MICHIGAN FOREST HISTORY
SOME COUNTIES RESIST FORESTRY!

Roscommon Herald newspaper clipping copied verbatim below:
WON’T TOLERATE FORESTRY PLAN
No signature indicated, written by an attorney of Roscommon County, dated July, 1902.

To the Editor:

The state forestry commission, with about 30 or more visitors, reached Roscommon on Friday noon. Flags were at half-mast on the flagpoles in the village and the reception they received from the people, although civil and without any hostile demonstration, was speakingly that their presence here was not wanted. They were told in unmistakable terms that their forestry scheme cannot and will not be tolerated in this county. Circulars were handed them to that effect. At the post office the finest exhibition of cereals, fruits, etc, all raised on farms in the county, and which exhibition they unwillingly were obliged to visit, must have convinced them that Roscommon County is not a barren wilderness, unfit for cultivation, but a county destined to become a great agricultural center.

Their stay at the village was therefore of short duration. They left for the north, with a "God speed and never come back" as a greeting from our people.

Some influential citizens plainly made them to understand that they had not a foot of land in the county which they could claim as state property.

It is true the state has a lien for taxes on some of the forestry reserve lands, so have the county and townships and school districts. The chancery decrees, on which the lands were sold and bid in by the state, are void and have been so decided by the supreme court. The original owners by paying up the back taxes are the sole proprietors of the lands. Some of those original owners have offered to pay the taxes due on their lands, but the state has invariably refused to accept the money – as by doing so, it would dwarf their forestry policy.

Some of the original land owners are not contemplated to test the matter in court.

I shall not dwell upon the absurd claim which the state put forth on these lands; this will be left to the court to decide. The people of Roscommon are unanimously against forestry being established in the county and will never allow it. The future will decide. Our motto is: "Down With Forestry!"

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