lands concerned, the said board may alter by reducing or advancing the price per acre or the conditions of payment: Provided, That not less than twenty-five per cent of the purchase money shall be paid at the time of purchase. And when the price and terms are so fixed the said board shall fix the time when the change, if any be made, will take effect, and cause the same to be published." Section 1443 provides that: "The State Board of Agriculture shall certify from time to time to the Auditor General the amounts required for the services and expenses of examining agents and for such other expenses as may be necessary for the proper care and disposition of said lands, and the Auditor General shall draw his warrant upon the State Treasurer for the amount thus certified, and the State Treasurer shall pay the same out of the general fund. All contracts and certificates of said board shall be signed by the chairman and countersigned by the secretary of the State Board of Agriculture."

The law further provides that the land commissioner may from time to time appoint state trespass agents whose duties consist in adjusting and settling all acts of trespass committed on the public lands, subject, however, to the provisions of section 1393, which reads as follows:

:

"Section 1393. The Commissioner of the State Land Office, by and with the advice and consent of the Governor, is hereby authorized to adjust and settle cases of trespass or other injury upon or to any of the lands owned or held in trust or otherwise by this State, and to receive all moneys paid in satisfaction of such trespass or injury, and shall in all cases charge and collect the amount of expense incurred in examination and adjustment thereof. The Commissioner of the State Land Office shall pay over all money so received to the State Treasurer for the benefit of the fund to which the same may properly belong, and shall keep a complete and itemized record in his office of all adjustments and settlements made under the provisions of this act."

By virtue of the foregoing statutes the Board of Agriculture had selected a land agent for appraising and examining college lands, and the land department had given F. E. Skeels and others special authority to settle trespasses upon college lands and other State lands, where found committed.

It appears that in December 1894, one F. E. Skeels was appointed as agent by the State Board of Agriculture to look after college lands; that he has continued in the employ of said board until the present time. Under the statutes of this State, while the State Board of Agriculture may sell its lands, it has no authority to settle trespass upon said lands or to prosecute trespassers, but that authority is fixed entirely by the State with the Commissioner of the State Land Office. We find that Mr. Skeels from time to time was authorized by the Commissioner of the State Land Office to settle certain trespasses in specific instances upon college lands, which authority was wholly revoked by the Land Commissioner Mr. French in January, 1898, and was not again conferred upon him in cases of trespasses upon college lands, although it was frequently urged by Messrs A. C. Bird and T. F. Marston. It appears that Mr. Skeels, with some of the members of the Board of Agriculture, had concluded that as a business proposition it would be good policy to turn timber on college lands into money and save waste from wind and fire if it could be legally done.

In years gone by the land department trespass agents, as well as College Agent Skeels by authority and with the consent of the Land Department, had pursued a very liberal policy towards trespassing lumbermen, viz., that of not making the timber cost the trespassers only about its stumpage value, this together with the sentiment prevailing among those in immediate charge of State timber lands, viz., that scattering timber was better converted into money than left standing to waste from wind and fire, and easy terms of settlement, resulted in encouragement to the trespassers, and a great loss to the State, as oftentimes no knowledge of the trespass was at hand until the timber and the parties were beyond the reach of any law to compel an adequate and honest settlement for the timber stolen.

We find that H. M. Loud Sons Co., T. T. Allen & Co., and Selig Solomon, parties who did the large trespassing, had been trying for some months by correspondence and interviews with land agents to make some arrangements to secure the timber in Au Sable river country belonging to the Agricultural College and through this correspondence and interviews claimed "they were led to understand that if they trespassed it could be settled;" hence in September and October, 1899, they proceeded to commit a wholesale job of trespassing upon these college lands. There is no doubt this was encouraged by the halting, vacillating and passive policy pursued by the agents of the Land Department in their treatment of these and other parties in settlement of former cases of small trespasses, and by not rigidly enforcing the laws and making it expensive and burdensome for the violators of the law; on the contrary the tresspassers had been let off easy by paying about stumpage value and they were glad to buy the timber in that way. Had timber thieves been dealt with as such, in former years for trespass, and an honest, rigid, enforcement of the law been carried out in former violations, this large steal of 1899 would probably have never occurred.

