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SOUTHERN BKANCn.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

LIBRARY,

4_OS ANGELES, GALIF.

U^A

RURAL STATE AND PROVINCE SERIES
Edited by L. H. BAILEY

RURAL MICHIGAN

RURAL STATE AND PROVINCE SERIES

Rural New York E. O. Fippin

Rural Michigan L. A. Chase

Rural California E. J. Wickson

Plate 1. Norway pine near Marquette — the property of the city.

RURAL STATE AND PROVINCE SERIES

RURAL MICHIGAN

BY
LEW ALLEN CHASE, M.A.

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, NORTHERN
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

Author of "The Government of Michigan"

THE MACMILLAN COMPAJSTY
1922

59711

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Set up and printed. Published September, 1922.

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Press of

J. J. Little & Ives Company

New York, U. S. A.

PREFACE

^V^

In the pages that follow will be found a general
and free account of the past and present condition
of Michigan agriculture and rural life. It is not
^ the province of the book to contain a careful and
detailed analysis of the economic and social prob-
lems related to the subject ; such a study must await
the labors of other students along many special lines
in the years to come. So far as it goes, it is hoped
that the book will prove of interest and value

1, to the general reader and may serve as a basis for
further investigation of particular problems. The
book, then, may be regarded as an introduction to
the study of the rural situation in ]\Iichigan. putting

) the State before the reading public in quite a new

^ light.

It has not been possible fully to refer to the
sources of information since many of these are in
manuscript, and information has been gained
through personal inquiry, contact, and observation.
It will be obvious that the writer is indebted to
many persons in the preparation of the work : state
officials, members of the faculties of the University
of Michigan and tbe iMichigan Agricultural Col-
lege, secretaries of the development bureaus and of

vi Preface

farm organizations, and others who are personally
in touch with some aspect of Michigan agriculture.
The writer himself has lived all his life in the State,
often in close contact with its rural life at widely
separated points in both peninsulas. For this rea-
son, he thinks he appreciates local diiferences rather
more clearly than would be the case if his ex-
perience had been confined to one part or peninsula
only. To all those who have so readily responded
to his request for material and information he ren-
ders grateful acknowledgment. For photographs
acknowledgment is due to Mr. Ezra Levin of the
Michigan Department of Agriculture, to Senator Roy
Clark of Benton Harbor, the Superintendent of
Schools, Houghton, and the Western Michigan De-
velopment Bureau. The frontispiece is by Werner of
Marquette.

It should be added that, when omissions of essen-
tial matter seem to occur, this, in some cases, is
attributable to a failure to obtain such informa-
tion from those who are alone able to provide it.
Not many such lapses on the part of others, how-
ever, have occurred. The writer does not doubt
that he himself has failed to discover all available
sources of information. Since much of the ma-
terial used in writing this volume is not readily
accessible, the writer has been more free with quo-
tations and statistics than considerations of style
alone would warrant. He thought his readers would
appreciate having this material made thus accessi-

Preface vii

ble. It has been a pleasant task to try to present
the State in its rural phase, rather than from the
point of view of political history, government, urban
or corporate interests.

L. A. Chase

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGES

The Physical and Climatic Setting of

Michigan 1-31

Geographical and physiological features . 4- 10

The Great Lakes system 10- 15

Climate of Michigan 16- 31

CHAPTER II

The Influence of Soils on the Settlement of

Michigan 32-68

The Lower Peninsula 41- 48

The Upper Peninsula 48-53

Muck-lands 53-56

Underground water 56- 58

Vegetation an indicator of soils .... 59- 68

CHAPTER III

Other Resources of Michigan 69-126

The forests 69- 86

Mines and quarries 86-114

Game and lish 114-125

Water supply 125-126

CHAPTER IV

The Occupation of the Land 127-180

The human factor in agriculture .... 152-180

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

PAGES

Agricultural Industries, Plants and Crops

OF Michigan 181-218

Hay 182-183

Grain crops 183-193

Vegetables 193-200

Fruits 200-207

Nuts 207-209

Special crops 209-211

Crops for muck-lands 211-213

Crop improvement progress 213-218

CHAPTER VI

Animal Industries of Michigan 219-234

Sheep 222-227

Horses and mules 227-229

Swine 229-230

Cattle 230-232

Poultry 232

Bees and honey 232-234

CHAPTER VII

Transportation and Marketing 235-289

Marketing associations and regulations . . 262-289

CHAPTER VIII

Rural Manufactures of Michigan .... 290-315

CHAPTER IX

Rural Living Conditions . 316-331

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER X PAGES

Agricultural Societies 332-346

CHAPTER XI

Educational Enterprises of Michigan . . . 347-382

Extension work 363-373

Agricultural journals 373-375

The rural church 375-382

CHAPTER XII

Governmental Work for Country Life . . . 383-416

Conservation policies 394-402

Roads 403-407

Drainage 408-416

CHAPTER XIII

Development of Michigan Waste Lands . . 417-439

CHAPTER XIV

Status and Tendencies in Michigan Rural

Life 440-460

Statistical Appendices 461-476

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES PAGE

1. Michigan, the peninsular state. Between pages

4 and 5

2. Progress of soil-mapping in Michigan .... 35

3. Percentage of increase or decrease of total popu-

lation of Michigan by counties 132

4. Percentage of increase or decrease of rural popu-

lation of Michigan by counties 133

5. Density of total population of Michigan by

counties 170

6. Density of rural population of Michigan by

counties 171

7. Plan of organization of the Michigan Department

of Agriculture 385

PLATES

I. Norway pine near Marquette — the property of

the city Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

II. The rolling topography typical of many parts

of Michigan 60

III. Haying time in western Michigan .... 120

IV. Harvesting an alfalfa field in southwestern

Michigan 184

V. Digging potatoes in the Upper Peninsula . . 242

VI. Celery "marsh," Muskegon County .... 304

VII. In the peach belt of southwestern Michigan . 366

VIII. The Otter Lake Agricultural School, Houghton

County 430

RURAL MICHIGAN

CHAPTER I

THE PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING OF
MICHIC4AN

Michigan is the land of the "great water," as the
Algonquin origin of the name testifies. It is the
State of the Great Lakes, lying in the grasp of the
largest fresh-water hodies on the glohe.

It is one of the five states formed out of the Old
Northwest territory in accordance with the Or-
dinance of 1787. It is the northeastern memher of
this group. Ontario, Canada, it has to the eastward
and northward, Ohio and Indiana to the southward
of the Lower Peninsula, and Wisconsin to the south-
ward of the Upper Peninsula.

The most southerly point of the State is the in-
tersection of the boundary lines of Michigan, Ohio
and Indiana, and is officially determined to be north
latitude 41 degrees, 41 minutes, 4G.20 seconds, where
stands the boundary stone. The most Tiortherly reach
of the mainland is some 400 miles, where Keweenaw
Point touches latitude 47 degrees, 28 minutes, 75

2 RURAL MICHIGAN

seconds, while the most northerly of the Gull Islands
is nearly a degree still farther to the north. The east
and west dimension of the State runs through ap-
proximately eight degrees of longitude, Port Huron
standing in longitude 82 degrees, 25 minutes, 30
seconds, while the far-away mouth of the Montreal
River at the most northwesterly extremity of the
Upper Peninsula is in longitude 90 degrees, 25 min-
utes, 25 seconds.

For a state whose area is only 57,980 square miles
(about that of Illinois), IMichigan is evidently
sprawled over much space on the map, — a fact deeply
impressed on the traveler from Ironwood to Lansing,
or Houghton to Detroit. This alone helps to keep
the State disorganized and separatist in tendency,
all the more that a waterway broad and deep divides
northwestern from southeastern Michigan. It in-
volves, too, variations in temperature, rainfall and
duration of sunshine and twiliglit of the utmost im-
portance to natural vegetation and animal life and
to agriculture. Most persons do not appreciate that
it is as far from IMichigan's copper country to the
metropolitan city of Detroit as from Detroit to the
national capital in terms of miles in a direct line be-
tween the points; and, although traveling facilities
are reasonably excellent, the time and distance for the
intra-state journey is even less favorable. It is hardly
to be wondered at that one sometimes hears talk of
Michigan's dissolving itself into two commonwealths,
when nature has omitted nothing that works for
mutual incompatibility and man has done little to

PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING 3

force enduring bonds of unity. Mail and express,
freight and passengers transported betAveen upper and
lower ]\Iichigan, have the choice of making a long de-
tour through three states or traversing the nine-mile
ferry-way from St. Ignace to Mackinac City. In ad-
dition, there are many leagues of sparsely settled and
lightly productive land between the populous extremi-
ties of this hyphenated state. The inhabitant of Cold-
water or Adrian who may venture as far as Negaunee
or Calumet finds himself in quite another world: a
land of rock-ribbed rugged barrenness to his casual
observation ; of sparkling tonic air, of Alpine streams
rushing down over their rocky floors to the great lakes
never far away; of vast swamps and forests, or the
disreputable remains of vast forests ; of all languages
except perhaps his own. The smiling summer land-
scape of Clinton County let us say — the succession
of diminutive fields, fenced and tilled with care, of
orchards and wood-lots, or prosperous-looking farm
buildings and neatly kept villages, the oppressive
pollen-laden summer atmosphere, the gently undulat-
ing surface of the land — convey an equal impression
of unreality to the long-time dweller by the shores
of Gitchie Garni. At the outset, the student of con-
ditions in Michigan must keep in mind the complete
disresemblance, or at least of the possibility of it,
of the basis of existence in east and west, in north
and south, in this or that nook and corner of the
State.

RURAL MICHIGAN

GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FEATURES

Michigan's most striking physical characteristic — as
one ghmces at the map (Fig. 1) — is its peninsularity.
This fact is suggested in the Great Seal of the State,
— si quaris peninsulam aniAjenam circumspice, — "if
you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around you."

Residents of IMiehigan commonly speak of "the
Two Peninsulas/' but in reality, the two major land
masses that compose the State are themselves clusters
of lesser peninsulas, the most obvious of which are
"the Thumb" between Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron,
"the Horn" between Grand Traverse Bay and Lake
Michigan, and the Keweenaw Peninsula between
Keweenaw Bay and Lake Superior. Lesser land
bodies project themselves at intervals into the en-
compassing fresh-water seas, greatly extending the
shore-line of the State and, each in its own Avay,
affecting navigation, climate and the economic and
social interests of the people. Thus, the Keweenaw
Peninsula deflects the Duluth Sault Ste. Marie ship-
ping route to the northward, gains for the agriculture
of the region a growing season of one hundred and
fifty days, comparable to that of the southern part
of the State, and makes available an enormous min-
eral wealth that otherwise might be imprisoned be-
neath the waters of the Lake. For thousands of
miles this peninsular feature places Michigan in
direct contact with the world's most extensive and
widely used inland waterway, while it isolates her

PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC fiETTING 5

from her neighbors and interferes with communica-
tion east and west in tlie Lower Peninsula and north
and south in the Upper Peninsula, and divides the
peoples of either section of the State from their
fellow citizens of the other. It throws the southern
peninsula into closest business and social contact
with Ohio and Indiana, while the similar trend of
the State "above the Straits" is in the direction
of Wisconsin. It has created two states in the guise
of one. It has produced enclaves like "Copperdom,"
with the economic and social body of the common-
wealth.

The two major land masses which, with their
appendages, thrust themselves in among the western
members of the Great Lakes group, present note-
worthy variations in geological structure and climate
and, consequently, in biological, economic and social
conditions. Their topography is characteristically
glacial, a land surface of glacial drift with occasional
moraines, eskers and drumlins, and of lakes, swamps
and marshes, some long since extinct and others still
extant, while, especially in the north, plainly striated
areas of bed rock testify to the movement of glacial
ice again and again over the surface of the land.
Areas of sand, gravel and clay, quite pure or much
intermingled, are interspersed casually among the
watered depressions and rocky excrescences of the
State. And yet if one have regard to the chief
physical tendencies, Michigan comprises three quite
distinct sections : the Upper Peninsula and the north-
ern and southern halves of the Lower Peninsula.

G RURAL MWIIWAN

It is in the southern section of the southern
peninsula that the greatest agricultural development
has taken place, while the Tapper Peninsula is tiie
seat of an enormous mineral wealth, of past and
prospective development. Between these two portions
of the State lies a region that once sent to market
prodigious quantities of forest products but now
lies shorn and largely unproductive, except of brush
fires and real estate wild-catting.

The land surface of Michigan comprises for the
most part glacial drift, varied in composition and
depth and resting on a foundation of native rock
of great geological antiquity. In the southern penin-
sula, this foundation stone attains its greatest eleva-
tion in the southeastern area in a zone extending from
the "Thumb" to Hillsdale County, and its greatest
depression near Ludington and Manistee. To the
northeast the rock is again elevated, not to the same
degree as in the southeastern counties, although the
superimposed layer of drift is so deep that the highest
elevation of the land surface of the Lower Peninsula
is a point near Cadillac. From Saginaw Bay west-
ward there is a deep valley in the bed rock and a
low elevation of the surface of the land. Indeed,
if the drift were removed, the northern section of
the peninsula would appear as an island entirely
surrounded by water. As it is, the area west of
Saginaw Bay has a very low elevation (at St. Charles
it is about thirteen feet) above lake level; and in
periods of high water, the over-flow from the Maple
River (a westward-moving affluent of the Grand

PHYSICAL AyD CLIMATIC SETTING 7

River) proceeds eastward overland to a stream enter-
ing Saginaw Bay, bisecting the peninsula.

The glacial drift left by the retreating ice has
been heaped up, windrowed and scoured, until the
surface presents a succession of ridges, hills and
depressions — the remains of ancient water-courses, the
outlets of glacial waters seeking the sea by strange
paths unknown to the geographies of today. Most
considerable of these glacial rivers was the "Grand
Eiver Outlet," whose ample valley extends from
southern Gratiot County to a point below Grand
Eapids; and its affluent, the "Imlay' Channel, whose
course may still be traced on a line from Owosso
and Ovid to Maple Rapids. Relatively tiny streams
now trickle down the beds of these once mighty
waterways.

In flood time, there is a quick expansion and
drowning of the old valley floor, and a quick reces-
sion to the restricted channels of the present, after
a deposit of fluvial silt has been left to enrich the
fertility of the soil.' On the other hand, while Michi-
gan has no true mountains, there are points in both
peninsulas wdiich bear this designation because of
their prominent position in the landscape. Thus
Mount Judah, six miles north of Pontiac, has an
elevation of 1,180 feet above sea-level, and Bald
Mountain in the same locality is 1,195 feet high.

There are numerous other hills and kames in the
southern counties of the State from 1,000 to 1,200
feet in elevation. The morainic country near Cadillac
reaches an elevation of 1,500 feet. The eastern

8 RURAL MICHIGAN

portion of the Upper Peninsula presents less rugged
aspect than the western section. The underlying
limestones and sandstones are well covered with
drift, while the metamorphic rocks west of the longi-
tude of Marquette frequently protrude above the
covering soil, giving the landscape in some places
a knobbed rugged outline and, facing Lake Superior,
a semi-mountainous appearance. Here, to the east
of Keweenaw Bay, are situated the Huron Moun-
tains, the Mecca of sportsmen, whose dim contour
seen from the heights of the Copper Range across
the wide expanse of the Bay, touch with Neapolitan
loveliness one of the most charming vistas in America.
To the westward, also, abruptly rising from the Lake,
are the Porcupine Mountains, 2,023 feet above the
sea, the highest elevation in Michigan, and extending
through very much tumbled country in Ontonagon
County into the Copper Eange. The "Cliffs" of
old Keweenaw still charm the traveler and once
yielded a prodigious wealth in copper and silver.

Evidently Michigan is not a mountainous state,
but its ruffled surface, its sag and swell topography
(as Leverett describes portions of it), have a definite
relation to agriculture. It establishes great variety
of soils. It protects areas from cold northerly winds.
It definitely affects air drainage and cloud distribu-
tion. It establishes wet, marsh and swamp lands,
and other areas whose drainage is normally excellent
but excessive in periods of scanty precipitation. It
keeps some areas within the cold strata of the lower
atmosphere, and elevates others to the warmer upper

PHYSICAL A\D CLIMATIC SETTING 9

air layers. The relation of all this to agriculture
is manifest. There are places remote from the in-
fluence of the lakes where peaches do well. Such a
point is the high morainic ridge near Eureka in
Clinton County and, well to the north, a similar
ridge near Higgins Lake in Crawford County; while
even close to Lake Michigan, bad freezes, such as
that which occurred along the southwest shore on
October 11, 1906, have done much less damage on
the elevated table-land some miles back from the
Lake. The first snows of winter appear at Ishpemiiig
sooner than at Marquette eight hundred feet lower
down, if also a dozen miles nearer the Lake. Some
low areas, such as that in southern Gratiot and
Saginaw counties, have suffered much from unseason-
able frosts, creating for the pioneers real famine con-
ditions, until the phrase, "starving Gratiot," in the
decade before the Civil War, acquired sinister signifi-
cance. Undoubtedly the encompassing forest com-
plicates the situation, particularly as affecting air
drainage. J. M. Longyear of Marquette has observed
that Finnish farmers, in clearing their farms, have
frequently established their clearings at adjacent
corners in order to increase the free space for the
movement of the atmosphere and thus reduce the
liability to frosts. It appears that the removal of
the forest cover in the flat country in the region
of the old "Grand ]?iver Outlet" (Saginaw and
Gratiot counties) has similarly reduced the liability
to unseasonable freezings. It is plain, however, that
farms located on hills and ridges, in periods of fall-

10 RURAL MICHIGAN

ing temperature, find the colder air flowing away
into the valleys and bottom-lands, thus affording a
fair margin of safety on the high lands. It has been
noted, for example, that the high ground of the
Paynesville "Quadrangle," in southern Ontonagon
County, Upper Peninsula, with an elevation of some
450 feet above Lake Superior, escaped killing frosts,
when neighboring farms on low-lying lands suffered
materially. When it is recalled that there is very
little flat country in Michigan, that much of its
land surface is undulating, billowy, of a knob and
depression, sag and swell description, it is evident
that, from this factor alone, agriculture is conducted
in varying conditions. It gives the mint and celery
country of the southwestern counties of the Lower
Peninsula and, at present in its incipiency, of the
eastern counties of the Upper Peninsula; and pro-
ductive fruit orchards at many interior points. It
affords numerous areas whose valuable crops must
continue to be blueberries, cranberries and wild rice,
and, if the vision of Sydney Smith Boyce of Saginaw
comes true, the swamp milkweed, from which, it is
hoped, a very useful textile fiber may be produced.^

THE GREAT LAKES SYSTEM

The four enormous lakes, which, with their con-
necting waters, give Michigan her unique position

'On lopoo-raTiliical features, see Leverett: "The Surface
Geology of Michigan"; Leverett and Taylor: "The Pleisto-
cene of Indiana and Michigan"; Bull. 461 and 559, U. S.
Geol. Survev; "Results of Spirit-Ijeveling in Michigan";
"Dictionary' of Altitudes."

PHYBWAL A\D CLIMATIC f^ETTTNG 11

among the forty-eight states of the Union, have
strikingly determined her development. They opened
up the way of settlement, first for the French of
Canada, then for the Americans of the New England
and Middle Atlantic states. They made possible the
exportation of agricultural products when transpor-
tation by railroad was in its infancy, and to a still
greater extent the shipment of forest products was
in their keeping. Without them a relatively small
proportion of the wealth of copper and iron of the
Lake Superior region would have been accessible to
the requirements of the world's iiulustries, nor would
the coal and other accessories of the mining industry
have been as readily available without this avenue of
the import and export trade.

So well is the commercial importance of the Great
Lakes waterway appreciated that Michigan has most
eagerly promoted such schemes as have from time to
time been brought forward for making improvements
where nature's work was defective for the purposes
of man. In 1855 the St. Mary's Ship Canal was
completed, thus affording a shipway between Lake
Superior and Lake Huron, while in 1860 and 1873
ship canals were opened from Lake Superior into
Portage Lake at either extremity, thus bringing navi-
gation more accessible to the central area of the cop-
per district. Then came the improvements of the
St. Clair and Detroit rivers, while today the State
enthusiastically urges on the proposed deep-watenvay
to the ocean by the improved St. Lawrence route.
Lake Superior, westernmost of the series of great

12 RURAL MirHKlAN

lakes, is G02 feet above sea-level. A descent of
twenty-one feet brings its waters to Lake Huron. The
course through St. Clair Eiver and Lake and the
Detroit Eiver lowers the waterway 8.63 feet to the
level of Lake Erie. Then comes the stupendous drop
through the Niagara gorge to Lake Ontario at 246.19
feet elevation. Some 221 feet of the descent from
Lake Ontario must be overcome by canals or slack-
water navigation, before the Great Lakes can in any
proper sense be put in touch with the world's mari-
time trade.

These vast "sweet Water seas," whose presence on
the borders of the State has so definitely influenced
the economic history of the commonwealth, have
themselves had an intricate, but interesting, geologic
history. The advance and recession of the glacial
ice, the elevation and subsidence of the surface of
the land, from time to time formed and reformed
lakes of varied shapes and sizes along the line of
the depressions which now contain their dwindled
remains. These prehistoric glacial lakes are known
by such names as Lake Saginaw, Lake Chicago, Lake
Algonquin, Lake Duluth, and Lake Ontonagon, while
the jSTipissing Great Lakes conformed on a some-
what larger scale to the Great Lakes of the present
era. Of these ancient bodies of water in the Michigan
area, the outlet was sometimes by way of the Georgian
Bay-Lake Simcoe route through Ontario; sometimes
via the Chicago-Illinois Eiver depression into the
Mississippi, or to the far northward over the line
of the low ground between the west end of Lake

PHYSICAL A^D CLIMATIC SETTIXO 13

Superior and the headwaters of the same mighty
stream. Lake Saginaw drained westwardly through
a depression corresponding to that which still bisects
the northern and southern portions of the Lower
Peninsula, where the height of land remains at no
more than seventy-two feet above the level of Lake
Huron. These low flat and wet partially submerged
lands made infinite trouble for the pioneers of this
region, but suggested the feasibility of a trans-state
canal in the first years of statehood. These lands
have by infinite labor and much drainage and with
the removal of the forest, become among the most
fertile sections of the State, the home of the culture
of the sugar-beet, of dairying, of coal and of salt.
The shores of these lakes of ages past may still be
traced over the countryside. Their beds of deep
clay, sand or gravel determine for some sections the
quality of its agriculture. Even thus is the hand
of the past still heavy in the affairs of today.

