FOKEST PLANTING IN THE LAKE STATES 63 
title, purchase, or exchange, increase the areas that are now State 
owned. In advance of acquisition, it 3hould be determined how large 
an area the State can undertake to plant in a reasonable time; and 
the acquisition can then proceed until this amount is acquired in 
blocks suitable for convenient administration. It may be that the 
States should provide, in connection with the withdrawal of large 
areas of land from taxation in the poorer northern counties, for 
the payment of a certain amount to the local communities in which 
the areas are located, in lieu of taxes. This is being done in Michi- 
gan, where the counties receive from the State 5 cents an acre for 
State forest and other State-owned lands. 
The State or any public agency has a particularly favorable op- 
portunity to produce large saw-log timber of high grade and value 
over long periods of years. In general, private landowners are not 
likely to undertake the production of high-grade timber, and it is 
therefore desirable that public agencies plant for that purpose even 
if somewhat smaller areas must thereby be planted annually or 
periodically. At the present time, Norway and northern white pine 
are the species best suited for this purpose, and they should be 
grown by public agencies to ages of at least 100 and 120 years. The 
production of high-quality timber at high costs per acre by public 
agencies must be reconciled, however, with the conflicting desider- 
atum that a maximum area of idle land be planted and made pro- 
ductive as soon as possible. The latter factor has governed in the 
policy which is being followed on the national forests, where small 
seedling stock is being planted by the least expensive method, and 
where only TOO to 900 trees are being planted to the acre, so that 
a maximum area may be stocked with the limited appropriations 
available. Under this policy, $9,000 will provide for the planting 
of 2,000,000 trees on 2,000 to 3,000 acres of land, whereas $9,000 
would cover only a little over 600 acres if transplant stock were 
planted by a more expensive method at the rate of 1,740 trees to 
the acre. 
The Michigan Department of Conservation in planting on the 
State forests has adhered to the other principle and is planting 1,500 
or more trees to the acre, with correspondingly higher costs and less 
acreage planted with the available funds, in order to produce high- 
quality timber. 
When the area to be acquired and planted by the State has been 
determined, an annual planting program should be decided upon. 
Planting should usually be planned to progress from the more to the 
less accessible parts of the area, since fire protection is usually more 
effective on accessible areas and the less accessible will receive 
better protection in subsequent years when the fire protection is 
improved. The program should provide for planting each year that 
fraction of the total area that will bring about the planting of the 
whole area before the year in which the earliest plantation becomes 
merchantable. For example, supposing one State has 5,000,000 acres 
of denuded lands of which the State will acquire and reforest one- 
quarter or 1,250,000 acres. If the policy provides for growing Nor- 
way and northern white pine timber on a 100-year rotation, the State 
should plan to plant each year at least one one-hundredth of the 
1,250,000 acres, or 12,500 acres, Presumably the 12,500-acre annual 
