ec. 6. It shall be unlawful to cut, destroy or otherwise injure
any shade or ornamental tree or shrub growing within the limits of
any public highway within the State of Michigan without the consent
of the authorities having jurisdiction over such road. In the case
of a trunk line of Federal aided road the (State Highway
Commissioner) shall be deemed to have such jurisdiction in all
cases. It shall also be unlawful to affix to any tree or shrub any
picture, announcement, notice or advertisement, or to negligently
permit any animal to break down or injure the same. Any person
violating any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed to be
guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished
by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment
in the county jail for a period not exceeding thirty days, or by
both such fine and imprisonment within the discretion of the court.

Now some of the farmers along the road say that the trees will be
diseased, but I don't think that nut trees as a rule, or shade trees,
are affected very much with pests. The elm trees have been troubled
somewhat. In the West where we live I don't think there is any trouble
of that kind. There may be with apple trees and fruit trees.

Our agricultural college at Lansing has at the present time one hundred
thousand trees ready to plant under this bill. There are some that they
have been raising for a long time and some they have recently planted.
They hardly knew what to do with them. Now they have agreed to turn them
over to the state to be planted on our highways.

One thing that we had trouble with in Michigan was the telephone and
telegraph companies stringing wires along the public highway. They have
cut the top of the tree right straight off and disfigured the tree and
disfigured the appearance of the highway. This bill is supposed to
prevent that. Our highway department has been trying to get the
telephone and telegraph companies to get the right from private owners
to put their poles on private land, or to put a pole and let an arm
stick out through the tree without cutting the tree down. I recently
came from Detroit. There the telephone companies have started to string
lines and to cut trees. The highway commissioner has notified them that
they must not cut the trees down or cut them off or disfigure them and
he has introduced the state constabulary