The Economic Aspects of Forest Destruction in Northern Michigan

MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS-J963-A NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS-J963-A 11NIn~ STA'tES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE WAS1;JlNGTON, D. c.. THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF FOREST DE8TRUCTION IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN ~ By WILLlAM N. SPARHAWK, Senior .Forest Economist, arid W AHREN D. BRUSH, Forest-Examiner, Branch of Research, Forest Service , .. "'-.~ CONTEN'l'S Page Page IntroductioIL____________________________ 1 Tbe problem of.ldleland__ ._______________ 67 The .original fure5ts______________________" Extant of idle land.___________________ 67 Exploitation of rille forests___________________ 6 Recreational use.isnot enougb...._______ .68 Amount of timber cut or waste<L._-_____ 9 Little prospect of early agriOOlturalutm· The remaining snpply_________________ 11. zation_____________________________ n Settlement of the region following lumbe~ 11 Forestry impossihle unless .fIrIls am ;isoutbern Mlchigan_______________ 11 stopped____________________________ 88 Innorthern lower Mlcbigan___________ 13 A forest program for Micbigan._____________ !l2 In the upper peninsula__________________ 18 The State must act______________________ D4 'rhe effects of lorest destrnctioIL________ 19 Desirability ·of a State planning commis VP.:Ushingresources and waningindnstries 20 sioo________________________________.95 Loss of employment for oottlers_________ 29 Extension of.State fore5ts..______________ 96 Lossfarm of woods_______________________revenue and needed snpplies Lrom 31 Establishment·forests_______________________________ of county .and munlcipal 97 Loss o[near-by markets_________________ 33 Promotion of private forestry___________98 Reduction of railroad .revenues and cur ·C<ist of the program_________________ - 99 tailment of.oorvlce.___________________ 33 Coordination of Jorestmanagement and Ri~ road taxes .and poor highway lncill industties__________________________ · 100 tles__________________________________ 4_0 ~oductive !')rests will bring prosperlty____ 101 MJn:~~N:,r~:s~~:~~~~~~::::: ~ X~~~-~:~-:~:::::::::::::::::::::: f~ Reduced Pllr capita wealth______________ 57 Social handicaJlS-______________________ 58 INTRODUCTION Probably the expression "forest destruction "conv6YS to most people ~he idea of conversion of a forest into a more or less permanent waste, with no young growth and no prospect of my within a reason able time without c.ostlyartificial reforestation by sowing or planting. This is by no means the _only or even the most frequent form of destruction. Less spectacular, but more frequent, are. the less complete forms. Even though a forest may not be entirely destroyed, its productiveness may be reduced permanently or temporarily by misha:n.dling_ Even where the land is restocked immediately after cutting, production may become intermittent, interrupted by long periods of waiting. In general terms, forest destruction may be defined as the handling of the forests of a given economic unit in such .a way as to render them incapable of continuous producti.on of usable materials in fairly steady quantities. '3500°-29--1 1 " ""."'Y' .. "' .:" ". ., " "',.:','" i \~CHNICAL BULLETIN 92'~. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTlJRE \. If'\8. forest region is to be permanently ptoductive and the home of a :!l~ttled, prosperous population, its inaQStri~s and towns must be established on a continuous basis. They must not be mere temporary camps operating in one region fora few ;years or a few decad,es and then abandoned for 50 or 100 years until another crop of timber can grow. Where the timber of a whole region is cut off in a short period of time, even though the entire area not other wise utilized is restocked immediately with valuable species of young trees, the industries and the people depending on them must move to another region until the new crop of timber reaches maturity. Then the process may be repeated. Such intermittent industries entail great waste of raw materials, high cost of products, and dis astrous and far-reaching disruption of the general economic and I:locial structure. The same principles that apply to an entire region alsoap~ly in a large measure to smaller economic units. A given commumty or sa,,'Iilill whose existence depends on the timber from a definite forest unit can prosper only as long as the timber lasts. When the supply ceases, even for only a few decades, the plant must cease operation or move elsewhere. Even a farm wood lot fails to fulfil its purpose if all (\f the usable material is taken off and the farmer has to purchase bL timber and firewood while he waits for a ~ew crop of trees to grow up. A century ago the lumber industry in the United States was local in character and secondary in importance. To-day it is one of the greatest industries in the country. Its output rivals in volume the timber production of all other countries combined. It has fUrnllshed in abundance and f.l.t low pric:es the timber required for housing a rapidly expanding population, for putting