The Great Lakes of today are maintained at their
variable levels by a large number of rivers and
rivulets, none of any great length or volume. Lake
Erie receives the Raisin and the Huron; Lake St.
Clair the Clinton; Lake Huron the Saginaw and
Au Sable; Lake Michigan, the St. Joseph, the Kal-
amazoo, the Grand, the IMuskegon, the Escanaba,
Manistique and the Menominee; Lake Superior, the
Taquamenon (of the Hiawatha story), the Ontonagon
and the Montreal, and many others not related to
Michigan. Of these rivers, the Saginaw, which com-
bines the waters of the Cass, the Flint, the Shia-

14 RURAL Michigan

wassee and the Tittabawassee, drains the largest land
area in Michigan — 6,250 square miles. ^ It reverses
the direction of stream-flow, formerly debouching
from old Lake Saginaw at this point. Even in flood
time, the Saginaw may steal away some of the over-
flow from its rival, the Grand River system, which
leaves the Maple Kiver in the vicinity of Bannister
and Ashley, Gratiot County, and makes an overland
current into the Bad Eiver of the Saginaw basin.
The Grand River drainage basin is put by Leverett
at some 5,600 square miles, while the Muskegon
drains 2,700; the Huron, 1,050; the Kalamazoo,
Manistee and Au Sable, 1,000 square miles each. In
the Upper Peninsula, the Manistique, an affluent of
Lake Michigan, has the largest drainage basin, 1,400
square miles, chiefly in Schoolcraft County and in-
cluding the great Seney Swamp. Of the Lake Su-
perior streams, the Ontonagon, with a drainage area
of 1,250, and the Taquamenon, v/ith 800 square miles,
including another large swamp area, are the most
considerable. Michigan is charged with being the
fifth wettest state in the Union.^

Michigan possesses a very large number of inland
lakes, and formerly the numerous marshes and
swamps gave the State a sinister reputation — not
without cause — although it was their mosquitoes,
and not their "miasmatic exhalations," that were
responsible for the bone-racking ague of the early
settlers. Here rise the streams and streamlets of

* Leverett.

''Miller and Simons: "Drainage in Michigan,"

PHYSICAL AXD CLIMATIC SETTING 15

the State, if not in one or another of the thousands
of limpid springs that are derived from the copious
subterranean waters of certain sections.

Together, these interior water-courses have been
intimately associated with the economic and social
development of Michigan. They were the first and
natural means of penetrating the inner fastnesses of
the region. The early territorial and State statutes
referred to them as "navigable/' and required that
dams should include locking facilities for the passage
of commerce up and down stream. Most of them
would hardly warrant the designation, "navigable,"
today, for the effect of deforestation on "run-off"
and stream-flow has been to flood the river valleys
for a short season and then to leave them scant of
water for the balance of the year. Nevertheless,
steamers did run up the St. Joseph River to Niles,
up the Grand River to Grand Rapids, and still ply
the Saginaw for a few miles inland and on at least
one ill-fortuned occasion sought a more interior point
up the Shiawassee and Bad rivers. In the pioneer
period there was much canoeing on all these streams,
connected at intervals by portage paths where the
Indians had showed the way to the incoming whites.
There was much rafting of supplies, of logs and of
lumber — a process which moved progressively north-
ward as the lumberman's frontier receded from decade
to decade.

16 RURAL MICHIGAN

CLIMATE OF MICHIGAN

The effects of the Great Lakes are not confined
to the obvions rehitions with commerce. They liave
a definite influence on the climate of Michigan. Lake
Superior has an area of 31,810 square miles. The
superficial area of Lake Michigan is 22,400 square
miles; of Lake Huron, 23,010; of Lake Erie, 9,940;
and of Lake St. Clair, 460. Thus these five lakes
have a total area of 87,620 square miles. The depth
of Lake Superior reaches 1,180 feet; of Lake Mich-
igan, 870; of Lake Huron, 750; of Lake Erie, 210,
and of Lake St. Clair, 24 feet. Obviously this mass
of water absorbs an immense vohnne of solar heat
in summer and rehictantly yields it up again to the
contiguous atmosphere, thus raising winter and lower-
ing summer temperatures in the region within the
scope of their influence.

The records of the United States Weather Bureau
taken at points on Lake Erie show a midsummer
temperature ranging as high as 78 degrees during a
period of more than eight years at Toledo, while
Lake Huron and Lake Michigan averages run a few
degrees cooler. The much greater volume of water
in Lake Superior and its more northerly latitude
keep its summer temperature well below that of its
southerly relatives; yet here, too, the warming up
process of July and August carries its surface ther-
mometric readings to a point above 60 degrees. That
the midwinter temperatures of all these lakes run

PHYSICAL AXD CLIMATIC SETTING 17

down to freezing or only a few degrees above it,
merely means that the waters of the lakes have yielded
np their heat chiefly to the covering atmosphere, thus
delaying the time of killing frosts and winter's cold.
If Michigan were inclosed by areas of land instead of
water, this process of heat radiation from earth to
atmosphere would take place more rapidly and, in
the northern districts of the State, early September
would find the season of growth for crops brought
definitely to an end.

A chart prepared by the United States Weather
Bureau's Grand Eapids office, based on observations
covering a period of twenty-five years, brings out
very graphically the effect of the Lakes in retarding
autumnal frosts. In the minds of most persons,
the country adjacent to Lake Superior is sufficiently
remote to suggest a subarctic flora and fauna with
native Eskimos dining on whale-blubber as dwellers
by its shores. Yet in areas projecting into the Lake,
such as the Keweenaw Peninsula and White Fish
point, as this chart reveals, the first killing frost
normally appears about October 10. The most south-
erly counties of the Lower Peninsula, near the cen-
ter-line of the State and so removed from the Lakes'
ameliorating influence, terminate their growing-sea-
son on the average at as early a date as Grand Marais
or the West Keweenaw shore some four hundred miles
to the north. Indeed, the lines passing through
points in the Lower Peninsula having the same nor-
mal date for the occurrence of the first killing frost
of autumn, very strikingly are north and south lines,

18 RURAL MICHIGAN

not east and west, beginning on the upper reaches
of the lakes and terminating at interior points near
the south boundary of the State. Thus the line for
October 10 joins White Pigeon in St. Joseph County
close to the Indiana line, and Grand Traverse Bay
far to the north a little below the Straits of Mack-
inac. St. Johns and Ionia just north of Lansing
the capital of the State, normally receive their llrst
killing frosts on September 30, as soon as Mackinac
Island. Along the soutli shore of Lake Superior,
the autumnal frost period is fixed at a progressively
earlier date, and is three weeks earlier on the Me-
nominee iron range near the Wisconsin boundary
than in the copper country many miles to the north.
Elevation may have its influence, but undoubtedly
the lakes are the decisive factor.

In the spring conditions in a measure are re-
versed. The wintry waters of the lakes retard the
approach of warm weather and of the day of the
last killing frost. One notes, for example, that the
date of the last killing frost in spring is some ten
days later on the western shore of the Keweenaw
Peninsula than at points on the western shore of
the Lower Peninsula; but the delayed frosts of
autumn give the copper region a growing period
for vegetation of one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and forty days, depending on location,
and this is as much as can be said of the country
north of Saginaw Bay in the Lower Peninsula, and
even of some interior points as far south as Ann
Arbor. It is a period only ten days shorter than

PHYSICAL AyD CLIMATIC SETTING 19

much of the west Michigan coast-line enjoys, the
predominantly fruit-producing section of the State.
Indeed, many varieties of fruit do very well along
the "sleak"' Lake Superior shore, where defects of
soil rather than of climate hmit the productivity.
The manner in which this influence of the Great
Lakes is applied is directly related to the normal
westerly direction of the winds. Grand Haven
on the western shore of the Lower Peninsula has a
temperature in winter averaging higher than that
of Milwaukee on the opposite shore of Lake Mich-
igan, while its summer temperature runs several
points lower. Its coldest days in winter and its
warmest days in summer are never so extreme in
their range.^ This explains the presence of a "fruit-
belt" in western IMiehigan and its absence in the
eastern or Lake Huron-Lake Erie coast-line, al-
though these lakes are normally of about the same
temperature. The trend of the northern peninsula
is west to east, so this influence of winds and lakes
works out differently. ]\Iarquette's hottest summer
days occur when the wind is southwesterly, deriving
its torridity thus from the superheated land sur-
face over which it is moving. Yet a shift to the
northwest will, in a few minutes, cause one to seek
protection from the frigidity of the outer air.^ Such
hot blasts as occasionally afflict dwellers by this great

'Seeley: "The Climate of Michigan and its Relation to
Agriculture."

^ July 14, 1920, in ten minutes the U. S. Weather Bureau
thermometer fell 27 degrees.

20 RURAL MICHIGAN

cold northern sea never come from the southeast,
for in that direction lies Lake Michigan, fifty miles
away but yet sufficiently close to exercise, it is pre-
sumed, a positively ameliorating effect.

The Lake Superior country is favored with sea-
sonal sunnner rains almost without fail, this being
attributed to the prevailingly northwesterly course
of the summer winds. The fact that the winter
temperatures do not reach the low points one would
expect so far to the north and does find at points
due west in Minnesota and North Dakota, is plainly
due to the proximity of the tempering, if chilling,
influence of this master lake. To realize how much
of Michigan is exposed to this influence of the Great
Lakes on its climate, one needs to bear in mind that,
without measuring closely every indentation and
projection of the shores, the coast-line of the Lower
Peninsula is some 905 miles in length; that of the
Upper Peninsula, 810 miles (a more precise meas-
urement of the line of contact between land and water
would considerably extend this distance).^

Factors other than the Great Lakes affect the
conditions of life and agriculture in the northern
and southern peninsulas. The extension of the
State through six degrees of latitude affords the
northern portions more daylight and more twilight
in the growing period than is enjoyed by the south-
ern counties. L. M. Geismax, county agent of
Houghton County and formerly in charge of the

' The coast-line of the St. Mary's, St. Clair and Detroit
rivers is included in tlie foregoing figures.

rTTYKICAT. A^D CLIMATIC ,%'ETTING 21

State Experiment Station at Chatham, Alger
County, has computed the number of hours during
which the sun is above the horizon for the period
of six months from April 15 to October 15, for
latitude 42 degrees north (approximately of Cold-
water, Hillsdale and Adrian in the most southerly
tier of counties) ; for latitude 43 degrees north
(approximately of Port Huron and Grand Eapids) ;
and for latitude 47 degrees north (approximately
of Houghton on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Lake
Superior) ; and he has ascertained the excess of
possible sunlight for the forty-seventh parallel to
be 56.33 hours when compared with the forty-third
parallel, and to be 69.13 hours, when compared
with parallel 42.^ The particular conclusion which
Geismar derives from the foregoing study is that
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is very favorable
to the growth of the sugar-beet, because the con-
version of starch to sugar goes on in the presence
of sunlight, and, consequently, that one may expect
a greater sugar-content in beets grown in the north-
ern peninsula as compared with the southern coun-
ties of the State.

The northern latitudes not only have an advantage
over the southern in regard to their quantity of
sunlight, but also in respect to twilight. Com-
putations of the end of twilight for various latitudes
falling within the boundaries of Michigan, made
by W. J. Hussey, professor of astronomy of the

^Forty-second Ann. Kept. vState Bd. Agr., Mich., 1903,
p. 279.

22 nruAL }f inn a AN

University of i\Iiehigan, dipclosc the fact tliat for
latitude 40 degrees and for .Tniie 10. twilight ter-
niiiiates at !) : 'M) P. M., while for parallel 4(5, it ter-
minates at 10: 29 P. M. A month later the favorable
balance is 55 minutes. Combining these surpluses
of twilight for all the days of the growing season,
the total advantage of parallel 4G over parallel 42
is 100 hours, 44 minutes, and of parallel 47 over
parallel 42 is 141 hours, IS minutes.^ The pro-
censes of growth in plants continue, it is pointed
out, during the period of twilight.

This considerable north and south extension of
the State introduces other factors less favorable
to agriculture in the northern counties. While the
mean annual temperature of Michigan is placed
by Schneider at 44 degrees, that of the two southern
tiers of counties is approximately 48 degrees, and
that of Calumet and Sault Ste. Marie in the ex-
treme north but somewhat removed from the in-
fluence of the lakes is approximately 39 degrees.
The average maximum temperature of the interior
portions of the Lower Peninsula is put at 85 to 90
degrees, while that of the Upper Peninsula at
Marquette is 58.5 degrees (jMay-September, thirty-
three years' average). N'evertheless, the record for
the highest summer temperature is held by Mar-
quette on the south shore of Lake Superior, where,
July 15, 1901, the thermometer at the station of
the Weather Bureau registered 108 degrees. Winter
temperatures in the northern peninsula range about

' Computations by C. C. Spooner and L. ]\I. Geisin.ir.

PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTiyC 23

0, and in the southern peninsula some 10 degrees
higher. Extreme minimum temperatures range
from 25 to 40 degrees in the State, while the record
for the lowest winter temperature is also held by
the northern peninsula : namely, -49 degrees at Hum-
boldt, Februar}^ 1899. ]\Iichigan experiences its
coldest weather on the highlands of the iron ranges
in the Upper Peninsula and in the central elevated
areas of the northern section of the Lower Penin-
sula. With snow on the ground from November
to April, sometimes for a longer period, agriculture
is crowded into a period of fewer days, of more
daylight and twilight than the southern counties
enjoy; while the winters present a special problem in
the maintenance of live-stock.^

The lower temperatures normally prevailing in
the higher latitudes seem to be primarily responsible
for a "tone'" or "tang"' in the atmosphere not found
farther south. To travelers between the two penin-
sulas this condition is very noticeable, and is ex-
plained by Schneider and other students of the
climate of the State as resulting from the lower
"absolute" humidity of the northern atmosphere,
lower temperature, and the more rapid evaporation
from the body, with a consequent feeling of ex-
hilaration. Concurrently, the northern air is free
from organic matter, due to the prevailing north-
westerly trend of the winds, which thus pass over

*U. S. Dept. Agr. : "Climatologj' of the United States,"
vVasl'in<rton. 1906, 556 (Sclineider ) . "Surface Geology of
JMicliigan," 17,

24 RURAL MICHIGAN

undeveloped wilderness north of Lake Superior and
then the wide crystal waters of the great lake itself
before traversing the haunts of men; and also by
the absence of those plants that to the southward
pollinize the atmosphere or otherwise freight it with
organic substances.

While for some crops, like sugar-beets, the actual
quantity of sunshine received during the growing
season is of vital importance, it will be of interest
to compare the amount of sunshine occurring in
the northern and southern peninsulas. The data
for such a comparison has been prepared by C. F.
Schneider, meteorologist of the United States
Weather Bureau at Gr?.nd Eapids, who points out
that the eastern one-third of the Upper Peninsula,
and a strip of territory extending from Alpena to
Mackinac in the northeastern section of the Lower
Peninsula, are the cloudiest in Michigan, Averag-
ing the records of actual sunshine reported for sta-
tions having an automatic recording device, it has
been ascertained that in April, 1919, 49 per cent
of the possible amount of sunshine was received in
the Upper Peninsula, and 47 per cent in the Lower
Peninsula. In May the percentages were 67 for the
Upper Peninsula, and 63 for the Lower Peninsula.
Similarly in June the percentages were 70 and 76;
in July, 75 and 75 ; in August, 5G and 65 ; in Sep-
tember, 43 and 60; and in October, 34 and 42.
These percentages are smaller for both peninsulas
during the winter months without much to choose
between them. The percentages for the summer

PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING 25

months emphasize the greater prevalence of rainy
days in the northern as compared with the southern
section of the State. With an agriculture adapted
to the peculiarities of each division, these figures
do not imply that on the whole one has a decisive
advantage over the other.

Schneider points out that "there is more sunshine
in the Upper Peninsula in May and July than in
the Lower Peninsula, and for the four month period
April to July, inclusive, there is somewhat more
sunshine in the Upper Peninsula than in the Lower.
After the end of July the days grow shorter more
rapidly in the Upper Peninsula than in the Lower,
and the differences in the amount of sunshine in the
Upper and Lower Peninsulas become greater be-
cause the winter days are shorter in the Upper
Peninsula than in the Lower."

If the normal temperature of the State is favor-
able to agriculture, so also is the quantity and
distribution of moisture. The normal annual pre-
cipitation is stated by the United States Weather
Bureau to be 32.91 inches for the whole State, which,
coming mainly in the growing season, affords an
ample allowance for vegetation. The annual supply
of moisture is somewhat greater in the northern
peninsula, namely, 34.58 inches. The most south-
erly counties are second in quantity of precipitation:
33.58 inches. The central area fares worst, with
28.95 inches, while the northern section of the Lower
Peninsula receives 30 inches. Summer droughts
are not unknown, although normally the rainfall

26 RURAL MICHIGAN

for July is some 3.5 inches and well distributed.^
At Marquette, for example, the records of the local
station of the Weather Bureau indicate that ten
days in May, twelve days in June, twelve days in
July, August and September and fourteen days in
October, normally have precipitation of one one-
hundredth of an inch or more. At Lansing, simi-
larly, the number of days with this amount of
precipitation is twelve in May, eleven in June, ten
in July, August and September and eleven in Oc-
tober. Excessively copious downpours are rare. The
typical "rainy day,'" of moderate protracted pre-
cipitation, is a familiar feature of the Michigan
climate, whether northern or southern. Yet thun-
der-storms, occasionally of some violence, occur fre
quently in summer, taking their toll of barns and
other possessions of the Michigan farmer. The
State's well-distributed precipitation not only pro-
motes the growth of vegetation, it also maintains
stream-flow and lake levels at a fairly uniform
stage — a fact of nnich importance in the creation
of power and of navigation.

Hail-storms are both local and irregular in their
distribution, but, according to Seeley, are less severe
and less frequent near the Great Lakes. Hail-
storm charts prepared by the United States Weather
Bureau indicate that in 1918, three light and four
severe hail-storms occurred in the Upper Peninsula;
and eight light and seven severe hail-storms in the
Lower Peninsula. In 1919, heavy hail-storms oc-

"^Climatology of the U. S.," 556.

PHYHICAL AyD CLIMATIC SETTIXf! 27

curred in Alpena, Montcalm, Kent and Eaton conn-
ties; while light hail-storms were reported from
Keweenaw, Houghton, Marquette, Ontonagon, Alger,
Luce, and Chippewa in the Upper Peninsula ;
Chehoygan, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Crawford,
Tosco, Ogemaw, Roscommon, Wexford, Montcalm,
Saginaw, Genesee, Ionia, Kent, Allegan, Ingham,
Oakland, Wayne. Calhoun, and Branch counties of
the Lower Peninsula ; and moderately heavy hail
occurred in Monroe. Hillsdale, St. Joseph, Van
Buren, Washtenaw, Kent, Arenac, Mason, Wexford,
Crawford, Alpena, Cheboygan, and Chippewa coun-
ties. Some of these counties reported two, three
or four hail-storms in the year. This indicates a
wide distribution of hail-storms in Michigan, but
their localized character results in a relatively small
amount of damage.

In winter, the precipitation does not vary mark-
edly in the different quarters of the State. Normally
at Calumet it is 7 inches, while at Ivan, Kalkai-ka
County, in the northwestern Lower Peninsula, it
is somewhat greater. Marquette on the south shore
of Lake Superior has less precipitation in winter
than Adrian near the Ohio boundary. Alpena on the
Lake Huron shore and Grayling in the same latitude
but in the interior have the same winter precipita-
tion. Detroit, Alma and Sault Ste. Marie have ap-
proximately the same precipitation in the winter
months. For all these points the range is from 6.1
to 6.6 inches. The premier position of Cah;met,
lA'an and Grand Haven is due to elevation, to prox

28 RURAL MICHIGAN

imity to one of the Great Lakes, to the prevailing
direction of the wind, or to all of these factors taken
together. While Escanaba and Cheboygan arc lo-
cated on the Lake shore, their winter precipitation
is less (4.6 and 5 inches, respectively), but each is
on the leeward side of the State, and benefits accord-
ingly.i

If. however, depth of snow rather than amount
of precipitation is considered, a marked difference
is noted between the northern and southern lati-
tudes of Michigan. The normally lower tempera-
tures which obtain to the northward produce snow
rather than rain in the early and late months of
winter, and rarely rise to the level of a thaw. Hence
snow that falls in November may remain on the
ground until April, occasionally longer. The effect
of each storm is cumulative. The result is that
Calumet enjoys as much as 120 inches of snow in
a year, and Ishpeming nearly that quantity. In
1891 Marquette had 172 inches of snow, while
Houghton in the winter of 1919-1920 had the un-
precedented snow-fall of 208 inches. On the av-
erage, it has been 113 inches during the past twenty
years. The counties bordering on Lake Huron in
the southern peninsula have a deeper snow covering
in winter, although less precipitation than those
adjacent to Lake Michigan (50 to 60 inches), be-
cause of the cooling effect of the land in one case
and the warming effect of the lake in the other.-

' "Cliraatoloffv of the U. S.." 556.

^Seeley: "The Climate of Michigan," etc., 16-17.

PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING 29

In the southern portion of the Upper Peninsula
less than 50 inches of snow falls; in the interior
of the southern peninsula, 30 to 50 inches. Thus,
dwellers in the north may expect six months of
sleighing, of winter sports, of winter feeding for
their live-stock, of certain moisture and a safe cov-
ering for winter grains and such vegetables as may
be left in the ground until spring, of fields ready
for the plow as soon as the snow disappears in April,
and of a quick run-off of surface waters through
the unfrosted soil. Yet to some the seemingly eternal
snows of the north country become irksome, even
appalling. The annals of the pioneers are replete
with declarations of the utter loneliness, the terribly
complete isolation which the deep snows of winter
enforced on those who ventured to raise their roof-
trees by Grand Traverse Bay or on the Copper
Eange. Today, the telephone and the rural mail ser-
vice, the tractor-drawn snow roller used on northern
highways, farmers' clubs and rural winter life of
the deep snow region, have made life more endurable.
Destructive wind-storms are rare in Michigan,
though by no means unknown. Their effect is very
local. They are rare near the lakes. While Michigan
is not commonly thought of in connection with tor-
nadoes, they are sufficiently frequent to be taken
account of in the extreme north as well as the ex-
treme south of the State. A genuine "twister" oc-
curred on the Keweenaw Peninsula near the entrance
to Portage Lake on June 10, 1920, doing some
damage to buildings and throwing down consider-

30 RURAL MICHIGAN

able timber. A similar performance was observed
over Houghton a few miles to the northeast on July
31, 1913, but at most places did not descend to the
point of destructive contact with the earth. That
these were not the first such visitations to the Upper
Peninsula is evident from the large tracts of "down"
timber observed by Pumpelly and other early ex-
plorers of the interior of the region. In the Lower
Peninsula, the record of tornadoes associates them
with the south central counties, where a few very
violent storms have occurred, such as that in Oak-
land County, May 25, 189G; at Owosso, Nov. 11,
1911; near Charlotte, 1915; in Jackson, Calhoun
and Ingham counties, 1917; between Ann Arbor and
Dexter, 1917; and a series of tornadoes at several
points simultaneously, including Fenton and St.
Johns, March 28, 1920.^ Normally, however, winds
of high velocity are unusual in Michigan. The
maximum average hourly velocity is twelve and
one-half miles in March and April, and the minimum
velocity nine miles an hour in August and Sep-
tember.^ Pare, too, are those intensely hot dry
winds that blight growing crops and parch the earth
with their torrid breath. Yet these also do occur,
even if seldom, entering the State from its unpro-
tected southwestern angle in both peninsulas, or
arising from areas of superheated air within the
State itself. Then, if the wind is off shore, the
presence of one of the Great Lakes is of no avail,

' Seeley, 22-23.

