls away as regards Blichigan state forest reserves. The 

 state has declared it right and n.eets it. 