up barns and fe~nces on .more t~an 6 million farms, f?r bG;ildin~ and equippi?g 2<>0,000 miles of railroads, and for supplyrng ~ multItude of factorIes with raw material. In addition it has shipped enormous quantities of lumber, staves, and other wooden products to practically every quarter of the globe. For the most part the lumber indu~try has carried on a process of harvesting and manufacturing the raw materials provided by nature without cost, but has not concerned itself with the production of more raw materials to take the place of those consumed. Stripping the forests as it went, and accompanied or followed by devastating conflagrations, it progressed in successive waves from the North eastto the Lake States, and from the Lake States to the southern pineries. It is now in the process of shifting frem. the southern pineries to the forests of the Pacific Northwest. In some regions, notably the hardwood belts. in the Eastern and Central States where the surface is level or :l'olling, most of the cut over land was promptly occupied by settlers and turned into farms and pastures. Although the forest disappeared from thH land, it gave way to a higher use, and where the physical .and economic con ditions were favorable for agriculture the result v'as a public benefit. In other regions, especially in the Northeast and the Southeast, the early cutting was more or less selective in nature, and destructive fires were not prevalent. There the forest came back and restocked the land with growing trees which already have produced or some day will produce crops of tJmber. ECONOMIC .ASPEW'S OF FOREST DESTRUCTION 3 The conditions that usua.lly followed in the wake of lumbering, however, were less s~tisf8.Ctory. Great expanses of land were stripped of a.ll the more desirable timber, and there remained only the defec tives andtheunfit--@Cattered trees thatwerelimby, stunted, crooked, or fungus infested, or trees of the less desirable species. Such forests will be incapable for a long time of yielding anythlng else than :firewood and So few minor products. Other cut-over and burned-over land came back to forest, but to a forest composed of comparatively worth less species. These species have a slight value, it is true, and. a value that is increasing because of the scarcity of better material; but they can never yield as good material nor even as much material of any kind as the species that once grew on the land. .As time has gone on and t.he demand for a.ll kinds of timber he-'s become more intense, less and less growing timber hus been left on the land by the loggers. The little left has been wiped out over 'fide areas by conflagrations, the destructiveness of which has beenintensi fied by the huge masses of logging debris. If perchance a tree or a group of young growth escaped the first fire, it was licked up sooner or later by another. In many localities, particularly those where conifer forests Predom inated, nlIDlerous a.ttempts to utili.ze the land for other plli""poses than timber grow~~ have ended in. .failure, and. it has lain idle or partly idle, some t>f It for 50 years, producing little or no economic good. The area of such idle landis sttladily increasing, and the area of produc ,tive forest is diminishing, while our growing pop.clation and industries are being compelled to do without wood or to obtain it from more and more distant sources at constantly increasing prices. The study covered in this bulletill was undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining how forest destruction, followed by nonutilization of the cut-over lund, affects the regiol1s concerned. M1chigan was chosen because it is one of the States in which the more serious forms of de struetion had the earliest start, and in which there has been more time for the effects to become evident. It affords one of the best examples of great stretches of highly productive forest converted into a huge accumulation of idle land. That the effects on the region of such conversion are fairly obvious is indicated in the words of the State tax commission (27-b): 1 The destruction of Michigan forests bas in recent years been accompanied by other results that should awaken us to the fearful economic loss their complete uestruction is bound to entail. Followingthe.converting of hundreds of thousands of acres of green forests into fire-swept wastes, we have seen numerous cities and communities greatly reduced in wealth and population, industrial enterprises closed down or moved away, cp,pital transferred to other sections where forests still remain, and the cost of everything produced from or requiring the use of forest products tremendously .increased. Over other communities of our State is now hanging the menace of ruin that must follow the complete destruction of their forests, and when it is accomplished, as it inevitably will be under present conditions, it will mean thousands of people forced out of their regular employ ment and into competition with wage earners in other lines of business, the dis appearance from the tax roll of a large amount of taxable property, and the WIth drawal of.

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