' Schneider in "Surface Geology of Michigan," 17, 38,

PHYSICAL A\D CLIMATIC SETTING 31

and one may blister in a fiery blast registering 105
degrees in the shadows, as happened at Marquette
in the summers of 1917 and 1918/ although the icy
waters of Lake Superior are immediately at hand
but powerless to relieve.

From January to March, and from June to De-
cember, the prevailing direction of the wind in the
Lower Peninsula is from the west and the south-
west; and while it prevails from the southwest in
April and May, there is a considerable amount of
east and northeast wind over the surface of the land.
Here the westerly winds are warm and moist; the
easterly winds are dry and indicative of unsettled
weather.^ In the LTpper Peninsula, the prevailing
northwest winds of the summer season, in the area
adjacent to Lake Superior, bring abundant rains
that, as C. F. Schneider observed years ago, keep
summer pastures green and luxuriant and warrant
belief in the future of this region as a dairy and
live-stock country.

'July 29, 1917—2 P.M.— at Marquette the temperature
was 105 degrees F. and the wind blowing at the rate of
twenty-four miles an I'oiir from the Son* Invest. July 28-30,
1916, the temperature ranged from 100 to 101 degrees F.
(maximum) and the wind's maximum velocity was 16.24
and 28 miles an hour.

^ Schneider in "Surface Geology of Michigan," 38.

CHAPTER II

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS ON THE SETTLEMENT

OF MICHIGAN

In the discussion of the soils of Michigan, it
should be understood at the outset that there is
little definite knowledge concerning them. The so-
called "soil survey" is as yet only in its incipieney.
Certain areas, a decade or more ago, were investigated
by the United States Bureau of Soils. These lie
in the counties of Allegan, Cass, Genesee, and
Wexford ; whilst others are adjacent to Owosso,
Alma, Saginaw, Oxford and Munising. More re-
cently, through a cooperative arrangement between
the Bureau of Soils and the Michigan Agricultural
College, detailed surveys have been carried on in the
counties of Calhoun and Berrien; while reconnais-
sance work has proceeded in the area adjacent to
Saginaw Bay, the "Thumb" district east of it, and
the southeastern portion of the State. At present
(August, 1921), work is in progress in St. Joseph
and Ottawa counties in the Lower Peninsula, and
in Ontonagon County in the Upper Peninsula. The
earlier surveys are not now regarded, either by the
United States Bureau of Soils or the Department

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 33

of Soils of the Michigan Agricultural College, as
meeting present standards and it is proposed to re-
work them.

In addition to the soil surveys just adverted to,
a reconnaissance survey of the soils of the State,
intended primarily to determine their glacial origin
and resulting characteristics, has been carried for-
ward by the Michigan Geological Survey under the
immediate direction of Frank Leverett. The manu-
script soil maps of this survey relate to twenty-nine
counties,^ and are on file in the office of the State

^ The list of counties and areas surveyed are as follows :
County Square miles survej'ed:

Alcona 680

Alpena 579

Antrim 478

Benzie 319

Cliarlevoix 414.4

Cheboygan 724

Clare " 569

Crawford 561 .66

Emmet 467.5

Grand Traverse 458

Iosco 553

Isabella 576

Kalkaska 561

Lake 571

Leelanau 342.6

Manistee 540

Mason 493

Mecosta 565.5

Missaukee 567

Montmorency 555.5

Newaygo 847

Oceana 539

Ogemaw 572

Osceola 574

34 RURAL iM WHIG AN

Geologist at Lansing. They cover a total of 15,-
970.66 square miles, or 10,221,232.4 acres. In addi-
tion to the foregoing surveys, thirty "quadrangles"
in the Lower Peninsula have been surveyed by the
same agency, the manuscript maps of which are
on fde in the office of the State Geologist. These
quadrangles aggregate approximately 6,600 square
miles, or 4,224.000 acres. A similar survey of the
Upper Peninsula covers 16,660 square miles, or
10,662,400 acres, a manuscript map of which has
also been prepared by Leverett. The total of these
items is 38,630.66 square miles, or 25,107,622.4
acres, which Leverett has mapped thus for the Geo-
logical Survey of ]\'richigan. Earlier surveys con-
ducted by the State Geological Survey cover Huron,
Sanilac, Wayne and Monroe counties; while certain
quadrangles have been mapped by the United States
Geological Survey.^ (See Fig. 2.) These surveys,
it is to be understood, do not primarily relate to the
agricultural possibilities of the soil. As yet no sur-
\ey seems to contemplate a complete inventory or
land classification, made with regard to all factors

County Square miles surveyed:

Oscoda .570.5

Otsego 522

Presque Isle 66!)

Eoscommon 530

Wexford 572

Total, 15,970.66 square miles. 10.221,222.4 acres. — From
statement by State Geolooist, Aug. 16, 1921.

^ This statement is based on data submitted by the United
States Bureau of Soils, the Department of Soils of the
Michigan Agricultural College, and the State G-eologist.

Fig. 2. Progress of soil-mapping in Michigan.

Diagonal lines: Mapped by United States Bureau of Soils.
Vertical lines: Mapped by' United States Geological Survey.
Horizontal lines: flapped by ]\Iicliigan Geological Survey.
Dotted lines: Mapped by Frank Leverett.

of) RDRAL MICHIGAN

that may affect the desirability of a given tract of
Jand for agricultural purposes or rural life.

The land surface of Michigan was relatively very
accessible to settlement, but outside opinion regard-
ing its quality was not in al] cases flattering. The
most notorious instance of this unfavorable opinion
is contained in the report of the United States
surveyors, in charge of General Tiffin, who were
expected to locate some two million acres of land
in Michigan as bounty for the soldiers of the War
of 1813. The report of this survey represents the
southern portion of the Lower Peninsula as a suc-
cession of lakes, swamps and marshes, between which
was "a poor, barren, sandy land, on which scarcely
any vegetation grows, except very small scrubby oak.
In many places that part which may be called dry
land is composed of little short sand hills forming
a kind of deep basin, the bottom of many of which
are composed of a marsh similar to those above
described." General Tiffin closes his observations
with the pronouncement that not more than one acre
in one hundred — if in one thousand — would admit
of cultivation.^ This was an opinion of 1815. Mrs.
jS[ancy B. White, recalling her departure from New
York for IMichigan in 1857, says her parents thought
"we could hardly have made a poorer selection; we
would have fever, and ague, and mosquitoes to con-
tend with besides other hardships too numerous to
mention." -

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XVIII, 660.
^Ihid., XXII, 240.

TEE ISFLUE^'CE OF SOILS 37

Detroit was said to be "foimded in an ancient
mudhole." ^ The road from Detroit to Dearborn,
says William C. Hoyt, "was the worst probably over
which man and beast ever traveled." A. L. Driggs
describes Michigan in 1835 as "a howling wilderness."
There were fact and fancy in these allusions to the
Michigan of the pioneer; and it was only gradually
that surveyors, travelers and settlers made the true
character of the country known. Indeed, even today,
in the absence of any comprehensive soil survey
and classification, there is much ignorance of surface
conditions in the less developed areas of the State;
and this ignorance has been taken advantage of in
full measure by dishonest land sharks both within
and without the State, to the detriment of its good
reputation.

There is in reality extraordinary variation in
soil, as well as climatic conditions throughout the
two peninsulas. Clays, sands, gravels, loams al-
ternate with muck and marsh lands, with lakes and
swamps, in some localities within very narrow limits,
so that a description applicable to one parcel of
land would be wholly inapplicable to an adjacent
tract. With this condition, the repeated glaciation
of the region within the Great Lakes has had much
to do. Glaciation has created morainic ridges and
eskers, usually of sand and gravel, drumlins and
kames and ancient lake beaches, once wave-swept
but now many miles inland, producing at the same
time deposits of lake clays occasionally of great

^Ibid., y, 01.

59711

38 RURAL MICiriGAN

depth. It lias produced .sandy "outwash aprons''
overlying soil of great agricultural value. It
lias created depressions, where surface water accu-
mulates, giving soils of all grades of moisture, de-
posits of muck and peat, marshes, swamps and
lakes. These conditions are characteristic of Mich-
igan in a very high degree, and, as relates to the
distribution of surface waters, more so in the early
period of settlement than at present. Drainage
and the removal of the forest cover have changed
wet and subaqueous soils into arable land of good
agricultural possil)ilities. On the other hand, the
removal of forest from the surface of the land, par-
ticularly from the uplands, and the cultivation of
the soil, have favored denudation and erosion. In
consequence, hill-tops have become barren, hill-sides
have worn away, their surface soils have been re-
moved to the adjacent low grounds or carried away
in the run-off into the water-courses and permanently
removed, to the ultimate impoverishment of the land
and its abandonment for the uses of tillage.

Commonly tlie richer soils bore a dense forest of
hardwoods ; maples, elms, ash, beach, oaks, and hick-
ories. White and Norway pines, spruce and balsam
grew on the sandy uplands. Sometimes the situa-
tion was reversed, as where, in the Upper Peninsula,
white pines flourished on the clays of southern On-
tonagon County and hardwoods on the sands of the
Seney swamp country. Sometimes tall pines towered
above the oaks and maples in the same half-acre, as
along t1ie Thornapple and the Maple rivers. Cedars

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 39

and tamaracks stood in the swamps. Nut-bearing
trees were at home in the southern peninsula and
in the southern portion of the northern peninsula.
Enormous tulip-trees, or whitewood, caused the first
settlers great trouble in becoming rid of them. Com-
pensation came with the wild fruits and berries that
throve from Point Keweenaw to the southernmost
coimties.

The first settlers of these same southern counties
found attractive oak openings, — attractive because
of their natural beauty and because they relieved the
pioneer of the burden of deforesting the land.
"Scales' Prairie," says Charles A. Weissert, "was
a beautiful stretch of country about sixty acres in
extent, surrounded like the banks of a lake with a
hiffh forest and dotted with occasional islands of
burr oak trees which rose above grass six feet tall
that undulated in long billows before the breeze.
Into this stretch of open land deer and bear often
wandered, and thousands of flowers attracted swarms
of wild bees.'' ^ To Bela Hubbard the oak openings
of Oakland County apjieared as "a majestic or-
chard of oaks and hitkories varied by small prairies,
grassy lawns and clear lakes." ^ About Manchester,
L. D. Watkins found white, red and yellow pine, and
burr oaks, with hickory and a few scrub oaks on
the sand hills.^

The pioneers are constantly recurring to the charm

'"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 665.
'Ihifl.. 44!).
^Ibid., XXII, 264.

40 RURAL iMICEIGAN

of these miniature prairies set down in the Michigan
wilderness. By preference they established their
farmsteads on them rather than essay the prodigious
labor of creating a new clearing for themselves. The
origin of these treeless tracts is not beyond question.
Peculiarities of the soil may have caused some of
them. J. A. Jeffery, formerly professor of soils at
the Michigan Agricultural College, has remarked
concerning one such prairie not far from Mies that
it would not grow clover or wheat beyond a very light
yield until after being cropped with rye and cow-
peas, the rye cut off and the cowpeas turned under,
when a normal clover crop was reported to have been
secured. In some instances the soil of these open-
ings is said to have been light, in other cases very
good. There is much testimony that annual burn-
ings carried on by the Indians in connection with
their hunting operations were the chief reason for the
existence of the oak openings or prairies. So far
as known, they do not exist in the Upper Peninsula
nor in the northern area of the Lower Peninsula.
Elsewhere the clearing of the land has made their
extent and location a matter of tradition, but they
were undoubtedly very numerous and in the aggre-
gate quite extensive. One finds references to them
in most southern counties. They supplied pasture for
the wild deer and for the live-stock of the settlers.
With marsh-grass, they afforded winter forage.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 41

THE LOWER PENINSULA

In the Lower Peninsula, agriculture began in the
southern area adjacent to Lake Erie and the water-
way connecting Lake Erie with Lake Huron. Here
the elevation was normally low with poor drainage.
The soils, composed mainly of glacial and lake clays,
retained moisture with extreme tenacity, but with
proper drainage became highly productive. The
finely divided lake clays about Detroit, if excellent
for truck-gardening, were also poor road material;
and the narratives of the pioneers are replete with
accounts of harrowing and disastrous experiences in
their progress from the metropolis westward. In
hot dry weather, these clays became hard and ex-
tremely difficult to manage; yet they produced a
primeval forest of elm, soft maple, basswood and
black ash with some beech, hard maple, oak and
whitewood on the higher and better drained por-
tions. Under drainage, they have yielded wheat,
corn, oats and hay and sugar-beets. Along the rivers
were silt soils, very fertile but suffering from over-
flow, furnishing luxuriant meadow grasses and a
timber growth of ash, basswood, elm, walnut and
butternut, willow, cottonwood and other varieties of
trees. In the depressions were muck soils, and back
from the shore were sandy lake-beds with some loams,
as, for example, in the Pontiac area and in Northville
and Plymouth townships of Wayne County.

In Monroe County to the southward, the south-

42 RURAL MICHIGAN

easternmost county of the State, the surface was un-
usually level save where broken by old lake beaches
or other glacial formations, here an Jinconspicuous
feature of the landscape, or where scoured by water-
courses. The clays have yielded well of wheat, oats
and corn, and their richness in calcium carbonate
derived from decomposed limestone within the
county and to the northward, has adapted the sec-
tion to fruit-culture, particularly the grape. Grapes
grew wild here in great abundance and of great
size, vines being mentioned six and eight inches in
diameter.^ Hence came the name of the most south-
easterly river in Michigan, the "Raisin," the scene
of a military tragedy in the War of 1812, along
whose marshy shores dwelt many French inhabitants
a century ago. The sands produced potatoes, beans
and buckwheat, with record yields of squashes. The
State Geologist has also dwelt on the possibilities
of Monroe County for sweet potatoes and sugar-beets,
but as yet there is little to chronicle under this head.
The marshes contributed cranberries, celery and
peppermint, while from Monroe plantings of wild
rice have been sent as far as the lakes of the Kewee-
naw Peninsula in the far north. The forest cover
resembled that of Wayne County, with the addition
of a notable belt of hickory in Milan Township.

From this coastal area population moved west and
northwest into the interior of the territory and,
after 1837, the State. It passed beyond the ancient

' See map of the surface formations pf the southern pen-
insula of Michigan.

TEE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 43

sandy lal^e-bed west of this clay area adjacent to
the shore, into the bowlder clay region of Wash-
tenaw and Oakland counties, resulting in the found-
ing of Pontiac in 1818 at an elevation of some 350
feet above the level of Lake Erie, and at Ann Arbor
in 1824, at an elevation of 300 feet above the same
datum. Adrian in Lenawee County was established
on soil described as that of a sandy lake-bed but
with bowlder clay in the vicinity, in 1825, at an
elevation of less than 250 feet above Lake Erie.
Moving westward from this point, the settlers en-
countered a variety of soil conditions : morainic soils
predominating in Hillsdale County, bowlder clay in
Branch County with some sandy lake-beds; outwash
plains in St. Joseph County, found again in Cass
County with morainic soils, again terminating in
the variegated soils of Berrien County and the dunes
of the Lake Michigan shore. In this southern tier
of counties, settlement took place at Coldwater, plat-
ted as a village in 1832, while Niles, well to the
westward but favorably situated on the St. Joseph
River, had already come into existence in 1829. In
the second tier of counties, settlement reached
Jackson in 1829, Battle Creek in 1831, and Kala-
mazoo whose site was selected in 1829. In Jackson
County there are considerable outwash plains, which
soil also predominates in the counties to the west-
ward as far as Lake Michigan. As settlement moved
westward from Ann Arbor through this second tier
of counties, the elevation of the land rose steadily,
Jackson standing some 60 feet higher than Ann

44 RURAL MICHIGAN

Arbor. There is a descent of 120 feet to Battle
Creek, and an additional descent of 50 feet to
Kalamazoo. Tliis may serve to illustrate some ele-
mental facts in the settlement of the oldest agri-
cultural counties of the Lower Peninsula.

Settlement moved northwesterly from the head of
Lake Erie and its connecting waters as early as due
westerly. Settlement reached Genesee County some
six years after the founding of Pontiac to the south-
east. Clinton County was reached nearly as soon,
while Louis Campau took up land on the site of
Grand Eapids in 1831. With reference to the soil
in this area, there is lake clay west of Lake St.
Clair, bowlder clay, outwash plains and moraine for-
mations in Livingston County, bowlder clay again in
central Ingham County with other soil types al-
ready noted surrounding it. ]\Ioraines and bowlder
clay belts largely cover Eaton County, while moraines
predominate in Barry County, with some outwash
plains in the west and south. Finally, in Allegan
County on the Lake Michigan shore, a mixture of
soil types occurs. A similar condition obtains in
Ottawa County to the northward, with a small por-
tion of it represented as bowlder clay. Moraines are
an important feature of the soil surface of Kent
Coimty, with lake-bed sand adjoining Grand River,
bowlder clay southeast and northeast of Grand
Eapids, and outwash plains north and south of it.
Zones of bowlder clay and of sand pass through
Ionia, Clinton and Shiawassee counties, interspersed
with morainic formations, which continue i]ito

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 45

Genesee County with lake clay in the vicinity of
Flint. Lapeer County has bowlder clay, lake clay,
moraines and swamp lauds, returning again to lake
clay in the river area of St. Clair County. The
elevations in this second and third tier of counties
do not run quite so high as those to the southward,
Grand Eapids standing at approximately 50 feet
above Lake Michigan, Flint 135 feet above Lake
Huron, Lapeer more than 100 feet higher, St. Johns
less than 200 feet, and Charlotte nearly 350 feet
above the same datum.

Along the shore of "The Thumb" east of Saginaw
Bay is a belt of lake clay and, farther back, another
belt of sand, with areas of bowlder clay and morainal
soils. A wide and deep bed of lake clay surrounds
Saginaw Br.y and projects itself southwestward
through Saginaw and Gratiot counties. Moraines
and dunes appear here and there in this region. This
area has a very low elevation above Saginaw Bay,
and this fact, together with the character of its soil
and topography, rendered the whole district one of
the wettest in the State before cultivation and ar-
tificial drainage made it one of the most productive.
The normal fertility of the clay areas is reinforced
by the frequent inundation of parts of the region.

North of this Saginaw Bay-Grand Eiver section
lies a country in which to the Straits of Mackinac
sandy soil predominates, although it is at points
interspersed with clay. It is the area in which the
glacial drift lies deepest and in which the morainal
elevations are the highest. Cadillac stands at more

46 RURAL MICHIGAN

than 700 feet above the level of Lake Michigan and
Lake Huron, Grayling at 550 feet, and Roscommon
nearly the same, all in the heart of this region. Al-
though Saginaw and Bay City, at the southern edge
of this northern half of the Lower Peninsula, had
received settlers before Michigan became a state,
much of the region remained unoccupied until the
period subsequent to the Civil War, when the removal
of much of the timber from the southern counties
compelled recourse to the vast forests beyond
Saginaw Bay and Grand Biver. This was the native
habitat of the white pine, crowded off the richer
soils to the southward by the more aggressive hard-
woods. The demand for its forest resources brought
an extension of railroad facilities into this section
and of settlement ; but with the steady deforestation
of the region, millions of its acres became and have
remained non-productive through defects of soil for
normal agriculture, and for many of its counties
the census of 1920 shows a positive decline in popu-
lation. Thus Kalkaska County, which had 8,097
inhabitants in 1910, reduced its population to 5,577
in 1920. Alpena County returned 19,965 persons
in 1910, and 17,869 a decade later. Oscoda County
fell from 2,027 to 1,783.^ A notable decline oc-
curred in Manistee County whose census returns in-
dicated a loss of 5,799 inhabitants.

As illustrative of the natural vegetation of this
region, the results of a study undertaken in 1902
by B. E. Livingston may be summarized, covering

'Preliminary Announcement of Population, Aug. 14, 1920,

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 47

an area of some 600 square miles in Eoscommon
and Crawford counties, now comprised largely in
the State's forests adjacent to Houghton Lake and
Higgins Lake.^ Moraines and outwash plains, sandy
in composition, mainly characterize the district.
There are small areas of swamp in the depressions
and of clay soil. At some other points the clay
underlies the sandy outwash of the surface, in some
places at considerable depth. On the uplands were
found the hardwood type; the white pine; the iSTor-
way pine; the jack pine; and on the lowlands ap-
peared the open meadow type; the tamarack-arbor-
vitae and the mixed type. This region had been
deforested and suffered much from fire, but where
the soil and moisture conditions were favorable, Liv-
ingston found evidence that the white and Norway
pines were reproducing themselves, and orchards
promised well on the ridges and sandy loams. He
observed, as others have done, that the frequent burn-
ing of the humus had impoverished the soil and by
so much retarded its development for agricultural
and sylvicultural purposes. His opinion regarding
the future of the region was that, "on the uplands
most of the rlifferent kinds of soil have been tested
for agriculture, the clay hills and the clay plains,
both of comparatively small extent, make excellent
farming lands. The gravelly and loamy sand of most
of the ridges is easily tilled, and, with enough care,

^ Rept. of State Bd. Geol. Survey of Mich., for the year
190.3: Lansing. l^Oo: Off. Cf. Leverett and Taylor: "The
Pleistocene of Indiana and Michigan."

48 RURAL MICHIGAN

yields good crops, but the soil is too light, and the
amount of energy necessarily expended in cultivation
is much greater than in heavier soils. On the worst
sand plains, originally covered with very open stands
of jack pine and scarlet oak, tillage is almost out of
the question. With constant manuring and cultiva-
tion this sand can be held in place and made to pro-
duce fair crops, but the expense, in time and energy,
if not actually in money, make such crops cost more
than they will actually bring on the market. Some
of this land is so situated that irrigation would be
possible, and this may sometime become a practical
line of investment. The grazing of cattle on the
Norway and jack pine plains is practicable, and is
being carried out successfully by several holders in
Roscommon County. Several forms of bunch grass
and the shade of the scrubby oaks and pines are
the valuable features. But it requires many acres
for a few cattle, and it is doubtful whether the small
land-holder can ever accomplish much in this direc-
tion. The swamps which are abundant in the region,
would all make excellent garden land if properly
cleared and drained."