During the month of September and up to the fifteenth of October, 1899, a large amount of trespassing was going on and on October 10, notice was served on all trespassers by State Agent Mathewson to stop cutting, but notwithstanding State Agent Swart was on the ground all the time from October 10 to the 21st, the cutting did not stop until the 15th, and possibly later. On October 17, Secretary Bird, in accordance with his instruction from the State Board of Agriculture visited Au Sable. At that time the cutting had practically ceased. On November 22, Mr. Bird, in company with Deputy Attorney General Chase and Deputy Land Commissioner Loomis, visited Au Sable the second time in reference to these trespasses.

The testimony of the various lumbermen who committed these trespasses, was substantially that the various trespass agents both of the college and the State, encouraged them to commit the trespasses by saying to them "we can give you no permission to cut, but if you do cut, we can settle the trespass." These men knew they were violating the laws of the State in cutting this timber, but as the policy of the State had always been to settle trespasses at actual value, they did not think they were taking any risk, and so the trespasses continued. The testimony leads your committee to conclude that the representatives of the State Board of Agriculture and some of the State Land Commissioners'

trespass agents, who had knowledge of the trespasses, were guilty of contributory negligence in this matter by not promptly acting upon. facts within their knowledge, silently acquiescing in what was being done upon college lands by the aforenamed lumbermen, and are subject to censure for their apathy in this matter. It seems clearly established that no one connected with the College or Land Department secretly received any money or profited by the trespass, except one Mathewson in the employ of the State Trespass Agent Menzo Swart, who some months previous to the committing of these trespasses showed Selig Solomon where some desirable college timber lands were situated, for a fifty dollar consideration, which Solomon admitted in his testimony. Indirectly the agents of the College and Land Department profited, as they worked on per diem and expenses, hence the more trespass the longer it hung on, the more per diem.

The claim set up by the trespassing lumbermen that they were cutting the timber by an agreement with those in authority is not sustained, the evidence being very much at variance; but the committee can clearly see that by the very liberal treatment which had prevailed in former settlements, and by repeated statements from land agents "that the timber could not be sold, but that they could settle trespasses, if any were committed, as had been done before," and the fact that F. E. Skeels had signed former trespass settlement receipts as "Agent for the State Board of Agriculture," and "Agent for the State Land Department," at the same time and on the same receipt, while in fact he had no right to sign in either capacity, together with the fact that A. C. Bird had been up into Au Sable valley to see Mr. Skeels after the first trespass of 1899 had been committed and approved of the course Skeels was pursuing without any protest to the lumbermen; and even making inquiry how long it would take to get it all cleaned up; altogether naturally led the lumbermen to conclude that they had some authority and encouraged them to believe that it would be settled for as heretofore and as intimated by the land agents, and while there was no open agreement, we believe there was a semi or tacit understanding to that effect, together with an earnest desire to get the timber, on the part of the lumbermen, which led to the great trespass on college lands in the fall of 1899.

The committee also find from the records of the land office and the testimony, that the Commissioner of the Land Office, through his deputy, took prompt action upon the college land trespass cases, as soon as they were reported to that office, and used all the means provided by statute to bring the guilty parties to justice; and in its final action, and settlement of such trespasses, was guided by the advice of the Attorney General's Office, in view of all the facts and conditions surrounding the cases as found by the Attorney General's Department; and the rumors of complicity of the Land Department as such in these trespass cases, are clearly without any foundation whatever; but this is not wholly true regarding the department agents in the field.

From causes which are very prominent to your committee, such as the low price placed upon stumpage values, the many trespasses never discovered, the best of the timber being stolen first (that left being inferior), the loss in taxes and interest, and the fires caused largely by lumbering operations and oftentimes intentional to hide their tracks,

all these lead your committee to severely condemn the former policy of settling acts of trespass by allowing parties to pay simply actual stumpage value. The committee would therefore recommend to the Land Department that in their dealings with future trespassers they pursue a line of prosecutions and criminal proceedings instead of settlement, and that no settlements be countenanced which merely take into account stumpage values.

