Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-08-21
A STATE GOING TO WASTE.

"With conditions so uniformly an(
 normally favorable, it comes with double shock to learn that the people
 of Michigan have permitted actual,
 one-sixth of their splendid state to bt
 abandoned to waste. literal revision to the wilderness. The story of de
 struction, the recent movement to re i store value to this wasted area, and
 the peculiar obstacles, political as | well as material. which are to be
 overcome. narrates picturesque
 condition typically American and in teresting in the extreme" It is de-
 scribed at length by Allen w. Ben
 son in Appleton's Magazine for Sep tember. from which we quote:
 Prom Lake Michigan to Lake Hu- ron and from the Straits of Mackinac almost to Grand Rapids, the lumber baron has swept through, with colOs- sal strides. 'felling the forests that were a peoples heritage. And after the lumber baron has come the pc riodical fire with sweep not less stu pendous. Only last May fifty square miles were burned over. Struggling hamlets were laid waste. hundreds were made homeless. and the young trees that persistent nature was trying to force upon a careless state were burned to the roots again.
 Mature is tiring of this continu- ous indifference. In spots the white sand beginning to show through. On tracts of n thousand acres repeated fires have swept away the tangled masses of dead limbs, underhrush, and blackened stumps that mark the
 landscape elsewhere. The soil is so bereft of vegetable matter by fire that trees will no longer seed them selves. and drifting sand tells the story of nature at last crushed down by mans indifference.
 And yet nature is still ready to grow trees on this poorest part of Michigan If only she be given little help and adequate protection against fire. The soil Is not as poor as the people suppose. It will not raise hemlock. cedar, pine. spruce. and pop lar. And the people of Michigan need these forest product. For lack Of them, cities and towns in the north- ern part of the lower peninsula are wasting away. Tn 1870 Iosco County had a population of la.22i. In 1900 the federal census recorded only i0.- 24G residents of the county. \ third of the population had vanished in ten years, because the county had been stripped of it's timber and nothing hnd been put in its place. Other counties have suffered as much. Nor has the loss been confined to a few counties. Ii has affected the whole state. In 1890 sI25.OOO was invested in the numbering industry of Michigan. To- day only little more than SJo.0O0.- OOO of this capital is left.
 There k many q deserted village in northern Michigan. and under the present policy of the state these vil- lageS will never rise again. Mean while the people of Michigan. who thirty years ago thought they had an 'inexhaustible' supply of timber. are shinglIng their houses with shingles from ihe Pacific coast. finishing the interiors of their homes with Georgia pine. and getting their mOldlngs from California. The oak for their chairs and tables comes from Mississippi Incidentally. they are paying an aver age of s2J0 a carload for the freight on the lumber they import from other states.
 In Detroit Is a man who Is trying at his own expense to show the state of Michigan it's mistake. He believes Michigan's G.Oca.OOO lost acres can be reclaimed. He is backing his judgment with his money. realizing at the same time that every dollar he puts Into the object lesson will be lost to him. because the tree crop he is planting will not mature during his lifetime. The name of this man is Carl F.. Schmidt He is public spirited manufacturer who was close Iy connected with the political career If the late mayor and governor. Ha- zen s. Pingree-
 "In the summer os 1904 Mr SehnIEsIt asked the authorities at the State Agricultural eoIlege at Lansing to designate the location of what fbey considered the poorest land in the state He was told that tberp was 10 poorer land than that in IoseO County. ndrrh of Au Sable On this he bought 3OD acres. Hel wanted land % poor that, If he <houfd accomplish anything ir nobody could say tbat