THE UPPER PENINSULA

That part of the Upper Peninsula lying east of
the latitude of Marquette is relatively flat and, be-
cause of insufficient natural drainage, contains much
land unfit for agriculture. Much of it is underlain
with limestone, and where other conditions are favor-

THE IXFLUEXCE OF SOILS 49

able, as southeast of Marquette and adjacent to Big
Bay de Noc, contains some excellent agricultural
land. The extreme eastern portion adjacent to Sault
Ste. Marie is composed mainly of heavy clay soil,
which has for years been one of the best hay-pro-
ducing sections of the State. Near the shore of
Lake Superior and south of Marquette are sandy
districts less suited or quite unfit for agriculture,
although, near the lake, excellent fur fruit. The
western half of the Peninsula contains much rugged
country, with outcrops of bed rock. In Ontonagon
County and portions of Houghton and Gogebic
counties are districts of deep clay soil, some of it
undoubtedly potentially the most productive in the
State, where clover grows wild in remarkable luxuri-
ance, and where yields of potatoes exceeding five
hundred bushels an acre have been secured. By a
curious inversion, white pines grow on these "Ewen
clays"' and hardwoods appear on tlie "Seney sands''
east of Marquette, and do extremely well in both
cases. In the west is the area of the metamorphic
rocks containing iron and copper, with lesser quan-
tities of gold, silver, graphite and marble. The
eastern section of the Peninsula is a region of strati-
fied limestones, sandstones and shales, in places lying
so close to the surface as to make tillage difficult
or impossible, although, as in the Big Bay de N"oc
section north of Point Detour, a vigorous hardwood
forest, especially of hard maple, once clung to the
surface and, where permitted so to do, is reprodiicing
itself today. Here, alone in the Upper Peninsula,

50 RURAL MICHIGAN

SO far as is known, the butternut grows wild in
abundance, as does the wild cherry, indicative of
conditions favorable to the domesticated types.

It is quite impossible to generalize concerning
soil conditions in the northern peninsula, since fre-
quently within a very few miles one traverses vary-
ing types of soil. On the copper range, for example,
areas of rugged country, with naked outcrops of
greenstone, pass quickly into fertile valleys of clay
soil, of lake sand, or of swamp. The general im-
pression of the whole region gained from a cursory
journey by railroad from Sault Ste. Marie to Iron-
wood, is that of a barren undeveloped land, whereas,
some miles off the line areas of great natural fertility
exist and in some instances (as in the "Green (Tar-
den" district southeast of Marquette, in the Ford
Eiver country, and on the "Garden" peninsula) pre-
sents a well-established and productive agriculture.

If the geology and topography of the eastern and
western sections of the northern peninsula present
contrasts to each other, so does their normal ele-
vation. Thus Newberry and McMillan, in the heart
of this eastern area, have an elevation above Lake
Superior of 154 and 123 feet respectively. To the
westward, Chatham, where an experiment station
of the Michigan Agricultural College is located, is
265 feet above the same datum. But when the Mar-
quette iron range is reached, at the eastern edge of
the high western table-land, Negaunee stands from
763 to 817 feet above Lake Superior, and Ishpeming
close by 868 feet at the maximum recorded point.

THE INFLUENCE OF ^01 LS 51

Continuing westward, ]\Iichigammc and Sidnaw,
with an elevation of 979 and 763 feet, illustrate the
greatly increased altitude of the Avestern half of
the Peninsula, which continues to Ironwood in the
extreme west, whose elevation ahove Lake Superior
is about 900 feet ; along the height of the Copper
Range on the Keweenaw peninsula, where Calumet
is more than 600 feet above the same lake; and
far to the southward, where Iron Mountain has
nearly as great an elevation above the level of Lake
Michigan.^

It is in this western area that the maximum ele-
vation in the State is reached in the Porcupine
Mountains (2,023 feet above sea-level). Lake ports,
like Marquette, Munising, Houghton, Hancock,
Escanaba, Gladstone, and ]\Ianistique, have, of
course, a much lower altitude than interior points
such as have been designated here. It is also strik-
ing that the height of land in the Upper Peninsula
is generally much closer to Lake Superior than to
the lakes on its southern shore, so that the streams
flowing into Lake Superior are usually very short
and rapid, and carry a small volume of water. Even
so, small streams, like the Carp, the Au Train and
Dead River, have had their water-powers utilized
quite to their full capacity.

It was under these conditions of soil and eleva-
tion that settlement in the Upper Peninsula took

' These altitudes are derived from the "Dictionary of Al-
titudes," puhlished by the U. S. Geol. Survey, where the
datum is sea-level.

52 RURAL MICHIGAN

place. With the exception of old to^\^ls, like St.
Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie, dating from the French
period, it set in much later in the northern penin-
sula than in the southern. ISTational sovereignty was
not asserted here until 1820, and the full extinction
of the Indian title came a generation later. Mining,
rather than agriculture, attracted the first settlers
after the fur traders; and mining awaited the elimi-
nation of the Indian title to the land and the geo-
logical and linear survey of the region by the State
and the United States. By 1845 mining was defi-
nitely under way on the copper range in what is
now Keweenaw County, and a year or so later on
the Marquette iron range about Negaunee and
Ishpeming. Then the immense forest resources of
the Peninsula attracted still other settlers. From
those who came to the district as miners and lum-
bermen, numbers eventually turned to agriculture,
notably so among the Finns. At last, steps are
being definitely taken to attract and place on the
undeveloped lands those who will be farmers from
the outset. Leverett estimates the tillable lands
of the Upper Peninsula at 65 per cent of the total.
Some regard this as over-optimistic; but in any
case, the great variation in the character of the soil
renders it important that great care should be taken
to select good agricultural lands, of which there are
an abundance, since the heavy snows maintained
for five or six months in the year represent a suffi-
cient handicap without adverse soil conditions to
contend with. Because of the ample amount of

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 53

forage, wild and domesticated, produced on the vast
iintilled areas of the Peninsula^ there has been a
large increase in the acreage devoted to grazing.
Western sheep have been brought hither in consid-
erable numbers during seasons of drought on the
western ranges. It is presumed that these grazing
lands will eventually come under cultivation.

MUCK-LANDS

It has been estimated that formerly one-seventh
of the surface of Michigan was covered with swamps
and marshes comprising much soil that is described
as muck and peat.^ There was thus a certain meas-
ure of truth in the early unfavorable opinions re-
garding the unsuitability of large tracts for agri-
culture. These muck-lands were distributed quite
uniformly throughout the two peninsulas, more
commonly in inter-morainal depressions and along
the waterways, where natural drainage was insuffi-
cient.' The largest such area in the State is in
the northern peninsula, extending east and west
between Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie (though well
within these limits) and filling in much of the terri-
tory between Lake Superior on the north and Lakes
Huron and Michigan on the south. There are con-
siderable areas of excellent tillable lands in this por-
tion of the Peninsula, but there are larger areas
which must await drainage and careful husbandry

'Davis: "Peat"; Mich. Geol. Survey, 1907, p. 289.
Ubid., Plates 16 and 17.

54 RURAL MICHIGAN

to yield farm crops. The presence of this great
tract of wet land is primarily due to the formation
of ledges of rock near the lake shore which inter-
fere with river drainage. Throughout the northern
section of the State, lower temperatures and the
normal absence of hot drying winds retard evapora-
tion and decomposition of peat-forming material.
p]ventually these peat deposits may become of great
commercial importance as fuel. Already a begin-
ning has been made in the manufacture of fer-
tilizer. In the northern peninsula little attention
has been given to the extensive muck-lands of the
district, since there remain large areas of as yet
undeveloped cut-over lands. Celery of excellent
quality but not of a large quantity has for some
years been marketed from the region of the Taqua-
menon swamp east of Newberry. Here the soil is
reported to be clay of considerable depth. To the
westward, on the Seney swamp experiments have
been undertaken to ascertain the practicability of
here growing mint and cereals. The soil has a sub-
stratum of sand. Along the Sturgeon River in
southern Houghton County an extensive drainage
operation was rendered abortive, it is said, because
of the non-reduction of the vegetable deposits to a
condition suitable for plant growth. More recently
attempts have been made to convert these deposits
into fertilizer.

In the southern peninsula, large areas of muck-
lands are now under cultivation. The celery and
mint production on these lands in the southwestern

THE INFLUEXCE OF SOILS 55

counties has become very well known. ^ In other
districts corn has done very well, and some muck-

^ Davis gives tlie following analysis of muck soil used in
the growing of celery: Kalamazoo soil:

Sand and silicates 19.16

Alumina 1.40

Oxide of iron 3.it4 6.9

Lime, Magnesia, Potash, Soda 7.62

Sulfuric acid 1.31

Phosphoric acid 88

Carbonic acid 1.95

Organic matter containing 2.53 nitrogen ..63.76

Water 6.51

Grand Haven celery soil (Lower Peninsula)

Parts per 100:

Sand and silicates 24.09

Alumina 1.71

Oxide of iron 3.52

Lime 5.02

Alagnesia 62

Potash 20

Soda 33

Sulfuric acid L04

Pliosphoric acid fi9

Carbonic acid 1.05

Organic matter containing 2.32 nitrogen ..61.73

Water 10.85

Newberry celery soil: Parts per 100:

Sand and silicates 24.56

Alumina 2.21

Oxide of iron 1 -30

Lime 4.18

Magnesia 75

Potasli 42

Soda 40

Sulfuric acid 67

Phosphoric acid 46

Carbonic acid 1.^0

Organic matter, containing 1.75 nitrogen ..63.75
Water 7.31

—Davis: "Peat," 293.

56 RURAL MICHIGAN

farm enthusiasts urge that these lands are avail-
able for general farming without discrimination ;
but experience seems to have demonstrated that
sugar-beets, especially as regards sugar-content, are
not adapted to such soils.

The farmers on muck-lands are well organized
with a view to the' improvement of methods through
their collective experience. Eventually these muck-
lands, once regarded as a liability, may become an
economic asset of great value, because of the fuel,
the fertilizer and the crops which they produce,
when the depletion of the resources of the land at
present suffering exploitation, brings the bogs,
swamps and marshes within the margin of eco-
nomical production.

UNDERGROUND WATER

Unlike some districts of the United States and
Canada, there are no important, if any, portions
of the State that are not supplied with underground
water, usually of a chemical composition and iem-
perature rendering it at once serviceable to man
and beast. There are, indeed, few counties from
Keweenaw in the extreme north, to Monroe and
•Berrien at the extreme southeast and southwest cor-
ners of the Lower Peninsula, in which artesian wells
and springs do not occur, and at some points in
great abundance. Artesian wells are usually se-
cured at depths of less than one hundred feet, fre-
quently much less than this. The Marshall sand-

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 57

stone is a famous reservoir of artesian waters. The
glacial drift being deep over most of the southern
peninsula, springs commonly emerge at the base of
an ancient lake beach or from the drift along a
water-course or lake shore. One sometimes finds
them debouching from the bed rock, as in the case
of those which flow in great profusion out of the
limestone bordering the An Train near Lake Su-
perior. In country adjacent to the Maple River
in Gratiot County, there are few farms which do
not have their ready flow of water from wells sunk
in the covering clay. Along the eastern and west-
ern shore-lines of the southern peninsula, artesian
wells are abundant. At Alma in 1897 a calcula-
tion made by a student in Alma College was to
the effect that the seventy-two wells in the place
were producing 222 times as much water as the
people were using. Indeed, in seasons of drought
a more conservative method of utilizing these sub-
terranean waters might better serve the private and
public welfare. The geology and topography of
the State are favorable to their formation, but in
some localities, at least, they are demonstrably not
inexhaustible. In many sections they are an ex-
tremely convenient source of a rural water supply,
and are much i)rized even in urban communities.
Fortunately, unlike some other natural resources,
nature replenishes the depleted stocks of under-
ground waters, except in the case of some springs
whicli depend immediately on surface conditions,
and whicli have become extinct with the removal

58 RURAL MICIUaAN

of the forest cover or with artificial surface drain-
age.

In the Upper Peninsula, the dip of the paleozoic
rocks in the eastern portion of the district is from
north to south, the divide, as already stated, being
rather close to Lake Superior. This affords condi-
tions favorable to artesian wells along the southern
zone approaching the shore of Lake Michigan; and,
in fact, such wells have been found at or near
Menominee, Escanaba, Gladstone, Manistique, and
St. Ignace, at Newberry in the Taquamenon swamp
area, and at Ewen, in Ontonagon County, but, so
far as is known, not near the Lake Superior shore,
although an attempt was made to secure such a
well at Grand Marais. A. C. Lane, State Geologist
in 1903, considered portions of the Lake Superior
shore west of Marquette, and west of the copper
range, favorable to such wells, but in the main this
region is free from them. On the copper range
itself and the iron ranges, the geologic structure is
unfavorable to their existence. At some points, as
along the bluffs facing Portage Lake on the Kewee-
naw Peninsula, springs are abundant and of ample
flow.^

' For analvses of waters from wells throughout the State,
see the Report of the State Bd. of Geol. Survey for 1903,
which also contains much data in regard to the water sup-
ply of the State. Other data may be found in other reports
of the Geol. Survey and in special "Water Supply Papers,"

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 59

VEGETATION AX INDICATOR OF SOILS

An idea of the natural productivity of the soil
is commonly trained from the character of the vege-
tation, especially forest growth, found naturally
upon it. The early settlers of Michigan have in
numerous instances left accounts of the primeval
vegetation which they encountered as they pressed
into the wilderness; and special studies have from
time to time appeared in the publications of the
State Geological and Biological Survey, the Uni-
versity of Michigan and elsewhere. How the fertile
clay soil about the site of Detroit brought forth
abundantly the native fruits of the earth is de-
scribed in glowing terms by the founder of the city.
Of the Detroit Eiver, "the banks," writes Cadillac,
"are so many vast meadows where the freshness
of these beautiful streams keeps the grass always
green. These same meadows are fringed with long
and broad avenues of fruit-trees which have never
felt the careful hand of the watchful gardener; and
fruit-trees, young and old, droop under the weight
and multitude of their fruit, and bend their
branches toward the fertile soil which has produced
them. In this soil so fertile, the ambitious vine
which has not yet wept under the knife of the in-
dustrious vine-dresser, forms a thick roof with its
broad leaves and its heavy clusters over the head of
whatever it twines round, whicli it often stifles by
embracing it too closely. The woods are of six

GO RURAL MICHIGAN

kinds: Walnut trees, white oaks, red, bastard ash,
ivy, white wood trees and cotton wood trees. But
these same trees are as straight as arrows without
knots, and almost without branches except near the
top, and of enormous size and height."

Of the country about tlie headwaters of the
Eaisin, Grand, Huron, Kalamazoo and St. Joseph
rivers in the vicinity of Manchester, Jackson County,
L. D. Watkins has left a description, which states
that on the openings "the principal timber trees
were white, red, yellow pine, and burr oak, hickory,
and a few scrub oaks on the sand hills. On the
border of streams, on the bluffs, and on the north
side of lakes we found a great many trees that in
regular order of distribution would be far to the
north or south of us. These strangers form with
our indigenous forests, a regular conglomerate of
the forests of three sections, each with its peculiar
forest grove. From the southward we have the Buck-
eye, white wood, honey locust, Kentucky coffee-tree,
mulberry, black haw and many others. From the
north came hemlock, pine and spruce."

Eaton County, says Edward W. Barber, "was a
region of great trees, beech and maple, elm and
ash, basswood and cherry, with scattered oak and
•black walnut, a thick undergrowth of saplings; and
where the land was low by some swamp or stream
wild grape-vines climbed to tall tree tops." ^ Harriet
Munro Longyear has described the forest growth of
Clinton County as she saw it in 1836. "Much to

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXII, 264.

'a.

o
a,

TUE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 61

their (her family's) surprise,"' she writes, ''they
found the state satisfactory. They liked the beauti-
ful forests with their beautiful trees. My father
was captivated at first sight, arguing that land
which supported such a growth of trees would
raise anything planted. There were the black wal-
nut, butternut, hickory, black cherry, bird's-eye
maple, curled maple, sugar maple, silver-leaf maple,
beech, basswood, sycamore, ironwood, white, black
and burr oaks; many being three and four feet in
diameter, and the tulip-tree with its beautiful
foliage and lovely blossoms." ^ A heavy growth of
hickory stood on the present site of East Saginaw.^
A letter "From a gentleman in the j\Iichigan Terri-
tory," writing under date of October 1, 1823, re-
marks "how incorrect are our ideas in New Eng-
land respecting this territory. I find the land (near
Detroit) rich and luxuriant, generally heavy tim-
bered, and interspersed with numerous streams of
good, pure water. It is a limestone country, and
level, but in few instances too much so for cultiva-
tion.^ The banks of the Thornapple were lined
with immense trees that darkened the waters with
their shade. Far over the current leaned the sil-
very trunks of sycamores equaled in height only
by elms that over-topped the surrounding forest.
Beneath the taller trees cedars darkened the gloom
of the woods. Scattered along the banks were pines,

^Ihid., XXXTX, .360.
-IhifJ., VII, 27.3.
Ubiil., VII, 74.

63 RURAL MICHIGAN

which seemed to realize that they were not natives
and were in strange company for they grew in
groups with branches fraternally interplaced." ^

Of the forest of the valley of the Shiawassee
Eiver, Bela Hubbard wrote: "The woods of this
part of ]\Iichigan comprised a very mingled growth.
Oaks, not gnarled and spreading, as in the more
open lands, but at once massive and tall, and of
centuries' age; the elm, that most graceful and
majestic of trees of any land; the tulip, or white-
wood, magnificent in size and height above even the
Titans of the forest; the broad and green-leaved
linden; the clean-bodied beech; the saccharine
maples, so superb in their autumnal dresses — dyed,
like Joseph's coat of many colors; the giant syca-
more, ghost-like with its white, naked limbs — these
are the common habitants of the forest. We have
reached, too, the latitude of the evergreens, which
from hence northward to the farthest limits, be-
came a distinguishing feature of the Michigan forest,
imparting to them a more wonderful variety and
majesty. Many a towering pine, 150 feet in height,
now began to lift its head above its fellow in-
habiters, green through youth and age, through \er-
dure and frost. In many places the desert gloom
was deepened by the dense and somber shade of
hemlocks, which bent their graceful spray to the
earth, and almost shut out the light of day. We
took the measure of a white oak that stood at the
border of the timbered land and the openings. It
'Ibid., XXXVIII, 664.

THE IXFLUENCE OF SOILS 63

was thirty-five feet in circumference, — nearly twelve
feet diameter." ^

Xorth of a line drawn from the southern end of
Lake Huron to the mouth of Grand Eiver was pre-
eminently the native habitat of the white pine in
Michigan. As already indicated, it was found south
of this line, most notably in the much-prized type
designated "cork" pine. The clays and loams of
the southern counties were mainly preempted by the
hardwoods, leaving the sandy plains and ridges of
the northern area to the pines and spruces. Even
in this section, where heavier soils appeared, the
hardwoods were likely to supersede the pines. Thus
Leverett notes a maple forest on the clay ridge at
the headwaters of the Manistee and Au Sable rivers.
On the other hand, the tendency of things to go
awry north of the Straits, which Lovejoy has noted,
is illustrated by the presence of white pine on the
deep heavy clays about Ewen in southern Ontonagon
County, while hardwoods flourish on the deep sands
near Shinglcton, where the soil augur of J. A. Jeffery,
Land Commissioner of the Duluth, South Shore and
Atlantic Eailway, showed sand down at least six
feet in depth. Spalding and Fernow describe the
distribution of the white pine in Michigan as follows :

"In Michigan the distribution of the species is
entirely controlled by the character of the soil, all
sandy areas being pinery proper, with large areas
of pure growth of several square miles in extent con-
taining only white pine. Occasionally, and especially

'Ibid., Ill, 192.

G4 RURAL MICHIGAN

on the driest and poorest sandy gravels, the red pine
[Pinus resinosa) associates and sometimes predomi-
nates, the white pine not representing more than ten
to twenty per cent of the number of trees. In the
]iortliern regions jack pine (Pinus divaricata) takes
the place of the red pine. The typical pine forest
on fresh sandy soils consists of wliite pine (-iS to 55
per cent of the dominant growth) mixed with red
pine (25 to 45 per cent) with scattering hemlock
(10 to 15 per cent) and occasional fir and hard-
woods. On moister sand with loam or clay subsoil
hemlock and hardwoods replace the pine, the red
pine vanishing entirely and the white pine occurring
only in large isolated individuals. Into wet or
swampy places the white pine also penetrates in
single individuals among arbor vita?, hackmatack,
and spruce. As the loam in the composition of the
soil increases, the hardwoods increase numerically,
the white pine occurring only in single individuals
and groups, and red pine and hemlock only occa-
sionally. Finally, the heavy clay soils toward the
southern range of the species give absolute preponder-
ance or exclusive possession to the hardwoods, mainly
sugar maple, yellow birch, and beech, although oc-
casionally white pine appears scattered, or even in
smaller or larger groups." ^

Of particular areas a number of special studies
have been carried on to ascertain the character and
correlation of the flora, fauna and physical condi-

^ Spalding and Fernow: "The Wliite Pine," Washington,
189!), 14; map facing p. 11.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 65

tions of the regions considered. Such a study has
been made, for example, of Wahiut Lake in Oakland
County and its environs, by C. A. Davis of Ann
Arbor.^ Of the flora of the highlands adjacent to
the Lake, Davis says : "The distribution of the trees,
now left only in woodlots, indicates that the forest
was formerly dense, and the trees of good size, the
kind of association found depending upon the type
of soil covering a given area. The heavier soils of
the moraines, the clay loams, where well watered,
were covered by the hard-maple and beech, associated
with red, white and burr oaks, basswood, walnut,
hop hornbeam and other trees of the mesophytic or
moist, drained soil type. In slightly drier areas
the hickories and white oak dominated, although in
strong mixture with some of the other kinds, and
on sandy loams this association passed into nearly
pure white oak, then to black or yellow oak and
white oak associations, and finally, on very dry sites,
becoming a forest, with black and scarlet oaks, of
the oak openings type, on such areas as the sandy,
glacio-fluvial deposits, both south and north of the
lake."

"One who has traveled about the southern penin-
sula of Michigan," writes B. E. Livingston, "can
hardly have failed to notice, for instance, the differ-
ing vegetations of the pine plains, the oak forest,
and the beach and maple forest. There is hardly a
single plant found common to the first and last of

' "A Biological Survey of Walnut Lake, Michigan,"
Lansing, 1908, p. 228.