The committee are also led to believe and conclude that if the State Board of Agriculture had sold all their pine and hemlock lands at a maximum price obtainable ten years ago, that the Agricultural College would have saved to itself seventy-five thousand dollars or more; which has been lost in interest which would have accrued to the college had their land values been invested in the permanent fund, together with the cost of keeping in the field trespass agents under heavy expense, and because of the great waste caused by wind and fire, which has rapidly deteriorated their values; hence the committee would recommend, that the State Board of Agriculture place such values upon its pine and hemlock timber lands, as will enable the Land Department to dispose of the same at an early date, that the proceeds thereof may be covered into the permanent land grant fund.

From the testimony the committee are convinced, that the condoning passive policy pursued by all land agents in the field, and permitted in a measure by the Land Department, has destroyed the usefulness of all such agents heretofore employed by both the college and Land Department; and we recommend that if any of them are still in the employ of the State that their further services be dispensed with.

The committee investigated the rumors which had been circulated concerning fraud, and faulty construction of the new woman's building at the college; we are fully satisfied that the State has a safe, strong, beautiful and much needed building in said structure, and that no member of the State Board of Agriculture received any emolument or profit in its building. But the testimony does show very conclusively that the supervising architect, Mr. Koppe, of the firm of Pratt & Koppe, of Bay City, was grossly negligent in the duties be agreed to perform. He did not see that the contract was made according to his specifications, left it for others to carry out the details in making of said contract; never read his copy over after having received it from Secretary A. C. Bird, and did not know it was different from his understanding of it (and from what the minutes of the Board of Agriculture set forth) until he, Koppe, found the construction going on different from what he had calculated; then upon turning to the contracts he found them different from what he supposed they were, but permitted the work to proceed in the face of his bounden duty and obligation to the State (and for which he was paid), viz.: to have stopped the work till done according to his specification. How, when, why and by whom these contracts were changed, Mr. Koppe was unable to explain, and while he permitted some walls in the upper stories to be constructed twelve inches thick where they were to have been sixteen inches thick, it may not and probably never will affect the durability of the structure, yet his unfaithfulness to the State was beyond doubt a gain of six hundred dollars or more to the contractor in its construction. We

recommend that Pratt & Koppe be held to the charge of damages to that extent.

From the investigation it becomes apparent to the committee that the growth of the college of late years has been so great and the duties of the secretary have become so numerous and more and more extensive and varied, that it would be for the best interests of the institution if the office of secretary of the board was distinct from that of the faculty, and that the secretary be relieved from being secretary of the faculty as provided by statute, and would therefore recommend that the law be amended to that effect.

The committee find, further, so far as the business administration of the State Board of Agriculture is concerned in its management of the college and the funds committed to its care, that they as a board, and their executive officers, are careful and economical in their expenditures, observing all statutory provisions, maintaining a watchfulnes and discipline in its business, and the departments of instruction, which so impressed the committee that we should be guilty of gross injustice to the Board of Agriculture, the president, professors, and those in immediate charge of its affairs should we remain silent upon this. point; which is also witnessed by the ever increasing interest manifested in the college by the citizens all over the State on the one hand, and the constantly increasing demand for admission of students in all its departments upon the other hand; and the committee are glad to commend the efficient management of the college and its healthy and steady growth and great usefulness to the State.

The following message from the House was received and read:

To the President of the Senate:

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Lansing, May 7, 1901.

Sir-I am instructed by the House to retransmit in accordance with the request of the Senate the following bill:

House bill No. 157 (file No. 322), entitled

A bill to regulate the taking and catching of black bass in the lakes: known as 'Indian Lake, in Silver Crreek township, Cass county, and in Magician Lake, in Silver Creek township, in Cass county.

Very respectfully,

LEWIS M. MILLER,

Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Sovereign moved to suspend rule 36, limiting the time within which a motion to reconsider a vote may be made.