78 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



hardly a foot of that land which has not been burned over. A number 

 of places have been partially burned three or four different times. I 

 have seen a number of young pines, which had been killed, evidently 

 by the fires, and some had been injured, but not killed, by the fire. 

 There has been no artificial planting on the forest land referred to, 

 and in due time there will be a fine growth of white pine there, fully 

 as many trees to the acre, and I am inclined to think more than there 

 were formerly. I am referring to lands in Whitewater township, 

 Grand Traverse county. 



At least once a year, for the past seventeen years, I have driven 

 from Williamsburg south, southwest and southeast, sometimes directly 

 east to the Boardman river. There were formerly on those plains 

 some considerable blocks of white pine, the last of which was lum- 

 bered ofiE ten or twelve years ago. There was, also, a fair amount of 

 Norway, and there is now some Jack pine, some scrub oak, some pop- 

 lar with plenty of sweet-fern and other small growth. Up to about 

 1903 many fires swept over these plains. There are a few white pine 

 left at rather long distances apart, and a little more Noi*way with 

 scattering Jack pine, and in several places small groves of Jack pine. 

 Notwithstanding the fires, there has been a natural seeding and sur- 

 viving of a /Considerable natural reproduction of both the white and 

 the Norway pine. I estimate that very nearly a solid block of lands 

 on these plains could be secured on the north side of the Boardman 

 river, aggregating not less than 25,000 acres, and, possibly, forty or 

 fifty thousand, without touching a single farm now under cultivation. 

 If it were perfectly protected from fire and trespass, it would, in thirty 

 or forty years, produce enough lumber stock to pay a little local tax 

 and considerable more than will be realized from thirty or forty crops 

 of huckleberries. There are many places on these plains where the 

 natural seeding could be supplemented by seeding broadcast white and 

 red pine seeds. A very large part of the valuable cedar has been cut 

 from the valley of the Boardman river, and that ground, if protected, 

 will slowly reseed back to cedar, fir and spruce, but the regeneration of 

 the lands on the fiat could be very largely improved by broadcast seed- 

 ing, as there is, in most places, growth enough to preserve the moisture 

 and shield the seeding. I am, also, more or less familiar with lands in 

 5 and 6, in 25 and 26 west, in the southeastern part of Kalkaska county. 

 There on the terraces, bordering the Manistee river, I have seen within 

 two years very thick, large groves of Jack pine. They were of various 

 ages, from five to twenty-five years. That land must have been exempt 

 from very severe fires during a good part of that time. There were a 

 few of the older trees which showed some marks of former fires. In 

 one ride I passed over and had a perfect view of not less than 10,000 

 to 15,000 acres where there was no cultivation of the soil, which, with 

 proper care, could every year produce more and more of that kind of 

 timber, not very valuable, to be sure, but quite acceptable for coarse 

 lumber uses, when better can not be had. The same lands in the 

 process of time could be converted into forests of Norway or red pine. 



Yours very truly, 



John H. Bissell. 