GG RURAL MICHIGAN

■these groups." A group of plant species associated
together in a region under given conditions of cli-
mate, topograph}^ and soil, Livingston designates a
"plant society,"' and he proceeds to describe such
plant societies in Kent County. The soil is mainly
sandy. The topography is morainic, with outwash
aprons and glacial drainage valleys in the intervals
between the moraines. On tlie uplands, Livingston
discriminates five plant societies: (1) the beech-
maple society, comprising beech, sugar maple, en-
chanter's nightshade, wild licorice, woodnettle, cat-
nip, pokeweed, richweed, nightshade, and red-berried
elder; (2) the maple-elm agrimony society^ compris-
ing sugar maple, American and rock elms, agrimony,
spikenard, honewort, spice-bush, moonseed, black
snake-root, and wild black cherry; (3) the oak-
hickory society comprising white and red oak, shag-
bark and pignut hickory, false Solomon's seal, north-
ern bedstraw. Aster Icvvis, and paneled cornel; (4)
the oak-hazel society comprising the white and red
oak, Asier la'vis, A. macrophiilJus, New Jersey tea,
hazel, spurge, HeJiantlius occidentalis, Soiidago
ccesia, and hoary pea; (5) the oak-pine-sassafras
society, comprising the white and red oak, white
pine, sassafras, plantain-leaved everlasting, worm-
wood, sand burr spurge (narrow-leaved form),
huckleberry, lupine, sweet fern, bracken, and Solidago
nemoralis. Societies 3, 4 and 5 were found on steep
slopes where erosion is at present rapid, as along the
margins of the stream valleys and along old glacial

THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS G7

channels. Livingston thinks the character of the soil
made no difference here. All the heavy clay soil in
the southern townships^ whether rolling moraine or
till plain, he finds to have been occupied by the beech-
maple society (society 1). The oak-hickory society
was usually found on the light loamy soil, with transi-
tion zones between it and the beech-maple society
held by the maple-elm-agrimony society (No. 2).
The very sandy loam bordering the valley of the
Thornapple River was found to be occupied by the
oak-hazel and the oak-pine-sassafras societies.^ The
Grand Eapids sand plain was mainly covered with
societies 4 and 5. Hemlock was found in the north-
western section of the county in the beech-maple
society. "White pine existed in the northern portion
of the county. There were instances where white
pine grew in the beech-maple group. The inter-
mediate society 3 was found on the loamy soils and
on the dryer clay areas. On the lowlands plant so-
cieties are differentiated with reference to their posi-
tion in, or adjacent to, lakes, swamps, marshes,
springs and streams ; and the conclusion is reached
that the degree and character of soil-moisture, rather
than the type of soil itself, determines the distribu-
tion of plant species in this region, and presumably
elsewhere. It is suggested also that the recent
geologic history of the district may have had its in-
fluence. Since, as already known, tlio conditions of

' Rept. State Bd. Geol. Survey of Mich, for the year 1901 :
Lansing, 1902; p. 81.

68 RURAL MICHIGAN

soil, topography, surface drainage and soil-moisture
varies exceedingly throughout the two peninsulas, it is
not surprising that the natural flora and the products
of agriculture likewise vary even in the same locality.

CHAPTEE III
OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN

The possessors of the land came into a rich in-
heritance of natural wealth^ — of forest life, of edible
and medicinal plants, of aquatic animal and vegetable
organisms, of valuable rocks, minerals, metals and
fuels. The varied conditions of climate, topography,
soil and geological structure favored a great variety
of natural resources. This in turn has affected the
distribution of population and of industries. The
limitation of agriculture to restricted areas has per-
petuated undeveloped regions still open to explora-
tion and exploitation by the industrial pioneer.

THE FORESTS

To the first white settlers, the timber resources
of Michigan appeared inexhaustible, and they
fiercely assailed the forest as the chief hindrance to
a livelihood from the soil it encumbered. Yet the
))ioneer was peculiarly dependent on the forest for
the means of existence. It yielded building material
of every sort and of a quality that today is scarcely
to be obtained. It afforded shapes of every form
and quality for implements and tools, furniture and

70 RURAL MICfllGAN

equipage. Prostrate it served as fences, while its
succulent twigs saved hungry live-stock from winter
starvation. Erect it warded off the blasts of winter,
and it bestowed upon the surface of the land its
covering of humus which, of itself and through the
organic life it housed, fertilized the soil and rendered
sterile sands agriculturally productive^ retained soil-
moisture and retarded the run-off of rain and snow,
withheld erosion while preserving an even flow of
spring and stream. It sheltered bird and animal life
useful to man. It furnished primitive road material
in a land of swamps and marshes. It dripped de-
licious sweets and exuded essential gums and pitch.
It hived the bee whose honey made a substitute for
sugar. By the distribution of the moss carried on
its trunks, it became a primitive compass to guide
the wilderness wanderer, while out of its depths
weird music sighed or wailed in breeze or gale. At
the last its ashes evoked the soil into increased pro-
ductivity and contributed a primitive saleratus and
lye to the requirements of housewifery. Yet the
ubiquitous forest must go, if the more valuable con-
tri!)utions of tillage were to l)e gathered in. And
it did steadily disappear, and continues to withdraw,
it is estimated, at a rate which uncovers 100,000
acres of virgin soil each year.

Nevertheless, the forest in Michigan is still far
from extinct. An estimate of the United States
Forest Service (1919) put the standing timber in
Michigan .at 53,000,000,000 feet B. M., which ex-
perienced lumbermen regard as a conservative state-

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 71

ment. A recent war-time estimate by the Forest
Service (not very close, it is admitted) judged 58
per cent of the standing timber — then put at -iS^iOOO,-
000,000 feet B. M.— to be hardwoods, of which 10
per cent was believed to be oak, -45 maple, 15 beech,
10 birch, 7 elm, 6 basswood, and 2 per cent ash.
Of the total stand of softwoods, about 5 per cent
was estimated to be white pine, 1 Norway pine, 6
jack pine, 66.5 hemlock (formerly despised but now
precious because nothing better can be obtained at
a moderate price), 5 spruce, 8 tamarack, 6 white
cedar, and 2.5 per cent balsam fir.

The estimated forest area of Michigan is 3,500,000
acres. There is in reality no accurate estimate of
the amount of standing timber in Michigan. The
Bureau of Corporation's Report on the lumber in-
dustry (1914) put the total stand in i\Iichigan at
47,600,000,000 board feet, including 2,000,000,000
feet of white and Xorway pine, 15,000,000,000 feet
of hemlock, 5,200,000,000^ feet of other conifers, and
25,400,000,000 feet of hardwoods. The Bureau was
not assured of the correctness of its figures, and the
United States Forest Service, in its report on timber
depletion in response to a Senate Eesolution (1920),
was so doubtful of its estimates that it did not ven-
ture to give separate statistics for each of the Lake
states, but presented a combined rating for these
states as follows: Eastern hardwoods, 69,350,000,000
feet; eastern softwoods, 40,760,000,000 feet. The
most detailed figures on this subject are buried in
the files of the State Board of Tax Commissioners

72 RURAL MICHIGAN

at Lansing. The data there contained have not been
assembled in such a way as to show what timber
remains standing in Michigan ; and the Tax Com-
mission seems unable — and the Public Domain
Commission seemed unable or unwilling — to under-
take the necessary investigation of these records.
The Public Domain (now Conservation) Commis-
sion, charged with the duty of maintaining the
forests belonging to the State itself and of protect-
ing those of private owners, is quite without defi-
nite information concerning the magnitude of the
task which it has been set to do. Therefore, one
must continue to suppose that there is a certain
quantity of each sort of timber still standing in
Michigan, and that this is disappearing at a rate
which even the most optimistic lumbermen do not
assert will leave any marketable standing timber in
the State at the end of fifty years, if present methods
are not radically revised. This must necessarily
ensue, if the present estimated annual cut in Michi-
gan of 1,000,000,000 feet is adhered to. It will nor-
mally increase.

The extraordinary abundance and excellence of
the forest growth in Michigan has already been noted.
So inexhaustible did it appear that three generations
of settlers took no pains to preserve or reestablish
it. Black walnut was worked into fence-rails ; white
oak made good "sheeting" for dwellings; bird's-eye
maple would make excellent stove wood; and potash
was more prized than the splendid trees of which
it was the residue gathered in from the "burn-pile.''

OTHER KEH0URCE8 OF MICHIGAN 73

The first farmers sought to avoid forests by locating
on the prairies that clotted the southern counties;
but there was need of lumber for home consumption
and for exportation to the deforested areas of the
East and to the treeless country west of the Great
Lakes. Michigan prairies, too, were relatively of
limited extent and the timbered country was required
for agriculture. Saw-mills arose where water-
power was most readily available, and soon lumber
and logs were making their way down the Huron,
the Flint, the Saginaw, the Grand and other streams
— by boats, by rafts, in cribs ; and then by railroad,
to and on the Great Lakes and beyond them, — a
process which has gone on for a century and which
has not yet reached its conclusion. "What the mills
could not use, the fire consumed. "Niggering off,"
as the phrase went, raised no misgivings where home-
making demanded infinite labor with saw and ax
and where the best effort of man seemed scarcely
to scratch the limitless forest resources of the State.
The forest slowly retired before the resolute as-
saults of the woodsman. Much timber was removed
from the southern counties prior to the Civil War.
The period following the war saw the great pinery
in the northern half of the southern peninsula grad-
ually disappear, until now the State is gathering in
the few slight remnants of its former magnificence
as a memento of what will never be again ; and finally
the northern peninsula, primarily prized for its min-
eral wealth, produced its crop of millionaires through
the exploitation of its forest wealth. Eailroads, like

4 RURAL 3IICHIGAN

the Pere Marquette, were constructed with the defi-
nite purpose of removing such portions of the forest
as were valued for the lumber market. Ivey esti-
mates that from two-thirds to four-fifths of the
traffic of the Pere Marquette was at one time com-
posed of forest products. This traffic was transitory,
and where the character of the soil precluded agri-
culture, such lumbered railroads eventually fell on
evil days. Thus the Pere j\Iarquette has recently
sought permission to abandon its Kalkaska branch
because there is no traffic that replaces its erstwhile
lumber and log freight. Between 1870 and 1890, it
has been estimated that 13,000,000 acres of ]\Iichigan
territory was deforested, that is, one-third of the
total area of the State ; and while some of this land
was converted to the uses of agriculture, numbers
of acres remain in a disused cut-over condition.

Since the prosperous days of the lumber industry
of the late eighties and nineties, when Michigan led
the country in the magnitude of its output, there
has been a progressive decline in the product of its
saw-mills. In 1909 this was 1,889,724,000 feet; in
1912 it was 1,488,827.000 feet; in 1915, 1,100,000,-
OQO; and in 1918, 940,000,000 feet, when its pro-
duction was exceeded by tAvelve states, including
Minnesota, Florida, Alabama and Wisconsin.^ Of
lath the number reported to the Forest Service for
1916 was 109,323,000; 1917, 84,352,000; and 1918,
48,533,000 pieces. Of shingles, 201,171,000 pieces;

' U. S. For. Serv. : "Production of Lumber, Lath and
Shino-lps." 1918, p. 13.

OTHER KEfiOVRCES OF MICHIGAN 75

1917, 203,907,000; and in 1918, 118,565,000 were
similarly reported.

The combined hardwood and softwood types of
trees in Michigan represent a great variety of mer-
chantable types, and help to explain the presence
of many important wood-using industries in the
State, such as the manufacturing of planing-mill
products, boxes and crates, agricultural machinery,
automobiles, pulp and excelsior, handles, furniture,
toys and novelties. Of these varieties, maple — par-
ticularly sugar maple — has held a foremost position
among the hardwoods and white pine among the
conifers. Maple was native to all parts of the two
peninsulas. In 1910 Michigan was credited by the
United States Forest Service with producing more
maple lumber than all the remainder of the country
put together, and in 1918 with 40 per cent of the
country's output. In the latter year the 178 mills
reporting gave their product of this wood at 287,-
000,000 feet. It bulked large as planing-mill ma-
terial, where it figi;red much in the manufacture of
flooring. The Bureau of Forestry's report on "the
Wood-using Industries of Michigan" (1912) put the
consumption of sugar maple by Michigan planmg-
mills at 185,000,000 feet in 1910, of which 156,-
000,000 feet were grown in the State. In many other
industries also this wood holds an important position.
In the northern portion of the State, it is employed
in large quantities in the wood-carbonization plants,
in association with iron ore, for the production of
chemical l)y-products of the iron smelting furnaces.

76 RURAL MICHIGAN

The original stand of sugar niajjle in Michigan must
have been enormous, aiul wliile it has disappeared in
much of the virgin forest area of the State, it sur-
vives in the wood-lot of many a Michigan farm from
Lake Superior to the southern boundary, frequently
as the highly prized sugar-bush, while it is still an
important element in the large timber holdings of
the northern peninsula.

As a present timber resource, white and Norway
pine — once the glory of the Michigan forest — have
dwindled in importance. The output of white pine
in Michigan in 1918, as reported by 124 mills, was
46,664,000 feet, this being 2.4 per cent of the white
pine cut in the entire country. Near Lake Su-
perior and at a few points in the Lower Peninsula,
a very few restricted stands of virgin white pine
remain. The Interlaken State Park in Grand
Traverse County has some very fine specimens, and
there is another good stand not far from Grayling.
As far back as 1910, the manufacture of boxes and
crates in Michigan consumed 27,394,360 feet of
white pine grown within the State, while more than
that quantity was imported for this purpose. In
the manufacture of sash, doors and blinds, twice
as much white pine was brought from "without
Michigan as was then used from the domestic sup-
ply. In a miscellaneous group of wood-using in-
dustries, 54,000,000 feet of extra-state white pine
was consumed as against 2,605,000 feet of home-
grown material.^ One commonly hears that good

^ ^^'ood-^lsing Industries of Michigan.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 77

white pine lumber, Michigan-grown, is now quite
impossible to secure. This is not strictly true, but
so nearly so that one is justified in treating the
wood as a negligible factor in the local lumber
market.

Magnificent oaks stood in the primeval Michigan
forest. They were sought for ship timber and for
general construction purposes, and occasionally a
house was mainly built of it from sill to roof-
boards. The 1918 report of the Forest Service
ignored the Michigan cut, undoubtedly for the rea-
son that it w^as insignificant. In 1910, the manu-
facture of furniture consumed 1,856,795 feet of
white oak grown within the State, and similarly
1,000,000 feet of red oak; and 100,000 of burr oak.
The manufacture of agricultural implements in that
year took 322,000 feet of white oak, and 50,000 of
red oak. Car construction utilized 90,000 feet of red
oak grown in Michigan, while 1,430,059 feet con-
sumed were grown outside the State. Of the 520,000
feet of white and red oak employed in the making
of caskets, none grew in Michigan. While 1,020,000
feet of white oak was imported for the construction
of boats and ships, only 185,000 feet was home-
grown.

Hemlock, once despised by the carpenter and
joiner, constituted one of Michigan's most impor-
tant timber species in 1918, with its cut of 266,000,-
000 feet. This was 15.7 per cent of the country's
total output, only Washington and Wisconsin ex-
ceeding Michigan in hemlock production.

78 RURAL MICUIOAN

Sixty-five mills reported an output of 7,523,000
feet of spruce in 1918, as Michigan production;
while the birch contributed 48,807,000 feet reported
by 131 mills; 29,788,000 feet of elm came from 162
mills; 5,627,000 feet of ash from 134 mills; 29,788,-
000 feet of basswood from 162 mills and 46,181,000
feet of yellow poplar from 143 mills, producing 18.1
per cent of the country's production.' The elm is
one of the handsomest and most robust trees, and
forms a striking and attractive feature of the south
Michigan countryside today. It yielded in 1918,
28,841,000 feet of lumber— 17.3 per cent of the na-
tional total. Michigan beech constituted only 2.8
per cent of the American product with more than
9,000,000 feet to its credit. Although some sup-
pose its range to be restricted to the southern coun-
ties, it abides near the Lake Superior shore, in
situations where, by all the rules, it has no license
to be.

Of the manufactures related to agriculture, the
report of the findings of the Forest Service expert,
already adverted to, shows that agricultural imple-
ments consumed more yellow poplar than any other
type — 4,261,000 feet, none of which was grown in
Michigan. Then' follow white ash, 1,139,000 Michi-
gan grown; white pine, 1,844,000; sugar maple,
900,000 feet; while otlier ^lichigan varieties are rep-
resented by white elm, basswood, white oak, cotton-
wood, silver maple, Norway pine, hickory, hemlock,

^U. S. Dept. Agr., Bull. 84.): "Production of Lumber,
lath and Shingles in 1918."

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 79

elm, beech, cork elm, red oak, cliestiiut burr oak, red
ash and yellow oak. These woods used in this indus-
try comprised 6,792,250 feet in 1910. The imported
woods amounted to 9,821,980 feet^, including such
exogenous types as red gum, cypress, short-leaf pine,
paper birch and pitch pine. Boxes and crates re-
quired 105,671,926 feet of home grown lum-
ber, including 27,000,000 feet of beech; hemlock,
26,000,000; sugar maple, 23,000,000; and basswood,
12,000,000. Handles took more than 37,000,000
feet of ^lichigan material, of which sugar maple was
by far the largest item, 23,000,000 feet; and the drift
of handle factories to the northern peninsula, where
maple is still an important element in the existing
stand of timber, illustrates the groat importance of
this wood in the handle industry. Sugar maple
leads among the Michigan woods used in the vehicle
industry, 6,839,500 feet; while the indispensable
hickory was imported to the extent of 6,084,400 feet,
and 381,700 feet of Michigan hickory was consumed.
The aggregate consumption of ]\Iichigan wood in
this industry is given as 15,784,600 feet, while just
about the same quantity was imported. Into tanks
and silos went 2,665,000 feet of tamarack, 850,000
of white pine, 100,000 of hemlock, 35,000 of sugar
maple, 25,000 of beech, all Michigan grown, an
aggregate of 3,675,000 feet, 17,021,000 being im-
ported. In 1910, then, Michigan factories con-
sumed 1,282,561,200 feet of lumber, while the State's
total cut is placed at 1,681,081,000 feet. There
were large importations as well as exportation «, as

80 RURAL MICHIGAN

is still the case. Xinety-nine kinds of wood were
used by Michigan manufactures in 1910, of which
sugar maple, white pine and hemlock supplied more
than half the total consumption. Sugar maple com-
prised a quarter of this aggregate.^

The presence of an extraordinarily rich and varied
forest growth brought to Michigan many industries
using wood in their productive processes. Almost
every little city has had its factory for making some
implements or articles employing wood in its con-
struction. Thus tlircsliing-machines and other farm
implements were manufactured at Birmingham as
early as 1854. Corn-planters were made at Grand
Haven, fanning mills at Plymouth and near St.
Johns, pumps at several places, wagons and carriages
at Flint, furniture at Grand Eapids, Owosso and
elsewhere, caskets at Owosso, plows at Albion,
threshing-machines at Battle Creek and Port Huron,
portable houses at Bay City and St. Johns, harrows
at Detroit, forks and hoes at Jackson, baskets at
Lowell. The Forest Service report of 1913 lists
thirty firms manufacturing agricultural implements
in ]\Iichigan, twenty-six firms making boats and
ships, two hundred and fourteen manufacturers of
boxes and crates, twelve firms making caskets,
twenty-two chair manufacturers, three manufac-
turers of excelsior, ninety-nine furniture factories,
thirty-one handle factories, four manufacturers of
matches and tooth-picks and twelve of musical in-

' Wood-using Industries of Michigan, Washington, 1912.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 81

struments, one hundred and twenty-five manufac-
turers of sash, doors, and blinds, in addition to a
very large number of concerns producing planing-
mill and other products of wooden construction.
These factories consumed, in 1910, 1,282,000,000 feet
of wood, costing $29,050,000. The ten years inter-
vening since the publication of the Maxwell Report,
which afforded the foregoing data, has seen the de-
velopment to stupendous proportions of the automo-
bile industry of Michigan, itself an enormous con-
sumer of forest products. While definite informa-
tion is not available, there seems a tendency for
wood-using industries to transfer the scene of their
operations to the northern peninsula, whose forest
resources are less depleted Statistics prepared by
the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau early in
1920 indicate the presence in the Upper Peninsula
of eighty-six saw-mills, four tanneries, four paper
mills, six wood carbonization plants, six handle fac-
tories, two box factories and one excelsior plant. The
establishment at Iron Mountain of a plant for the
manufacture of wooden parts required by the Ford
Motor Company was itself a significant indication
of the drift northward of the wood-using industries.
In addition to this very large output of factory
products, the State has been called on to furnish
out of its forest resources great quantities of mine
props for the underground workings of its own iron
and copper mines, of poles and posts, the estimated
product of the Upper Peninsula in 1920 being 3,000,-

88 UlRAL MICHIGAN

000 fence-posts alone; tog^ether with great quantities
of general building material, hoops, staves, ties, and
charcoal furnace wood.

The inchistries and products here enumerated
clearly have a relation to agriculture, through their
connection with the economy of the farm and the
farm-home. There are also unfinished materials,
such as posts, poles, pickets and rails for which the
Michigan farmer has been indebted to the forest,
as well as such home-made articles as barrel-hoops,
handles, whipple-trees. The yield could be much
greater if fire had been kept from the cedar swamps
and oak uplands.

Long ago the people of Michigan began the syste-
matic imdermining of this remarkable industrial de-
velopment based on its timber resources. As rapidly
as human labor, assisted by poM'er and fire, could
do the work, the splendid hardwood- forest of the
southern counties was swept aside by the pioneers.
Great trees were felled in windrows, such portions
of them as could serve the settler's requirements were
preserved, and the remainder freely consigned to
the flames. Log-rollings afforded recreation and
merry-making to the primeval home-builders in the
Michigan wilderness. The brilliant illumination of
the night on which the burn-piles were reduced to
ashes in the presence of the gathered neighbors,
hither come in quest of such conviviality as the oc-
casion might afford, appears to have Impressed in-
effaceably the memories of the older inhabitants of
the State. Tt signified agriculture, food, sunshine

OTHER KEi^OURCES OF MICHIGAN 83

and smiling fields, light and air and long vistas from
farmstead to farmstead. That was good. If it was
wasteful, it was also necessary, if civilized life were
to subsist in the haunts of wild beasts and savage
men. As the people gained a foothold in the land,
the product of their saw-mills went forward to regions
which had already suffered from forest depletion or
where the forest had not existed in historic times.
That also was good and necessary. But as time
progressed, the agencies of forest devastation got out
of bounds, and they have continued to the present
moment. They have undermined the legitimate and
necessary utilization of forest products, until Michi-
gan has arrived at the point when it is yielding less
wood than it requires, is importing forest products
from other states and covmtries, is losing wood-using
industries to regions better supplied with forest re-
sources, and is face to face with serious inconvenience
and deprivation from its own improvidence and over-
consumption of this most imperative necessity.

If the wasteful removal of the forest in the agri-
cultural sections of the State was excusable, the per-
sistent devastation in those areas where there was
little hope of replacing timber with farm crops can-
not be extenuated. Here in the process of deforesta-
tion, the young growth was shattered and destroyed
with the mature trees. A relatively small portion
of the felled trees was economically utilized. Those
cast off were carelessly left on the ground to cumber
it with del)ris and to afford every facility for the
ignition and spread of wild fire throughout great

84 RURAL MICHIGAN

areas. These "brush fires'' killed the yoimg growth
that eventually would have reconstituted the forest
of merchantable timber of cut-over lands; they de-
stroyed the humus of the soil, the decomposed forest
litter containing much nitrogen which could only
bo restored by the painful and costly process of re-
fertilization, which conserved soil-moisture, and
maintained those animal orsranisms that convert raw
soil to forms suital)le for plant-food. On the lighter
sandy soils of the State, which prevail in many coun-
ties on both sides of the Straits of Mackinac, these
periodic burnings and re-burnings were definitely
calamitous, producing veritable sterility in some quar-
ters, so that a blasted heath is found where vegetation
useful to man should be. Such lands as these, when
settled on by the poor, the misdirected and deceived
persons, yield nothing but hardships, penury, dis-
aster, a delinquent tax sale and a damaged reputa-
tion for Michigan farm lands.

