Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 147, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1915 — STATE OR PRIVATE BUSINESS [ARTICLE]

STATE OR PRIVATE BUSINESS

Two Ways of Looking at Necessary Reforesting of Waste Lands of a Community. There surely ought to be a better way of reforesting the waste lands of Michigan than the one just proposed—furnishing the young trees free mid paying the owner of the land a bonus for planting them. If tree planting is a paying operation, why should the state pay individuals for going into the business? If it is not, if the trees are to be planted for the effect they will have on the climate and for the good they will do to the state at large, a bonus for tree planting will not serve the purpose. The owner of the land will have no Inducement to bring the trees to maturity if that means an expenditure of money and pains. If the bonus is big enough to tempt him to plant trees, and there is no further inducement to care for them, he will leave them to take their chances, and most of the money will be thrown away. *As a matter of tact, tree planting has been proved to be a most lucrative business, but not for the individual, for the man who plants rarely lives to reap the harvest. Consequently, few men care to go in for it. It is a business that should be undertaken by the state, which lives forever and will itself reap what profits there may be. —Detroit Journal.