ffiW %. a. ©• gjeoorj. VOLUME I. LANSING, MICHIGAN, TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1896. NUMBER 18. more and more in a small way. The larger operators have many of them gone out of business or have shifted the the scene of their operations to the forests of Southern States or the Pacific Northwest. Last summer an incident occurred here at the Col lege which served to illustrate to one who does not keep posted on such matters something of the changes which have taken place in the Michigan lumber trade within the past few years. The College had occasion to build another barn and in the bill of lumber was an order for some 18 foot white pine barn boards, such as were used in building the othef barns upon the grounds. The dealer examined the bill with some astonishment and said that if we really wanted such lumber he would endeavor to get it for us somewhere in the State, but that it might have to be sawed on a special order. Such lumber was not kept in stock in Lansing and had not been for several years. People had entirely given up using such expensive lumber as good white pine for building barns. And so, gathering wisdom as we went along, the barn was built with hemlock for joists, stud ding, and siding, and with yellow pine from Arkansas for flooring. One thing the builder insisted on was a good old fashioned two-inch white pine floor for a drive way and threshing floor. Yes, the dealer had just what was wanted, some choice six inch plank that had been on hand for several years. White pine it certainly proved to be, but full of knots, having apparently all been cut from trees not over eight or ten inches in diameter. I have tried to get figures to show how much cleared land there is at present in the State and how much in original forests, but statistics do not appear to give just this information. The State census of 1894, not yet fully published, gives the number of acres in farms in the State at 15,296,078, or 42 per cent of the total land area. Of this amount, 10,379,515 acres, or about two- thirds, are improved, making the land actually under cultivation in the State about 28 per cent of the whole. Nothing is said of the condition of the more than half of the State's surface not in farms, but still belonging to the State or to the railroads or other large corpora tions or wealthy individuals. These lands, while none of them are reported as improved, have as we know, been extensively cut over for lumber, and large sectiors can no longer be properly classed as forests. The distribution of the cultivated land is of course very unequal throughout the State. In the southern four tiers of counties, which include about one third of the area of the State, the amount of improved land is 67 per cent of the whole, while in the Upper Peninsula, which also comprises about one-third of the State, the land under cultivation is only lb per cent of the whole. The vast areas of uncultivated land denuded of timber which are found in the northern half of the State do not exist at the south. There is at the south less land which is neither farm nor forest. The condition, how ever, of much of the woodland in the southern part of the State deserves to be noted. Though evidently re served in most cases for permanent forest, the treat ment it had received has often been such as to unfit it for that purpose. Fire has done less damage in the south than in the north, owing mainly to the limited extent and isolated situation of the wooded sections, but live Btock has here done much greater injury. Jn the thickly settled southern counties there is a demand for all the pasturage that can be obtained, and it is probably true that fully half of the woodland in that section of the State is habitually used for pasture, with the result that all the smaller growth gradually disap pears, thus limiting the duration of a forest so treated to the life of the larger timber. In the southern coun ties we see then that the cultivated land has already reached two-thirds of the whole, which is about equal to that of Germany and some of the other countries of Europe. In northern Michigan the area of cultivated land is still small, but a large portion of the remaining surface has been lumbered over and is now lying idle, awaiting settlement, or possibly in some cases refor estation, but at present yielding no valuable returns to any one. Once more the consequences of destroying Michigan forests and the necessity of in part restoring them, have . been made plain through an able discussion of the mat ter during the Arbor Day exercises at the Agricultural college. It is time to deal with this important question through practical legislation as several other states have been doing.—Detroit Free Press, May 3,1896. HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL. HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL. MICHIGAN FORESTS OF TODAY. Senator Morrill of Vermont, celebrated hie 86th birth, day April 15. He ie the oldest member of the U. S. Senate, both in years and in length of service. His fifth consecutive term will expire on March 4,1897. in speaking of The daily papers, illustrious senator, class him as one of the ablest and most useful of leaders in our national council. He is especially spoken of as the author of the tariff bills of 1861 and 1867. the the agricultural and industrial Those who are interested in the agricultural and mechanical colleges of this country are familiar with the name of the great senator in another line of work. The land grant act of Congress in 1862, which has en dowed these colleges, was the work of Senator Morrill; and this country owe to him a debt of gratitude which they can never pay. This act made possible the establishment of these schools in every state in the Union, and although that in our own State was established previous to this act, the fund thus created has served to lift a great burden from the State and at the same time greatly add to the efficiency of the College. interests of Again, in 1890, Senator Morrill added another to lys long list of good works by securing the passage of an act supplementing the land grant act by an annual money appropriation to these same colleges, beginning with fifteen thousand dollars per annum and increasing one thousand dollars each year until the amount shall be twenty-five thousand dollars per annum. This sum has still more lessened the amount appropriated by the State and has also materially aided the College in add ing increased equipment and facilities for instruction. These two acts have indeed almost entirely relieved the State of the support of the College, only a nominal sum being needed each year for building improvements, and the care of those already erected. As these funds are perpetual, made so in the act, and by the terms of acceptance by the several states, these colleges will go on so long as our nation lives, and remain perpetual monuments to the noble, far-seeing senator; monuments more enduring than if builded of granite from the hills of the State he represents. And nothing that he has done in Congress or out of it will better preserve his name and fame to future generations than the land grant act of 1862, and the Morrill act of 1890. Long live Senator Morrill. ARBOR DAY A D D R E SS BY A. A. CROZIER. I happen to have been born and brought up in the back woods of western Michigan, in a place which for that part of the State was the dividing line between the hard woods and the pine. North, as far as the eye could see, was the pine, a large block of which still remained within, my recollection like a great cloud upon the horizon. Southward to the opposite horizon were rollirjg hills of beech and maple. During my college course I taught school one winter in the northern lum ber woods, where all night long could be heard the rum ble of loaded tram cars carrying logs to the Little Mus kegon river. If there has been one thing impressed upon my mind more than another it has been the vast supply of Michigan pine. During the past two winters, while attending farm ers' institutes, I have had an opportunity to see some thing of the effect that continued lumbering has had on this supply of pine. And I think some of you will be as surprised as I was when I say that in traveling nearly two thousand miles through some forty counties in the lumber regions of the State, I cannot now recall having seen in any one place as much as a single acre of stand ing white pine in good condition. Of course these trav els were mainly along the railroads, where as along the streams, the timber is first cut away; but when one can ride through the he art of the pine country from Manistee on the west to Saginaw on the east and see an almost continuous succession of abandoned lumber fields, miles upon miles of stumps as far as the eye can see, it has some significance. We know there still remain in northern Michigan swamps filled with hem lock, cedar, and other less valuable timber, some excel lent belts of hardwood, which are being fast cut away, and here and there remote from the rivers and main lines of railroad a few considerable blocks of good white pine still held by speculators or now being cut and removed by means of spurs of the railroads branching out from the main lines. But the impression which I think any one would get from traveling through the State, and which all the evidence goes to show is cor rect, is that the important lumbering days of Michigan are past. Considerable lumber of one kind and another is still being cut, owing to the advance in price, bring ing into market timber of poorer quality and from more remote localities, but this work is now being done 2 T HE M. A. C. R E C O R D. ^ ^ ^ ^g MAY 12,1896.