The removal of the covering forest from the hill-
tops so characteristic of the State's topography, pro-
moted denudation and erosion — the creation of worth-
less land where the forest once stood, perhaps, too,
destroying the fertility of the surrounding arable
fields which have received the sandy outwash of the
scoured and denuded uplands. Where this outwash
reached the water-courses, they were choked with
sand-bars; and they became torrential in brief sea-
sons when the run-olf was excessive, and scant of
water at other times. Some welcomed wild fire as a
land-clearing agency, without perceiving that such

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN! 85

clearing operations were best conducted with fires
under control in seasons of sufficient moisture to pre-
vent burning from getting out of hand. Some even
Avelcomed sucli forest devastation because of tlie wild
berries that would arise in the haunts of the pines
and hardwoods. Carelessness and indifference were
the rule even when a moment's thought would seem
to have suggested caution and restraint. It is quite
so even to the present hour.

It was inevitable that much virgin timber should
vanish in these forest conflagrations. A pioneer has
described the fires in the vicinity of Owosso in 1856,
when lanterns were required in the daytime and even
the fish in the river were suffocated by the smoke. ^
"Among the most vivid recollections of niy early boy-
hood," writes Arthur Hill, "are those of certain days
when the smoke from the burning forests about Sagi-
naw was so dense that children living in the out-
skirts lost their way in coming to and going from
school." Such destructive conflagrations occurred in
1871 and 1881.- In 1911, the official report of the
forest fires of the vear records 191 fires, which burned
on 153,407 acres, with an estimated damage — notori-
ously low when emanating from such a source — of
$3,470,000.3 The United States Forest Service esti-
mated the area burned over in 1919 at 500,000 acres,
and the spring and autumn of 1920 saw multitudes

i"Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXX, 371.

^"Micli. Forestry: Some Questions Answered, etc," Lan-
sing: Mich. Forestry Commission, p. 1.

^Rept. State Game, Fish and Forestry Warden, 1912, 108-
109.

9,0 in I! A I. Mir in a AN

of brush and forest fires wlierever and whenever con-
ditions became favorable. In reality every year
chronicles its ruthless devastation of our forest re-
sources, virgin and second-growth, and there is not
the least indication that the State is effectively meet-
ing this major problem in conservation.

MINES AND QUARRIES

]\retalliferous rocks are found chiefly in the Upper
Peninsula, where the covering of glacial drift is
much shallower than south of the Straits. Yet the
southern peninsula has made its contribution of coal,
which is wanting in the northern peninsula, of
gypsum, of limestone, and, of chief importance, salt.
Both sections are well supplied with gravel for road
material, clay suitable for brick and^ in the southern
peninsula, for the manufacture of pottery, and with
building stone, glacial bowlders and quarry material,
although their distribution is not uniform and equal.

Michigan had no sooner embarked on statehood
than it created the State Geological Survey and
placed it in charge of Douglass Houghton, a physi-
cian and man of scientific attainments of Detroit.
This first geological survey of Michigan compre-
hended four departments of work in the fields of
zoology, botany, geology and topography. The in-
vestigations were continued through four seasons
(1838-1841), and then the field work was discon-
tinued through lack of funds consequent on the finan-
cial depression of that time. Houghton then con-

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 87

ceived the plan of a combined linear and geological
survey of the public lands of the United States under
the control of the General Land Office. He was en-
gaged on this survey at the occurrence of his un-
timely death in Lake Superior near Eagle River in
a storm in the autumn of 1845. Houghton's re-
searches and published reports are credited with lay-
ing the scientific foundation and information for
the enormous mineral development that has ensued
in both peninsulas. His published reports related to
the presence of salt, marl, coal, gypsum and other
minerals of the southern peninsula, to copper, lime-
stone and minor minerals in the northern peninsula ;
and a party of his surveyors immediately in charge
of William Burt is credited with ascertaining the
presence of iron ore on the Marquette Range in
1844.

Before active mining operations could be under-
taken, it was necessary to extinguish the Indian title
to the metalliferous lands of the region. The Sagi-
naw Valley, where coal and salt were later developed,
was relinquished by the Indians very largely in 1819,
while the mineral region of the northern peninsula
came into the possession of the United States in 1843
(revised in 1854). Then, following the survey of
these lands, exploitation was earnestly undertaken,
first under permits issued by the Secretary of War,
and then under an act of Congress in 1847 provid-
ing for the sale of mineral lands at a fixed price.
Large tracts of mineral lands came under private
ownership through grants made in aid of canal, road

88 RURAL MICHIGAN

and railroad construction. Surveys were continued
at intervals for many years and even now the Geo-
logical Survey of Michigan undertakes from time
to time field work that, it is hoped, will reveal addi-
tional resources that may enrich the commonwealth.

Unlike iron, copper made its presence known to
the first explorers of the Lake Superior country, and
had hitherto been extensively utilized by the Indians
in the manufacture of weapons and utensils, of which
there are several notable collections both within and
without the State and which are still being increased
by occasional discoveries here and there throughout
the district. Michigan copper, unlike that found
in Montana, Arizona, Utah and many other places,
is a formation of pure copper uncompounded with
other elements. Rarely it forms a metallic cement
combining pebbles in a conglomerate formation.
More commonly it is dispersed through the rock in
large masses and in granules, frequently at great
depths below the surface, but occasionally exposed
on the surface itself. It was these exposed masses
of copper that engaged the attention of the early
Jesuit and other French and English explorers.

The native mining operations suggested locations
for similar enterprises by the whites, as in the case
of the Isle Eoyale Mine at Houghton. In Michigan
the copper veins were distributed along a rather
narrow axis from Porcupine Mountain near the Lake
Superior shore westward from the Keweenaw Penin-
sula and near the center line of this peninsula for
quite its entire length, with points of major dis-

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 89

tribution, such as northeastern Ontonagon County
(Minnesota and Michigan mines), near Portage
Lake (Isle Royale and Quincy mines), near the
boundary of Houghton and Keweenaw counties
(Calumet and Hecla, Ahmeek, Wolverine and
Mohawk mines), and near Eagle River (Cliff, Phoenix
and Keweenaw Copper Company's mines). Con-
trary to an impression sometimes encountered, there
is no mining of copper beneath Lake Superior, but
the copper deposits emerge on Isle Koyale and other
islands in Lake Superior and on its Canadian shore,
but in amounts that have seldom been remunerative
to its miners. Some of the mines on the Copper
Range have been operated for many years, a very
few having their inception before 1850. The de-
posits are manifestly very far from being exhausted.
The metal is being secured in some instances from
shafts extending to a depth of more than a mile,
which makes costs high; nor is the ratio of copper
recovered to the rock raised to the surface high, in
some instances amounting to ten or eleven pounds
of metal to the ton of rock in mines that have,
nevertheless, been operated at a profit.

Unlike iron ore, copper when elevated to the sur-
face must be "stamped" to dislocate the metal from
its rock container, and this process is performed
where there is ample supply of water, at present on
Portage and Torch lakes and, in most instances, on
the shore of Lake Superior. Unlike iron ore, too,
much of the metal is smelted in the same district
where it is mined. A leeching plant at Lake Linden

DO RURAL MICHIGAN

also recovers much copper from the refuse deposits of
the old stamp mills, subjected to a secondary process
which has proven very successful in regaining addi-
tional quantities of copper.

Little copper is consumed locally, although various
schemes for its use in local manufactures have been
projected. Most of the metal goes out of the country
by water to the eastern consuming centers and to
Europe. Alexander Henry, the first to attempt cop-
per mining operations in the region, predicted the
failure of such attempts through the remoteness of
the market and the insuperable difficulty of export-
ing the product. The opening of the artificial water-
way at Sault Ste. Marie (1855) and into Portage
Lake (18G0 and 1873), with the completion of sev-
eral lines of railway into the copper district, has
falsified these predictions^ and more than one billion
pounds of copper have been produced in the area
since the inauguration of mining seventy-five years
ago. The labor was performed at first chiefly by
experienced miners from Cornwall, Avho still con-
stitute a distinctive and interesting human element
in the local population. Later came Finns, and
more recently Slavs and Italians. The directing
personnel is largely of New England stock, and much
New England capital has been absorbed in the cop-
per country. Boston has always figured largely in
the industry on the side of finance and market opera-
tions. Together with old established mines, the
district comprises mines in the stage of initial de-
velopment, where excavation has not yet been begv

OTHER RESOURCE,'? OF MICHIGAN 91

or where it has not reached the copper district, or
has not uncovered remunerative quantities of it.
While there are areas in which mining operations
have long since ceased and the land has returned
to its wild neglected status, there are other areas
in which for the first time mineral exploitation is
being carried forward. Copper mining in Michigan
suffered from the recession of business following the
conclusion of the World War, but the return of
normal relations throughout the commercial world
is expected to reestal)lish the industry on a reason-
ably satisfactory basis.

A by-product of the copper industry is of par-
ticular importance to Michigan agriculture. Arsenite
of lime is recovered from tbe smelters and is service-
able as a grasshopper and general poison. It was of
advantage in the grasshopper "epidemic" of 1920
CO have an abundant supply of this sidjstance readily
available, and it was freely utilized.

With the exception of Brazil, the Lake Superior
region has the largest deposits of iron ore known
to exist in the world. These occur in Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota and in Canada. The deposits
in Michigan are found in three ranges: The Mar-
quette, the Menominee and the Gogebic. The ex-
ploitation of the Lake Superior iron ores followed
the discovery of this mineral on the Marquette Range,
as already stated, in 1844. The following year a
company organized at Jackson carried on explora-
tions in the same district and located the famous
"iron mountnin" near Teal T>ake, lictwecn the pres-

93 RURAL MICHIGAN

ent sites of Ishpemiiiff and isTegaunee, about twelve
miles inland from Lake Superior. The next year a
small amount of ore was taken out and smelted at
Jackson. Bog iron ofe was distributed at various
points in the southern counties of the State, and
for its utilization a number of forges, or furnaces,
had been erected. Such a forge appears to have
been first employed for smelting this Lake Superior
ore. In 1847, a forge was established on the Carp
Eiver close to the present site of Negaunee, for
the purpose of converting the iron ore, which was
found in a loose formation on the surface of the
land, to a form that could be transported out of the
country. This and other forges erected in this vicinity
prepared the iron ore in the form of "blooms," in
which condition it was shipped out of the district
to eastern markets. After some years, blast furnaces
were erected and the process of smelting the ore
was begun. The iron was shipped from the mines
to the forges or furnaces, most of which were con-
structed close to the lake shore, and thence went
forward by water. At first conveyance was by
wagons, later by railroad. Ore docks were built in
the harbor of Marquette, first of simple construction
involving much labor in transferring the mineral
from train to dock and from dock to ship. Then a
type of dock was designed whereby the railroad ore
cars deposited their load directly into pockets,
whence in turn the ore was sent through shoots into
the hold of the vessel along side. The marvelous
perfection of present equipment of such docks per-

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 93

mits the loading of a cargo of 10,000 or more tons
of iron ore in two or three hours, while at the port
of destination the reverse process is likewise rapidly
completed through the use of great "clams'' or "Hew-
litts," which snatch many tons of mineral out of
the ship at a single "bite," placing it on the dock
for shipment by railroad to the furnaces and con-
suming centers of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The
abundant forests of the Lake Superior district have
afforded wood for the manufacture of charcoal em-
ployed in the smelting of a portion of the iron ore
mined here, but most of it is smelted and utilized
outside of the Lake Superior region. The local smel-
ters using charcoal derive from the iron and the
wood by-products, including acids and other chem-
icals of great commercial importance and add mate-
rially to the industrial status of northern Michigan.
The iron deposits of the Marquette Eange have a
general eastern and western trend, with Negaunee
at the eastern end, while its western extension ap-
proaches L'Anse. At various points mines have
been opened : at Negaunee, Ishpeming, Michigamme,
Republic, Gwinn and other locations, the ore being
exported largely through Marquette, although the
completion of the Peninsular Division of the Chi-
cago and Northwestern Railway to Negaunee in
1864, made shipments possible out of the Lake
Michigan port of Escanaba. For some years, too, ore
reached L'Anse, to which port the line of the present
Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad was
opened in 1872, and where an ore dock of the pocket

!<1 RURAL MICH WAN

type was erected, later to be dismantled. From these
mines of the Marquette Range an aggregate product
of 121,059,070 tons (1854-1916) of iron ore has
gone forward to market. The ore exhibited great
tensile strength because of its relative freedom from
phosphorus, sulfur, arsenic and other impurities,
and while the early production running as high as
65 per cent pure iron to the rnine-run of ore has not
been maintained — the present percentage being about
50, — the ore is still highly favored by consumers of
the metal.

Southwest of the Marquette Eange some fifty or
sixty miles is the Menominee Range, the second to
be developed in IMichigan. Mining operations here
began about 1870, and the total output to 1916 was
10-1:,902,919 tons. The product goes out through
Escanaba from ^uch mining points as Iron Moun-
tain, Crystal Falls, Iron River and Stambaugh.
Water-power development on the Menominee River
has assisted in furnishing hydro-electric power for
the use of the mines and the mining towns.

In the westernmost county of the Upper Penin-
sula not far from the Montreal River, the last of
the three iron ranges of the State was opened up
about 1880, following exploratory work by Pumpelly
and Brooks. The outlet for the product of this dis-
trict was by way of Ashland, Wisconsin, to which a
railroad was shortly constructed — now a portion of
the Chicago and Northwestern line — and at which
docks were provided. The deposits extend over into

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 95

Wisconsin, and this fact is a sufficient reason for
the pressing of ^lichigan's claim to the territory west
of the Montreal River, resulting from the original
alleged erroneous survey of the interstate line at
that point. The mining properties are located at
Ironwood, Bessemer, Wakefield and other points in
Gogebic County, and up to IDIH had yielded an
aggregate of 95,607,671 tons of ore.

In the iron industry, as in other mining opera-
tions, production is maintained at each mine for
a greater or less period of years and when ore bodies
become exhausted, the mine is abandoned and the
workings allowed to fill with water. In 1917, the
active iron mines in ^lichigan numbered thirty-four
on the ilarquette Range; eleven on the ^Menominee
Range; and twenty-two on the Gogebic Range. The
ores uncovered have varied greatly in texture, solidity
and chemical composition. They have been desig-
nated by such discriminating terms as hematite,
specular, magnetic and lamenite. On the Marquette
Range hard ores were found at Republic and some
other points, and were formerly much desired for
smelting purposes, while the soft ores were discarded
as unsuited to the furnaces. Improved smelting
methods have reversed the situation. The ores of
the Menominee and Gogebic ranges are soft hematite
in character. An analysis of the Michigan iron ores,
published in the report of the State Geologist for
1917, showed the following results as an approxi-
mate average for each range:

96 RURAL MICHIGAN

Percentafje of Content.

Marquette Range: Iron, 54; phosphorus, .03; silica, 8
mantrancse, .24; moisture, 8.

Menominee Range: Iron, 53; phosphorus, .04; silica, 8
manganese, .18; moisture, 7.

Gogehio Range: Iron, 53; phosphorus, .04; silica, 7
manganese, .39; moisture, 11.

At the beginning of mining operations, masses of
ore were often found about the surface of the ground,
the result of glacial action, and in outcrops, occa-
sionally in the form of "iron mountains." The first
mining consisted, then, in removing this most ac-
cessible portion of the visible ores. Later, open pits
were frequently sunk, such mines still obtaining at
a few points, as near Wakefield. Such exploitation
of the ore bodies liad the character of quarrying,
which in time was extended beneath the surface of
the ground; and eventually true shafts of consider-
able depth were driven along the veins, involving
extensive surface construction of hoists and other
■ equipment. While there is some "bog ore" in the
Upper Peninsula, as in the Seney swamp, this is of
no commercial importance. The question is often
asked as to how long the iron ore and copper de-
posits in the Lake Superior region will continue to
be workable. In 1921, the State Geologist reported
a visible supply of iron ore in Michigan of two hun-
dred million tons, with an annual production from
twelve to eighteen million tons. It is evident that
the industry has a definite period of duration not
very prolonged. There remains the possibility of
utilizing low grade ores, not at present being worked,

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 97

and of discovering through exploration ore bodies
that will materially add to the present ore reserves.
The first possibility must rely for its realization on
private enterprises; the second, on liberal support
of the State Geological Survey as well as on private
efforts.

While Michigan is not ordinarily classed as a sil-
ver-producing state, its production of this metal in
the year 1919 amounted to 441,430 fine ounces.
In the pioneer days of copper mining, silver in its
pure native form was not infrequently uncovered
in conjunction with the red metal, and many stories
are related of the practice among the Cornish miners
at the old "Cliff'' and other mines, of depositing
small nuggets of silver in their boots and elsewhere
about their persons on the theory that whatever be-
sides copper was revealed in their mining operations
belonged to the miner himself, — a view not shared
by the owners of the mine but circumvented only
with difficulty. Occasionally the silver was recov-
ered embedded in nuggets of copper, and the mass
was then popularly referred to as a "half-breed.''
A very remarkable silver formation on a diminutive
island near the north shore of Lake Superior was
discovered shortly after the Civil War, and while
the "Silver Islet" lay just outside the territorial
limits of the State, Michigan citizens were pri-
marily concerned in developing its rich vein of the
metal and were the beneficiaries of their enterprise
from which $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 in the aggre-
gate were realized. The area of the Porcupine ]\Ioun-

98 RURAL MICTIIGAN

tains in the western part of the Upper Peninsula
has yielded small amounts of silver for years, and
in the early seventies of the last century, a number
of mines were opened in the vicinity of Ontanogan
River, an outlet of Lage Gogebic into Lake Superior;
but the elaborate expectations of the promoters were
not fully realized. In recent years much of the
product of Michigan silver accrues from refining
operations connected with the copper industry.

It was inevitable that a region rich in mineral
resources should attract the attention of the gold-
seeker. Tlie presence of this precious metal was
discerned in the quartz, but the State Geologist, in
his report for 1885, is doubtless correct in giving
credit to the Ropes Gold Mine for the first syste-
matic effort at gold mining in upper Michigan. The
gold-bearing serpentine is located some six miles
northwest from Ishpeming, and here gold Avas dis-
covered in 1881. Regular mining began in 1882.
A stamp mill and concentration plant were erected,
and the bullion found its way eventually to the
United States mint. The product was a combina-
tion of gold and silver in the ratio (1885) of about
2 to 5. Some rich rock was discovered. In one
instance seventeen pounds of rock yielded $103 of
gold.^ The gold content of the rock was variable
in amount, being described as "pockety," and al-
though in the fifteen years in which this mine was
worked, gold and silver to the value of approxi-
mately $650,000 was removed, of which in the aggre-
^"Mineral Statistics," Mich., 1885, p. 159.

OTHER REHOURCEii OF MICHIGAN 99

gate 80 per cent was gold, the mining operations
were eventually abandoned, and the property today
has little surface indications of the mining activity
that once obtained there.^ Yet there are some even
now who insist that the mine will eventually be re-
opened and will richly repay the confidence which
has been placed in it. Evidences of the presence
of gold were found throughout a considerable area
adjacent to this mine, and not a few other efforts
to recover the metal wore undertaken, in some in-
stances with very encouraging results. From one
of these short-lived mines, some $7,000 of gold were
taken out in a few months, but the vein soon dwindled
to inadequate proportions. In the Dead Eiver dis-
trict and even within the city of Marquette, aurifer-
ous deposits were uncovered near the surface, but
for vears interest in gold mining in Michio;an has
remained dormant.

Persons of a speculative turn of mind may some-
times wonder what the industrial development of
Michigan Avould be like if, with its enormous wealth
of luetallic minerals, an adequate supply of coal ex-
isted within the State. Southwest from Saginaw
Bay an extensive area productive of coal reaches as
far as Jackscn and Calhoun counties, but the vein
is normally thin, and, except in the territory close
to Saginaw Bay, has been of no great economic im-
portance. As far back as the territorial period, out-
crops of coal were observed and very early its re-
moval was undertaken. Thus it was mined near
^Ihid., 1S!)!», p. 291).

100 RURAL MICHIGAN

the Shiawassee Eiver at Corunna and near the Grand
Kiver at Grand Ledge. For years mines were worked
close to Jackson, and for a quarter of a century ex-
cellent coal has been secured at St. Charles in Sagi-
naw County and close to Bay City. Even as far
north as Arenac County a very thin formation was
uncovered, while detached masses occasionally ap-
peared in the morainie accunmlations beyond the
region of the coal formations proper. Yet all told
the State's production is small compared with its
requirements, according to the United States Geo-
logical Survey, amounting to one-tenth or one-thir-
teenth of the consumptive demand in normal years.
The coal measures lie close to the surface, so close,
indeed, that occasionally mining operations have
been hindered by the insufficiency or absence of the
covering rock, permitting the encompassing drift
and surface waters to cumber the openings driven
into the coal measure. Unfortunately, the Upper
Peninsula, the seat of an enormous wealth of metallic
minerals, seems wholly lacking in coal of any sort.
Even if the coal of the Lower Peninsula were ade-
quate for State needs, it is non-coking in quality.
However, the admirable waterway system encom-
passing Michigan on almost every quarter affords a
ready avenue for the importation of coal from neigh-
boring states.

If Michigan lacks coal, it is superabundantly sup-
plied with peat. Occasionally one hears of attempts
being made to perfect processes for its economical
utilization as fuel, but, so far as is known, little sue-

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 101

cess has as yet been attained. The cost of dehydrat-
ing the substance is the chief impediment. Near
Chassell on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the National
Humus and Chemical Company has exploited local
peat deposits in the manufacture of fertilizer and
stable litter. Its great absorbing qualities favor its
use in the stable, and, when artificially nitrogenized,
in addition to its original nitrogenous content,
recommend it strongly for fertilizing purposes, inde-
pendently of, or following, its use in the stable. This
industry, however, is as yet too near its incipiency
to write positively of its success. It appears to con-
tain very attractive possibilities.

In the district between the copper country and
Marquette close to the western extremity of the
Huron Mountains and the head of Huron Bay, is
an extensive formation of slate, on which quarrying
operations were carried on for fifteen or twenty years
in the seventies and eighties of the last century. A
narrow gage tramway was constructed to convey
the product from the quarries to the dock five miles
distant. Several companies were early organized to
work the formation and high hopes were entertained
of financial success. Undoubtedly the slate is of
excellent quality, except one feature which is held
responsible for the failure of the enterprise: it was
considerably shattered in its natural state and its
removal involved much wastage. Expert opinion lias
recently held that an improved method of quarrying
would have obtained better results, but it has also
been pointed out that very much slate is available

102 h'l h'AL MICllldAX

in more accessible parts of the United States and
that market conditions irrespective of availability
are frequently difficult to meet. The formation ex-
tends westward to the head of Keweenaw Bay and
even beyond it, and hopes are still entertained tliat,
with more scientific handling of the waste product,
commercial development may again be secured. Un-
doubtedly the slate formations lie close to water
transportation on Lake Superior and, with other con-
ditions equally favoral)le. the industry may revive.
The site is one of great natural charm, and has at-
tracted the tourist and hunter since the quarries
were closed some thirty years ago. Although dis-
tant from the railroad, agriculture has attained con-
siderable development in the vicinity, and lumbering
is active. The old workings are now in a decayed
condition, the pits water-filled and the buildings aged
and weather-Avorn.

