30 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



that expenditure will be incurred for planting or other artificial aid to 

 nature only where unaided she can not adequately reforest ; that expendi- 

 ture of money for this purpose will be made only after its appropriation 

 specifically for a definite tract or plan; and that such expense for this 

 purpose as the State shall incur shall be incurred from year to year 

 and be kept within the limit of conservative annual expenditure. What- 

 ever planting or seeding is done by the State will, of course, be confined 

 to its reserves and must be accompanied by a system of patrol for proper' 

 care, for protection from fire, and ultimately from trespass. It is alto- 

 gether too early, in our judgment, to attempt to solve problems con- 

 nected with this feature of the State's work. It is not our purpose to 

 combat the opinion of expert foresters, often expressed, that the best 

 method of reforesting State reserves (at least generally in the Lower 

 Peninsula where fire has had longer opportunity to run) is by planting, 

 rather than by natural regeneration. But this is the minor problem, 

 not pressing for present solution. The main and immediately urgent 

 problem ^s the general rescue of the cut-over lands and the restoration 

 of an adequate forest area for the sake of the individual benefits to 

 public welfare rather than for the ultimate money profits from sales 

 of lumber. This can, as we have said, be looked for only as the result 

 of eflfective control of forest fires by the State. Conceding as we do, 

 all that expert foresters claim as to the advantages of planting of State 

 Reserves as against natural regeneration, we nevertheless adhere to the 

 belief that work of this sort, except experimentally, or in special cases 

 for special reasons, ought not to be taken up at present, if so doing in- 

 volves ally curtailment of expenditure necessary for fire protection. The 

 securing ultimately of adequate forests for this State is fundamentally 

 dependent upon the raising, in the immediate future, of money enough 

 to provide eflBcient fire protection. No other feature of the matter 

 should be allowed to stand in the way. 



THE PROSPECT FOR INDIVIDUAL EFFORT IN FORESTRY. 



It is believed that with general fire protection much may be expected 

 of private enterprise in reforestation from corporations whose business 

 requires a constant consumption of timber and wood products in large 

 quantities. The consumers of wood for production of charcoal or for 

 pulp; mining companies requiring timber for supports which must be 

 periodically replaced and be added to as excavation goes on; railroads 

 requiring vast quantities of small timber for ties lasting but a few years 

 — these and many other like uses suggest themselves. Many concerns 

 with a large business looking to permanence, and depending directly 

 upon a large yearly consumption of forest products for continuance of 

 their operations (especially where the consumption is chiefly of the 

 coarser sorts that may be grown comparatively quickly), have already 

 begun to attempt forest raising on a large scale in this State and else- 

 where, even under the adverse tax conditions now generally prevailing. 

 While forestry, as a mere investment, may not be attractive generally 

 because of the necessarily long wait before satisfactory returns can be 

 looked for, yet a concern which must be a large consumer of forest 

 products in qrder to continue permanently in business, is not free to 



