80 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



looks sere and yellow from fire. I guess very little of it ever reaches the 

 age of ten years before suffering disaster from flre, and yet if every- 

 thing went right, in fifty years another pinery might cover that worth- 

 less land. 



In going over the government plats it is not uncommon to find large 

 tracts, some of them miles in extent, upon which is noted by the original 

 government surveyor (in 1840 to 46 when the land was surveyed by the 

 government) "entered wind fall" and farther along "left wind fall," 

 showing that the timber was at that time destroyed. In such cases the 

 reforestation has been complete and the timber is now again valuable for 

 lumber and especially the bass wood and ash, which sprouted from the 

 roots of trees that had been turned over while the other varieties had 

 to be started from seed. 



Fremont E. Skeels, 



Surveyor, etc. 



Mr. Edwin A. Wildey, formerly State Land Commissioner, in his re- 

 port for 1902, page 10, says speaking of these lands : 



"For the most part these are lands that were lumbered years ago 

 and abandoned by their owners and became delinquent for taxes many 

 years in succession. Upon many of these descriptions there are scatter- 

 ing trees of a size large enough to be marketable; but so few are they 

 that they do not appeal to the legitimate lumberman but excite the 

 cupidity of those who have but little regard for property that belongs 

 to the State." 



Whitehall, Mich., March 19, 1908. 



The piece of second-growth timber which I have observed the most 

 closely, is an eighty-acre woodlot that was cut over for wood, ties, bark 

 and logs in 1880, just twenty-eight years ago. The timber was hem- 

 lock, soft maple, beech, pine and in two small low places, birch. The 

 soil, except in the low places, is a very light sand, so light that in 

 adjacent cleared fields it drifts like snow and looks like the sand upon 

 the beach of Lake Michigan. 



After several years a second growth of timber, like the original for- 

 est, had sprung up and there not having been any fires to interfere, it 

 had a splendid start. When I went to examine the land I was sur- 

 prised indeed, as I had not been over it since it was an open slash. 

 Today, twenty-eight years since it was slash waste, it is covered with a 

 fine second growth of soft maple, oak, pine, birch, cherry arid beech. 

 Much of the timber is six to eight inches in diameter and from 25 to 35 

 feet in height. A fine growth of young timber now covers this woodlot. 



Very truly yours, 



J. J. Gee. 