The glacial drift of both peninsulas abounds in
bowlders suitable for building purposes, and in some
places the surface of the land was thickly strewn
with them, ocasionally of great size. Before the use
of concrete became common early in the present
century, foundations, walls and even pavements were
composed of this rough bowlder material. There
existed also in both peninsulas outcrops of bed-rock,
chiefly sandstone and limestone, likewise available
through quarrying for construction purposes. In
the Lower Peninsula such formations and quarries
were operated in Ionia, Kent, Eaton, Calhoun, Hills-
dale, Jackson, Shiawassee, Iosco, Huron, Barry and

OTHER. RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 103

Saginaw counties, but these enterprises have now
been discontinued, so far as information now at
hand indicates. The sandstone of these formations
was likely to take on a yellowish hue because of
the oxidation of the iron carbonate in the cementing
material. The most important formations of work-
able sandstones were found in the northern peninsula
adjacent to Lake Superior at Marquette and on both
shores of Keweenaw Bay. During the last quarter
of the last century, a number of quarries were opened
in both areas and continued to produce large quanti-
ties of excellent building stone until the local supply
was exhausted or market conditions became unfav-
orable. The Marquette quarries, just south of the
city, yielded a brown sandstone that was very much
sought, the raindrop variety having a particularly
pleasing appearance. A hard attractive brown sand-
stone also was derived on the western shore-line of
Keweenaw Bay between L'Anse and Pequaming,
while on the opposite side of this waterway the fa-
mous Portage Entry redstone was taken out for
many years in very large quantities. Indeed this
formation was quarried until very recently, when
the cost of removing the over-burden, then become of
considerable deptli, and also apparently a change in
taste among the users of building stone, made quarry-
ing unprofitable. From these sandstones of Lake
Superior many well-known structures in many cities
of both the United States and Canada were erected,
the stone being transported great distances both l)y
rail and water. Its proximity to tlie shore of the

104 RURAL MICHIGAN

lake facilitated shipment, where gravity could be
relied on to bring the rough stone from the pits to
the finishing mills beside the docks. The stone,
-when first extracted from its matrix, was readily
workable into any desired design by machine tools,
and then, when exposed to the air, dried and hardened
into a condition of great duration both as against
fire and weather. The many abandoned open pits
along the south shore of Lake Superior testify to
the very active demand once entertained for this
building-material, a demand now transferred to the
less sightly but more adaptable and cheaper concrete
construction. At present (December, 1931), there
remains only one active sandstone quarry operating in
Michigan, near Grindstone City, Huron County.

From 1860 to 1916 Michigan produced 236,724,878
barrels of salt, valued at $98,815,061.^ The output
of salt in 1919 was 2,492,378 short tons. Salt was
one of the first mineral resources of Michigan to
whi-ch attention was given by the State Geological
Survey. Douglass Houghton, the first State Geo-
logist, was convinced of the presence of salt in the
Saginaw valley and he persuaded the legislature to
make provision for exploratory work under State
direction. Investigations were conducted both in the
valleys of the Grand and the Saginaw rivers, but
early results were not encouraging and State efl'orts
were discontinued. Some years later private agencies
resumed these investigations and by 1860 the definite
success of salt production in Michigan was estab-

^ "Mineral Resources of Michigan," Lansing, 1916, p. 159.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 105

lished. There remained the problem of eliminating
impurities from the product — particularly bromine,
iron and gypsum, — and in 18G9, the State inspector-
ship of salt was created to promote greater purity
in the saline output. Seven years later, an associa-
tion of salt producers was organized to control the
marketing of the product, and by 1880 Michigan was
producing nearly half the salt of the country. Since
that time the State has continued to hold first place
in most of the years to the present time, occasionally
yielding the primacy to ISTew York. Although there
is some evidence of salt in the rocks of the Upper
Peninsula, the State's production has during this
period been confined to the southern peninsula. By
1890 salt was being produced in the counties of
Saginaw, Bay, Huron, St. Clair, Iosco, Midland,
Manistee, Mason and Gratiot. More recently Wayne
has taken first place, that county's production in
1916 amounting to 9,000,000 out of 16,000,000 bar-
rels produced in the State. This shows the shifting
of the major output from the Manistee-Ludington
area in the northwestern Lower Peninsula, which in
turn had taken the supremacy from the Saginaw
district. Indeed, the whole region fronting the St.
Clair and Detroit rivers overlying a deep layer of
rock salt, is now the most important salt territory
of Michigan, although important regions of rock salt
are likewise found underlying Manistee and Mason
counties in the northwest, and Alpena and Presque
Isle counties of the northeast. The Saginaw salt
has been obtained from a liriuo found at a depth of

106 RURAL MICHIGAN

600 to 1,000 feet or more, while the Manistee salt
is derived from a brine artificially produced through
the injection of fresh water from the surface of the
ground into the salt formation, in penetrating which
it dissolves a quantity of salt which the return flow
of water to the surface conveys thither, where it is
concentrated and purified. Formerly the evapora-
tion of the water from the brine was cheaply per-
formed by the use of waste fuel and waste steam
from the saw-mills of the locality, so that the timber
supply has adversely affected the salt industry of
Michigan. Yet recent statistics of salt production
show that the industry is on a much larger scale
now than ever before. For the past forty years the
State has produced more than one-fourth of the
national supply of this most necessary article. In
addition, by-products, such as bromine, calcium
chloride, bleaching and caustic soda, have been de-
rived from the salt industry. During the war the
production of bromine, especially at Midland, as-
sumed great importance. The reserves of salt remain
very large, in some places the deposits having a
thickness of 500 to 800 feet, at moderate depths.
Definite information concerning exact distribution
and available quantity of salt in the State is wanting.
However, it seems evident that the ancient oceanic
beds in which this product is obtained are sufficient
for all future requirements.

In the early period of the gypsum industry, the
product was largely utilized as "land-plaster," but
with the increasing use of artificial fertilizers, this

OTHER. REf^OURCE!^ OF MICHIGAN 107

has lessened in importance, so that at present g}'psvim
goes more largely into the manufacture of gypsum
plasters employed in the building-trades, plaster-
board, fire-proofing and calcimines.^ In 1916, mixed
wall-plaster constituted the most important of these
gypsum products, its value being then G2.7 per cent
of the total of raw and calcined products of the
State. Stucco had 26.2 per cent of the total value
of gypsum products in that year. In 1916 five
mines, two quarries and eight mills were reported
by the State Geologist in operation. Kent County
is the main location of the industry, since the gypsum
formations here are extensive and accessible. Still
other gypsum beds exist in Iosco, Arenac, Ionia,
Tuscola, and Eaton counties in the southern penin-
sula, and near St. Ignace, Mackinac County and on
St. Martin's and adjacent islands of the northern
peninsula. The g}-psum beds of the State have been
officially described as inexhaustible. The production
for 1916 was 457,375 tons, and in 1919, 339,125 tons.
This is the maximum yearly output. The total
production of the United States for that year was
2,750,000 short tons. New York was then the largest
producer of gypsum, Iowa second, and Michigan
third.=^

At a number of localities in Michigan are situated
mineral springs of considerable therapeutic reputa-
tion. In 1911 twenty-two mineral springs were re-

^ "Mineral Resources," Midi.. 1916, 161.
*U. S. Geol. Survey: "Mineral Resources," 1916, Pt. 11.,
255.

108 RURAL MICIIKIAN

corded by the United States Geological Survey, as
yielding 931,343 gallons of mineral water. In 1919
the number reported was ten springs yielding 1,570,-
906 gallons. These springs were located at Saginaw,
Grand Eapids, Mt. Clemens, Maltby, Ogemaw
County and Xorthville, Wayne County. The total
value of these waters in 1919 was put at $132,312,
at an average price of eight cents a gallon.^ The
Michigan Geological Survey notes a progressive de-
crease in the output of these waters since the high
point of more than 8,000,000 gallons in 1902. As
they are chiefly potable rather than medicinal, local
conditions related to the water supply have their in-
fluence on the demand for these mineral waters.-

Some nine miles from L'Anse in Baraga County
is a deposit of graphite which has been worked in-
termittently for some years. This graphite is of
too low a grade for lubricating purposes, but it has
been used in the manufacture of paint. In the
vicinity of the old Eopes Gold Mine near Ishpeming
is a deposit of low-grade asbestos, as yet unworked.

If Michigan is poor in its coal resources, it is even
more inadequately provided with oil and gas, so far
as existing knowledge goes. There are a number
of wells within the city limits of Port Huron, ap-
parently an extension of the Ontario field. The oil
from one group of these wells is consumed in the
manufacture of lubricants, for which it is said to be

*U. S.Geol. Survey: "Mineral Waters in 1918," 515.
^Mich. Geol. Survey: "Production and Value of Mineral
Products in Michigan," Lansing, 1917, 184.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN lUl)

especially well adapted.^ Small quantities of oil
have been discovered in borings in the neighboring
territory, but not of economic importance. In the
Saginaw Valley, test borings have been made at sev-
eral points and some oil obtained thereby, but, while
the geological formation is regarded as favorable,
a commercial yield of oil has been obtained at widely
separated points in Michigan but with meager re-
sults. Lenawee County in the southern portion of
the Lower Peninsula, and Schoolcraft County in the
southern part of the LTpper Peninsula have had oil
booms as recently as 1920, but little has been achieved
in either territory. In both peninsulas are large
formations of oil-bearing shales which may eventually
be drawn on for petroleum. Small outputs of oil
have been recovered at Allegan, Kalamazoo, Kill-
master, Ludington, at East Lake, Stronach, Mt.
Pleasant and Osseo. The aggregate product has been
quite negligible.

Eaw material, as marl, limestone, clay and shale,
for the manufacture of cement abounds in Michigan.
The largest deposits of nearly pure calcium carbonate
are in the northern portion of the southern peninsula,
and in the eastern part of the northern peninsula,
and hence at points more remote from markets and
the sources of fuel. According to the Michigan Geo-
logical Survey, more than one hundred marl deposits
each above fifty acres in extent and with an average
depth of at least ten feet have been discovered in

^Mich. Geol. Survey: "The Occurrence of Oil and Gas in
Michigan," Lansing, 1912, 56.

110 in li'AL MICUJOAN

the southern peninsula of Michigan. The Survey
regards this as probably less than one-fourth of the
total number in this peninsula. Some deposits are
1,000 acres in extent and have an average depth of
twenty or more feet. The Upper Peninsula also has
marl deposits. IMarl is found in twenty-two counties
of the State. The total area is estimated at 27,000
acres. Some of these marl deposits are unfavorably
situated for development, but many others are ad-
vantageously located and are at present being ex-
ploited in the manufacture of cement. Shale is
distributed very widely throughout the State, often
in close association with other raw materials required
in cement making. Cement manufacture began in
Michigan in the early seventies at Kalamazoo, where
marl and clay were employed in a vertical kiln.
While this enterprise was a financial failure, other
plants sprang up and the industry developed very
rapidly after l(Si)5. The later stage of the industry
involves the use of rotary kilns and powdered coal
as fuel. Since 1S!)(!, thirty-five cement plants are
said to have been built or projected in Michigan,
of which eleven were still in operation in 1917. Of
these eleven, six were using marl and clay, and five
limestone and shale. Cement plants have been lo-
cated at Alpena, Fenton, Bellaire, Bellevue, Bronson,
Coldwater, Kalamazoo, Elk Rapid.s, Farwell, White
Pigeon, Charlevoix, Marlborough, Bay City, Lupton,
Chelsea, Cement City, Spring Arbor, Lakeland,
Athens, Three Rivers, Gray Village, Wyandotte,
Xewago, Mocherville, Union City, Petoskey, Man-

OTHER REf^OURCES OF MICHIGAN 111

Chester, Lima, Qiiiney, Grass Lake, and Brighton.
This distributed the industry widely over the entire
Lower Peninsula of Michigan, thus utilizing the
widely extended marl and limestone deposits and
distributing the output widely among the consumers.
That output in 1918, according to the United States
Geological Survey, was 3,554,872 barrels, a decrease
from the 1917 production of 4,088,899 barrels.^ It
is economically desirable that cement factories should
be erected in the Upper Peninsula to supply the
local requirements. There is al)undant raw material
available, and wliile the local market is not as ex-
tensive as in the southern portion of the State, it
exists and might well be supplied from a plant within
the district.

Limestone is distributed widely over the State, but
that of commercial importance is found chiefly in
the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula and
in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula. De-
posits here lie close to transportation routes by rail
or water, and in recent years have been largely ex-
ploited. These limestone formations contain de-
posits of a high calcium carbonate content, which
have been utilized as fluxes in blast furnaces at
Sault Ste. Marie, Marquette and Duluth, at the
carl)ide works at Sault Ste. Marie, and at the copper
smelters in the copper country. The purity some-
times attains 98 per <^'ent of calcium carbonate. The
dolomites which are also found here and elsewhere
in the State, while utilizal)le as linings for open

'"Ccmont in IHIS'': V. S. Geol. Survey, p. 572.

112 RURAL MICHIGAN

hearth furnaces and in the manufacture of paper by
the sulfite process, are mainly employed as road
material and railway ballast, while building stone is
thus derived in Monroe County. Still other quarries
of limestone are in Eaton, Wayne and Huron coun-
ties, which are valued because situated in areas where
outcrops of rock are seldom encountered suitable for
quarrying. Eecently there has been a tendency to
employ the high calcium limestones in the North as
a soil corrective, for which they are well adapted.
Near Ishpeming is a formation of marble, designated
the "verde antique," which yields a greenish marble
barred with white bands of dolomite, which when
polished is extremely beautiful. This marble area
is now being commercially exploited. In the south-
ern peninsula limestone is employed in the manu-
facture of concrete, as noted in another paragraph.
The value of limestone produced in Michigan in
1917 is stated by the State Geological Survey to have
been $3,320,895.^ In 1918 the United States Geo-
logical Survey ranked Michigan sixth in the pro-
duction of limestone.- The product in that year
was 134,813 tons, valued at $8.80 a ton. The Geo-
logical Survey notes that the demand for building
lime had declined almost to the vanishing point.^
In 1917 Michigan produced 236,612,000 common
bricks, which represents a decrease from the output

^See Kept, on Mich. Limestones in "Production and
Value of Mineral Products in Michigan," Lansing, 1915, 111.
2 "Lime in 1918": U. S. Geol. Survey, p. 817.
Ubid., 822.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 113

for several years preceding. Drain tile were also
manufactured of a value of $734,012. The figures
for 1916 show also 5,539,000 vitrified bricks pro-
duced, valued at $80,915. In addition there were
small amounts of fire-proofing and hollow building
tile or blocks.^ There has been a steady increase in
the production of pottery, which, in 1917, amounted
to $1,187,981, attributed to the increased output
of porcelain and decorated ware, and porcelain
sanitary and electrical supplies. The manufacture
of flower-pots is an important element in this total,
and other items include clay pipes, crucibles, spark-
plugs and insulators. ]\Iichigan clays are employed
in the manufacture of flower-pots, but imported clays
for porcelain pipes and other white ware, since
Michigan lacks kaolin for this purpose.^ The brick-
making and related industries are confined very
largely to the southern half of the Lower Peninsula
where suitable raw material is available. "Wayne
County, where lake clay is abundant, is a particularly
important center for the manufacture of common
bricks. The Michigan Geological Survey has stated
that most of the surface clays in IMichigan are of low
grade, and, due to their sandy or calcareous nature,
most of these chiys are adapted for making only
common brick and tile or low grade pottery.^ Ex-
posures of clay or shale beds suitable for the manu-

* "Production and Value of Mineral Products in Mich-
ifran," 1917, 153-154.
Ubid., 155.
Ubid., 151.

114 RURAL MICHIGAN

facture of vitrified, fire and front brick, vitrified
tile and fire-proofing are likewise stated not to be
abundant. At Grand Ledge, Jackson, Corunna, Bay
City and Flushing, shales of the coal-measures have
been utilized for making vitrified and front brick,
vitrified tile, sewer pipe, conduits and fire-proofing.
Slip clays suitable for glazing pottery are found in
Ontonagon County.^

GAME AND FISH

The forest and prairies, lakes and streams of Michi-
gan were the natural habitat of multitudes of animals
of many sorts, some of them serviceable to man and
some noxious and even dangerous. This animal life
varied from period to period with the migration of the
species and the destruction wrought by enemies hu-
man and otherwise. The figure of the huntsman
depicted on the shield embodied in the State's coat-
of-arms, with the attending moose and elk support-
ing this same shield, were symbolical of the part
played by this wild life in the pioneer era of Mich-
igan history. Charles S. Wheeler has enumerated
some fifty species of animals found in early Michigan,
including the bison, caribou, elk, moose, common deer,
panther, lynx, wildcat, gray wolf, fisher, sable or pine
marten, red fox, gray fox, ermine or white weasel,
mink, badger, skunk, otter, wolverine, black bear,
raccoon, four bats, two moles, two shrews, flying
squirrel, black and gray squirrel, fox squirrel, two

^ "Production and Value of Mineral Products in Michi-
gan," 1916, 178.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 115

chipmunks, striped gopher, woodchuck, beaver, iive
kinds of mice, muskrat, common rabbit, wliite hare,
porcupine and opossum. He states further that
"three hundred and thirty-six kinds of birds have
been reported as residents or migrants. Dr. Miles re-
ports 43 reptiles, including turtles, snakes, frogs,
toads and lizards; also IGl land and fresh-water mol-
lusks." ^ George W. Sears, traversing the Michigan
wilderness some eighty years ago, from Saginaw to
the Muskegon Eiver, encountered droves of wild tur-
keys amid heavy timber almost hourly. Deer were
everywhere "on all sorts of ground and among all
varieties of timber. Very tame they were too, often
stopping to look at the stranger, offering easy shots at
short range and finally going off quite leisurely." W.
J. Beal has left us an account of the game animals of
his Lenawee County home, where "black bear occa-
sionally devoured pigs as they were allowed to run
among oaks and beeches to fatten on the nuts known
as shack or mast," where "wolves were thick enough,
often making night hideous by their howling which
resembled the howling of a lonesome dog," and where
"occasionally the screams of a wildcat terrified some
belated footman. Foxes were numerous and cun-
ning. Deer, badgers, porcupines, minks and musk-
rats were plentiful. Deer ate the young wheat of the
fields. Wild turkeys were often seen in flocks and
sometimes wintered on corn left in the shock in the
field. Partridges and quail were abundant, wild
pigeons so numerous that at times of wheat seeding
^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections" XXXII, 359.

IIG RURAL MICHIGAN

the farmer had to watch his fields to save the seeding.
Coon, mink, otter and nuiskrats were hunted and
trapped for their fur. Opossums, turkey buzzards
and eagles were occasionally seen, but no crows had
arrived." Fox squirrels, he tells us, came later from
the South to join their many relations already
domiciled in the State. In the northern peninsula
there is considerable temporary testimony to the in-
adequate game supply in the pioneer period, so that
the Indian population, as David Thompson relates,
was sparse through the poverty of the means of sub-
sistence and, according to the Elder Henry, was on
occasion forced to cannibalize to save a remnant of
the family or tribe.

From all this array of animal life, the first settlers
of Michigan derived an income from the catch and
sale of furs, and the trade remains surprisingly
large after all these years of destructive forays by
their human foes on the denizens of the woods. Miss
Johnson quotes from the trader, Burnett's ledger
of 1796-1797, as follows: "Sold 99 packs composed
of 5 bears, 5 pound beaver, 10 fishers, 58 cats, 74 doe,
78 foxes, 108 wolves, 117 otters, 183 minks, 557
bucks, 1,231 deer, 1,340 muskrats, and 5,587 rac-
coons."^ C. A. Weissert of Barry County notes
among the furs dealt in, the marten, beaver, mink,
muskrat, otter, raccoon and fisher.- At points of
vantage throughout the two peninsulas arose the posts

^ Johnson: ":\richigan Fur Trade," Lansing, Mich. Hist.
Commission. 1919, 97.

■' "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 659.

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 117

of the fur trade : On the tributaries of the Saginaw
and the Grand, on the St. Joseph and the Kalamazoo,
and by the Lake Superior shore, while Mackinac and
the "Soo" were famous outfitting points and places
of concentration for the enormous traffic in peltries
throughout Michigan and the great Northwest. Some
interior points Avere designated by names of house-
hold familiarity among the pioneers of Michigan.
It was thus with Knagg's place and Williams' ex-
change in the Shiawassee Valley and Campau's post
on the Saginaw. Hither the trapper brought his
catch of beaver, so much an article of barter in the
fur country that it served as currency in lieu of coin.
The slaughter began with the Indians and the French
and has never ceased even to this hour. It brought
extermination to the buffalo, the elk, the moose, the
caribou, the panther and the wolverine, as also to
the passenger pigeon and the wild turkey.^ The State
Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner refers
to estimates by dealers in the 1920 fur trade, which
put the catch of furs in that year as selling from
three to six million dollars; and the Commissioner
estimates the normal annual output in Michigan as
worth two million dollars. -

Beaver and other furs are still secured, but re-
course has recently been had to the creation of an
artificial supply through the propagation of highly
valuable species of foxes. In 1920 the Bureau of

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXIII, 358.
* Kept. Midi. State Came, Fish and Forest Fire Dept. of
the Public Domain Commission, 1919-1920, 8.

118 RURAL MICHIGAN

Biological Survey of the United States Department
of Agriculture estimated, on the basis of incomplete
information, the investment in the silver fox ranches
in Michigan at $522,785, and that these ranches
were stocked with some 661 animals. This is re-
garded as an under-estimate. Muskegon on the
Lake Michigan side of the southern peninsula has
become one of the most important centers of fox
farming in the United States, while a beginning in
this industry was made, in 1920, at Houghton and
]\Iarquette. Fox farming in Michigan has become a
well-established industry.

The preservation of fur-bearing animals is in-
volved in the movement for greater forest protection,
since the forest and cut-over lands provide for wild
life of many kinds. It is recognized to some extent
that the destruction of the forest and bush areas
by fire means the removal of game and a valuable
trafTic arising therefrom. Skins of bear and beaver,
mink, otter and other small fur-bearers, usually are
marketable at a good price. A list of fur quotations
from January, 1920, places the price of a lynx
skin at $12 to $20, wildcat from $3 to $5, wolf at
$15 to $25, to which was added (until 1921) a bounty
of $35 for his destruction as a noxious animal. Mink
skins were quoted at $12 to $16, skunk at $1.50 to
$8, weasel from $0.50 to $2, and muskrats, a leader
in the market, at $3 to $4. Bear pelts, and bears are
not uncommon in the north Michigan woods, were
salable at $20 to $40, marten at $25 to $35, and
raccoon at $5 to $9. Ordinary foxes went at $15

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 119

to $25. Badger was quoted at $1.50 to $2. Beavers,
once the king of the trade, were valued at $15 to
$35 each, and the fisher and otter were given as
high a rating.^ The high price of furs of the late
post-war period had the effect of greatly stimulating
the destruction of fur-bearing^animals, until even
muskrats became exterminated in some localities
where they had once flourished." The destruction of
the forest cover through commercial operations and
fires likewise has diminished the game supply of the
State in the opinion of the Commissioner and of
sportsmen.

