bout two thousand of
the latter. We have in the neighborhood of two thousand townships six
miles square and in each of these townships we have a supervisor, we
have a highway commissioner and we have members of what is known as the
township board. This notice that I have, and you will see it is quite
complete and goes into a number of details, is sent by our state highway
commissioner to each one of the township commissioners of north
Michigan, and he closes his letter accompanying it with this:

Fourth: (President Linton reads).

You will see from that that we are well under way in connection with
roadside planting in our state of Michigan. I now take pleasure in
presenting to you a member of our legislature who introduced the first
bill that became a law along these particular lines, Senator Harvey A.
Penney of Michigan.

SENATOR PENNEY: In the legislature of Michigan several bills
have been introduced by its members, but as I stated at the last
convention they were not drawn up in such a way that they were fitted
for our laws. As Mr. Littlepage said it takes quite a while to figure
out a law that fits your own state law. These several laws were
introduced but in some way or another the committees of the legislature
never took kindly to them and they were not passed. But two years ago I
had a bill passed. Since then we have seen some imperfections and we
passed another law at the last session of the legislature which provides
that the cost of planting trees and caring for them shall come out of
the maintenance fund, that is, the maintenance fund that provides for
the maintenance of highways. I don't know how the laws are in most of
your states but in Michigan the law is that the owner of land owns not
only his farm but the land to the center of the highway subject to the
right of the public to have the use of it for travel. Then how are you
going to plant trees on a man's land if the highway belongs to that man?
They did it on the theory that the trees were necessary for the
maintenance of the highway. There never has been a test case on this law
but the highway department has a very able lawyer who was in the
attorney general's office and since then has been elected circuit judge
of the county in which Lansing is located. His idea was that the trees
should be planted on the highway for the purpose of protecting the
highway, and the cost of planting them and taking care of them should be
taken out of the maintenanc