In the open November season (now limited to
ten days) there continues to be a very large annual
destruction of deer in the northern counties, esti-
mated by the Commissioner in 1920 at 28,000 head.
Below the Straits of Mackinac the depletion in the
number of deer was so great by 1920 that the State
Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner thought it
advisable to take measures for their augmentation.
The major portion of the kill of deer now pertains to
tlie Upper Peninsula, where, in spite of a shortened
season for hunting, 1920 witnessed the largest ship-
ment in the five years preceding, the number passing
the Straits being 5,079 head. In 1918 two herds
of nineteen individuals of elk were released from
refuges to covert in Alpena and Presque Isle coun-
ties of the southern peninsula. Two years later it

'"The arand Rnpids Herald, Jan. 11. 1920. 4.
*"Rept. State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner,"
1919-1920, 8, 9,

120 * RURAL MICHIGAN

was estimated that the original numher had increased
100 per cent.^ In 1923 sixty Norway reindeer were
introduced into northern Michigan.

There is said also to be a large increase in the
number of migratory wild ducks and geese and other
fowl as a consequence of the treaty for their pro-
tection contracted with Canada and reinforced by
legislation. Of particular importance to Michigan
agriculture is the undoubted increase in the numbers
of many varieties of insectivorous birds in the State,
the consequence of protective legislation and educa-
tion of the people, whose appetite for noxious in-
sects and weed-seeds ought to be a highly appreciated
contribution to the State's agricultural welfare. On
the other hand, the predatory fox is also reported
to be growing in numbers, in spite of the bounty paid
for its destruction; while the undoubted increase
in the number of wolves and coyotes, especially in
the northern peninsula, has caused much concern
to the sheepmen of the district. Squirrels, too, are
said to be increasing, especially in some parts of the
State, and make some trouble to the farmers' gran-
aries. Isle Eoyale, close to the extreme northern
boundary in Lake Superior, is remarkably well
stocked with moose — an animal seen only on rare
occasions on the mainland. The deputy of the State
Game, Fish and Forest Fire Conmiissioner, stationed
on the island, reported (1920) upwards of one thou-

' "Rcpt. State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner,"
li)l!)-1920, p. 15.

c
_bJO

c
1-i
i)

a;
03

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 121

sand moose there, an estimate regarded as moderate
by the Commissioner.

In 1916 the Public Domain Commission established
a game farm four miles southeast of j\Iason, Ing-
ham County, whose principal service has been the
propagation of ring-necked pheasants, for the pur-
pose of stocking the wild lands of the State. In
1920, 58,468 eggs were produced on this farm, of
which 38,463 were sent to individual applicants for
hatching, and 4,461 adult birds reared on the farm
were distributed in general field covert, principally
in the southern counties of the Lower Peninsula.
The State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner,
who was responsible for this undertaking, reports
general success in securing pheasant colonies even in
northern counties where results were not anticipated.
It was believed that this bird would well replace
the ruffed grouse whose depletion, it was hoped,
would be offset by this imported variety.^ In 1919,
the propagation of wild turkeys was also begun at
the State game farm and a few birds were released
in 1921. The bird was formerly very abundant, if
the accounts of pioneers are to be credited, but has
been completely exterminated in a wild state."

' "Rept. State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commissioner,"
1919-1920, 12.

^ How "Xature, dospite man's grasping ways, provides
more altundaiilly Hum ever food and shelter for the birds
and animals," is deseribed by George Shiras, 3d, in The
National (leographic Marjazine for August, 1921, page 202fT.
Shiras is very familiar with wild life and the conditions

122 RURAL MICHIGAN

"Oar lakes were well stocked with excellent fish,"

writes L. D. Watkins of Manchester, "bass, pike,

pickerel, perch, sunfish and blue-gills were the most

common and were easily taken." ^ Harvey Tower,

writing of the Oceana County of seventy years ago,

informs that from ten to fifty barrels "to a haul"

of whitefish were not unusual; while the Indians

of the Sault Ste. Marie caught them with their

hands amid the rocks and rapids. Bela Hubbard

enjoyed the rare sport of landing with his hands,

after a vigorous tussle, one of a school of sturgeon

discovered gamboling in the waves breaking amid the

bowlders near the "shore. "I do not wish you to lose

faith in my veracity," Mrs. A. M. Hayes of Hastings

assures her readers, "but I have seen squaws spear

sturgeon near-by on the river that would weigh

all the way from sixty to one hundred pounds." ^

under which it lives in the Lake Superior country. His
thesis is that the primeval forest yielded less sustenance
and poorer cover for l>irds and animals than is now afforded
by the vegetation that has replaced this original forest
cover, with a resulting increase in animal life in this
region. There is historical evidence of the truth of this
opinion. David Thompson, the fur-trader, who was fa-
miliar with the Lake Superior shore more than a century
ago, refers to tlie paucity of gaiue here. Forced canni-
balism among the Indians was not unknown. Similarly, it
has been pointed out that the northern Michigan cut-over
area affords excellent conditions for bee-keeping, since the
vegetation it now carries comprises many plants that yield
nectar. The State Inspectoi^^of Apiaries in 1021 adverted
to the presence of alsike and white clover, wild red rasp-
berry, blackberry, fire-weed, basswood, boneset, aster,
etc.. on tlie uplands of this resion as favorable to bees.

' "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections." v. XXII, p. 265.

'Ibid., VIII, 225; v. Ill, p. 199; v. XXVI, p. 240,

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 123

Michigan is estimated to have 16,000 miles of
rivers and small streams and it has innumerable
inland lakes — the home of many varieties of edible
fish, such as pike and pickerel, perch, bullheads,
bass and trout, the aggregate output of which se-
cured by commercial fishermen and sportsmen, while
not statistically ascertained, is undoubtedly very
large. The Great Lakes encompassing the State yield
the great supply of marketable fish, amounting in
1917 to 29,737,335 pounds. In that year 3,183 per-
sons were engaged in this occupation in the State,
and the total product was valued at $1,668,529.^
Of the Great Lakes in the IMichigan area. Lake Huron
contributed the largest fraction of the total supply —
13,363,207 pounds. Lake Michigan was second in
rank, with some two million pounds less product
than Lake Huron ; while Lake Superior, with an
output of 2,891,131 pounds, was a very poor third in
rank. It seems to be a fact, not generally under-
stood, that the growth of fish in Lake Superior is
much less rapid than in the lakes of a more southerly
latitude. This is attributable to the lower tempera-
ture prevailing in this greatest fresh-water sea and
to the diminished supply of vegetable matter con-
sumed by fish as food. John Lowe of the Northern
State Normal School, Marquette, has estimated that
during the first year of life, a fish in Lake Superior
increases some three ounces in weight, while in
Lake Michigan the growth is about thrice as rapid.

^"Fisliery Industries of the U. S. Bur. Fisheries," 1919,
123, 124.

124 RURAL MICHIGAN

It has become evident that the fidi supply of the
Great Lakes is diniinishing, and the great im-
portance of the industry has promoted the estab-
lishment of hatcheries both by the State and the
United States for the propagation of fish for planting
in the inland waters and in the Great Lakes. Hatch-
eries owned or operated by the State under the direc-
tion of the Michigan Fish (now Conservation) Com-
mission were located (December, 1920), at Paris,
Mecosta Connty ; Comstock Park, Kent County ; Hen-
rietta, Wexford County; Drayton Plains, Oakland
County; Detroit; Sault Ste. Marie; Grayling, Craw-
ford County ; and Bay Port, Huron County ; while
other hatcheries were under construction at Manis-
tique, Schoolcraft County in the Upper Peninsula;
Oden, Emmet County; Hastings, Barry County;
Benton Harbor, Berrien County; and Harrisville,
Alcona County. From these fish hatcheries during
the year 1920, the number of fish distributed through-
out the State aggregated 128,225,300, including fry,
fingerlings and yearlings. These included 12,132,-
000 l)rook trout (fry and advanced fry) ; 0,458,500
rainbow trout; 9,018,000 wall-eyed pike; 53,870,000
perch (fry) ; 18,000,000 whitefish (fry) ; and 891,-
000 lake trout (fry). During the past twenty years,
according to the superintendent and secretary of the
Michigan Fish Commission, most of the work of
fish propagation in the Great Lakes has been main-
tained by the United States Bureau of Fisheries,
which operates hatcheries in Michigan at North-
ville, Alpena, and Charlevoix. The list of species

OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN 125

of fish planted by the Michigan Fish Commission
in the year 1920 also includes brown trout, large-
mouthed and small-mouthed black bass, bluegills,
bullheads, landlocked salmon, and rocky mountain
whitefish, whose numbers are in most instances less
than one million.

WATER SUPPLY

At favored spots along the waterways of Michigan,
the early settlers erected their water-wheels and
mills, where the farmer ground his grain and re-
duced his logs to lumber. Such points were the
rapids of the Grand at Grand Rapids, the big rapids
of the Shiawassee at Owosso, the big rapids of the
Muskegon at Big Eapids and at almost countless
other locations throughout the State. Many grist-
mills still use this economical source of power, though
steam has replaced water as the motive force for
the lumber industry. Today, it is hydro-electric
power that gives the water-courses of Michigan their
chief economic importance. The development under
this head gives Michigan a leading place in the
United States. The potential water power of the
State has been estimated at 332,000 horse power, of
which the total actual developed power was put at
213,000 horse power.^ The Geological Survey of
Michigan has investigated the available water power
of the Upper Peninsula. -

' Statement of tlic National Bank of Commerce in New
York, March 10, 1920.
='See 1910 Report.

12G RURAL MICHIGAN

Of the various hydro-electric power companies op-
erating in Michigan, the Escanaba Traction Com-
pany, which has a series of stations on the Escanaba
Eiver in the Upper Peninsula, is credited by the
Michigan Public Utilities Commission with the great-
est kilowatt capacity (Dec. 31, 1918), namely, 100,-
800 ; while the Consumers Power Company's twenty-
one stations on the ]\Ianistee, Muskegon, Grand,
Lookingglass, Shiawassee, Au Sable, and Kalamazoo
rivers, with 75,900 kilowatt capacity, was the largest
actual producer of current in 1918, the output ap-
proximating 228,000,000 kilowatt hours.^ Other
large producers of power are the Cleveland Clilfs
Iron Company (26,000,000 K. W. H.) operating
on the iron range near Marquette; the Indiana and
Michigan Electric Company (54,000,000 K. W. H.)
on the St. Joseph River; and the Detroit Edison
Company managing five plants on the Huron River.
A considerable number of concerns are operating
single stations of a few hundred kilowatts potential
capacity, and still other plants municipally owned
and operated, like those at Marquette and Escanaba.
The agricultural significance of this electric power
development is chiefly in connection with the inter-
urban railroad, which has become a highly prized
service in many parts of the State.

^Statement of the Michigan Public Utilities Commia-
sion, 1920.

CHAPTEE IV

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND

The land of Michigan originally belonged to the
Indian inhabitants. Territorial sovereignty came to
the United States by its treaty with Great Britain
in 1783. Actual possession of the southern penin-
sula resulted from Jay's Treaty, becoming effective
in 1796; while it remained for the Governor Lewis
Cass in 1820 to assert American sovereignty north
of the Straits of Mackinac. Title to much of the
land, however, was first bestowed on the United
States through a series of treaties with the Indians.

Notable among these treaties is that of Detroit in
1807, ceding a tract in the southeastern area of Michi-
gan ; the Saginaw Treaty of 1819, ceding, a large
region in the east-central portion tributary mainly
to Saginaw Bay; the cession by the Pottawatomies
in 1821, of lands in the southwest between the St.
Joseph and Grand rivers; while the large territory
north of this river, embracing the northwestern and
northern parts of the Lower Peninsula and much
of the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula, not
already granted, as far west as the Chocolay Eiver
near Marquette, was ceded by the Ottawas and Chip-
pewas in 1836. The region west of this line was

127

us RURAL MIC 11 1(1 AN

granted by the Chippewas to the United States by
a treaty contracted at La Pointe, ^Yisconsin, in
1842 and a supplementary treaty in 1854, while the
Menoniinees had already yielded their claim to the
country east of the lower Menominee Eiver in 183().^

Thus, with the addition of sundry minor grants,
did the United States possess itself of much of the
soil of Michigan with whatever it might contain.
Those who suppose that the Indians were commonly
robbed of their lands should read these treaties
Avhich are the foundation of all land titles in the
State.

Previous to the settlement of these lands, it was
necessary to survey and subdivide them. Unlike the
states of the East and South, Michigan happily was
comprehended within the excellent scheme of land
survey provided by the old Congress of the Con-
federation in 1785, and thus was spared the hap-
hazard and costly practice obtaining in the older
commonwealths. The Congressional plan, first ap-
plied to the famous "Seven Eanges" of Ohio, con-
templated the bisecting of the future state east and
west by a "base line," the division of the land into
equilateral townships of thirty-six sections of one
square mile each in area, the designation of the town-
ships by their position north or south of the base
line and their range east or west of the meridian

'Eoyce: "Indian Land Cessions in tlie United States,"
(Bur. 'of Amer. Ethnology, 18th Annual Kept.) ; Washing-
ton, 1896-97.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 129

line, and of the sections by successive numbers within
the township. Of the surveyed portions of the terri-
tory plats, maps and records were to be kept, so that
it would be relatively easy to locate authoritatively
any tract of land in the surveyed area, and thus in
the main avoid costly litigation and conflict of title.
Subsequently provision was made for the subdivision
of sections into fractional portions; and while the
description of tracts of land by "meets and bounds"
is occasionally met with in ]\Iicliigan, much of the
land is located under the old Congressional plan
of 1785; and the Auditor-General of the State has
earnestly sought to make the practice universal in
order, among other things, that the identity of all
lands subject to taxation shall be beyond question.^
In 1920, Auditor-General 0. B. Fuller estimated the
total number of descriptions of property on the tax
rolls of Michigan at some 1,500,000. Of the 300,000
descriptions of property on which taxes are annually
returned as delinquent, he states the number of these
that are erroneous to be from 15 to 20 per cent of
the total, partly due to error in the caption of the
plat, and partly due to indefinite description of the
property. He lias knowledge of faulty descriptions
only in cases in which property is returned as de-
linquent for taxes, but he believes that in the south-
ern— and therefore the oldest — counties of the State
40 per cent of all property is described by meets
and bounds in spite of the form of description ap-
' Hinsdale: "The Old Northwest," ch. XIV.

130 RURAL MICHIGAN

proved by the United States survey, although the
tendency is believed to be steadily in this direction.^

The records of the General Land Office at Wash-
ington indicate that the survey of lands in Michigan
began in 1826. The meridian line was located at
longitude 84 degrees, 22 minutes, 24 seconds; and the
base line at 42 degrees, 2G minutes, 30 seconds. Their
point of intersection on the boundary between Jack-
son and Ingham counties became the starting-point
for running the lines of the "Congressional'" town-
ships into which much of the State has been divided,
and which in many, but not all cases, constitute the
unit of local government in the rural sections. Next
came the location of the section lines, along wliich
today in many instances rural highways have been
established, sometimes along the "quarter-line" in-
stead, thus giving to the countryside of Michigan a
checker-board arrangement, in some respects more
convenient than esthetically pleasing. On these
lines the surveyors set corner-posts and quarter-posts,
notched and inscribed to indicate their exact position,
while "meandering stakes" marked the course of
streams and the shore-line of lakes. Through de-
fective surveying, corners of sections and townships
did not always "close*' accurately, and the traveler
by road still encounters strange "jogs" or deflections
from the direct course, caused by the necessity of
correcting a defective corner, or of setting a boundary
on a new meridian if the nominal requirement of a
township six miles square was to be even approxi-

iQ. B. Fuller, Auditor-General: Letter of Sept. 20, 1920.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 131

mately adhered to. At a few places in Michigan,
where grants by the French and British governments
had been made previous to the American occupation
of the land, the system just described was not em-
ployed.

In connection with the linear survey, notes were
taken of the main physical features of the land
surface: the timber, soil, moisture, streams, lakes
and swamps; and special pains were taken in the
Upper Peninsula to ascertain the rock and mineral
formations, specimens being sent to Washington with
their accompanying field notes, as indicative of the
mineral resources of the region. It was while en-
gaged on this combined linear and geological survey
that Douglass Houghton lost his life in Lake Superior
in the autumn of 1845, and it was a party of his
surveyors that discovered the presence of iron ore
near Negaunee in 1844. In some instances, through
carelessness or fraud, grossly inaccurate surveys were
perpetrated, necessitating the repetition of the work.

The life of a United States surveyor in the pioneer
period was hard and laborious and not devoid of
unpleasant, even dangerous, features. The deputy
surveyor was accompanied by chainmen and axmen
to assist him in his work. Life was in the open,
exposed to storms and mosquitoes and flies. Camp
equipage, provisions and instruments must be packed
to the place where they were required. Food must
be prepared as best it could. Beds were made od
spruce and balsam boughs, with boots perhaps for
pillows. There was no "eight hour day." Notes,

Fig. 3. Percentage of increase or decrease of total population of
Michigan by counties (1910-1920). (For explanation of shading
see Fig. 4.)

132

f/^yyy^ 5 TO 1 5 Pea cent
^$$^ (6 TO 25 »za cr»»T
y^^^ 26 TO 50 i»CB CEfcT

50 PER CENT 4HD OvfH

Fig. 4. Percentajro of increase or decrease of rural population of
Michigan bj' counties (1910-1920). Rural population is defined
as that residing outside incorporated places having 2,500 inhabi-
tants or more.

133

134 RURAL MICHIGAN

ilie loss of wliich miglit be irreparable, must be
carefully recorded and preserved. Sickness and ac-
cident must be endured as best they might. Yet
these men were the pioneers of civilization in Michi-
gan, as they forced their way through the dense forest
and across the morasses and water-courses of the
inter-morainal depressions, as they labored in the
shadow of giant trees and the deep silence of the
wilderness, and slept to the howling of the wolf and
the hooting of the owl — if they slept at all. They
were laying the foundations of rural life in Michi-
gan.^

The United States lands having been surveyed,
their sale or other disposition by the Government
was in order. At various points in the State land
offices were opened according to the center of gravity
of the business : at Detroit, White Pigeon, Ionia,
Sault Ste. Marie, and Marquette, where last all land
office business for the State has been centered with
the discontinuance of all other offices at less strategic
points. The Marquette office still (1919) has 73,000
acres of United States land at its disposition, mainly
in the northern section of the State, the largest
holdings being in Schoolcraft and Chippewa counties
and on Isle Eoyale. In the pioneer period, the
journey to the "local'' land office was often long and
arduous, yet it was rarely undertaken, for did not
two hundred dollars possess a man of a quarter

'An interest injj account of tlie life and work of a U. S.
purveyor is found in "Midi. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collec-
tions," V. XXVII, 306, written by C. S. Woodard of Ann
Arbor.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 135

section of fertile soil — its fertility attested by the
vigorous growth of stalwart trees that only time and
prodigious labor could remove? In the great specu-
lative year of ISSG more than four million acres of
these Michigan lands were sold by the Government,
computed to be one-fifth of the total United States'
sales of that year. The panic of 1837 brought punish-
ment to many who had speculated too wildly in
Michigan real estate, particularly the purchasers of
town sites in platted cities which, it was hoped, were
destined to make their buyers rich out of their rapid
increment of value. Eventually, however, most of
Michigan's 36,000,000 acres passed out of public
into private ownership, much of it by sale, 2,551,000
acres by homestead entry, and still other large quan-
tities by grants of various sorts; 1,021,000 acres to
the State for the benefit of its primary schools; 750,-
000 acres to the State and thence to the corporation
which constructed St. Mary's Ship Canal; 500,000
to the State itself for internal improvements (1841) ;
nearly 400,000 to the company which built the canals
joining Portage Lake with Lake Superior; 100,000
acres for the construction of the ship canal con-
necting Lake La Belle on the Keweenaw Peninsula
with Lake Superior (1866).

Land, also, was forthcoming for the construction
of the "military" road from Fort Wilkins on Ke-
weenaw I'oint to the Wisconsin-Michigan line by
way of Houghton. At a time when it was thought
necessary that capital should be interested in rail-
wad building through large grants of lands by the

136 RURAL MICHIGAN

federal government to the state for that purpose,
Michigan Avas not forgotten. From 1856 a series of
acts of Congress conferred on the State those lands
bestowed on the companies which bnilt the railroad
lines now ^forming portions of the Chicago and
jSTorthwestern and the Duluth, South Shore and At-
hmtic railroads in the Upper Peninsula, and the
Grand Eapids and Indiana, the Pere Marquette and
the Lansing-Mackinac sections of the Michigan Cen-
tral railroads in the Lower Peninsula. The grants
were of the riglit of way and of alternate sections
on both sides of it, and by 1880 had amounted to
luore than 3,000,000 acres.

It thus appears that no inconsiderable fraction
of the area of Michigan was freely relinquished by
the national government, primarily to the State, but
eventually to the private concerns interested in ex-
ploiting its natural resources. The construction
companies receiving these bonus lands from the State
have in turn disposed of them wholly or in part.
These grants have, therefore, to a considerable extent
become incorporated in the common general mass
of farm lands. In the southern peninsula, the Grand
Eapids and Indiana, and the Pere Marquette rail-
roads have thus wholly disposed of their land grants,
save such portions as they may have chosen per-
manently to retain. In the Upper Peninsula the
Chicago and Northwestern Railway still retains
nearly 200,000 acres of its land grant; the Detroit,
Mackinac and ]\Iarquette Land Company now pos-
sesses some 150,000 acres of the lands originally

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 137

granted to the railroad of that name now comprised
in the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway
system, while the latter retains some 60,000 acres
of the old Marquette, Houghton and Ontonogan
Eailroad grant. The St. Mary's Mineral Land Com-
pany, present holders of the St. Mary's Ship Canal
land grant, still is in possession of some 92,000 acres.
All these holdings are mainly of timber and mineral
lands. In the southern peninsula, the Michigan
Central Eailroad still possesses some 11,000 acres
of the old grant to the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw
section of its present system, which carry a price of
$2 to $10 an acre.

The grants of land by the United States for edu-
cational purposes in Michigan were likewise very
extensive. According to the famous Ordinance of
1787, section number 16 of each surveyed township
was bestowed on the State in aid of primary educa-
tion. In this manner approximately 1,021,000 acres
came into the possession of the State.^ These lands
were disposed of, first by the Superintendent of
Public Instruction and then by the Commissioner
of the Land Office after 1843, along with other lands
granted to the State for educational purposes. At
first the minimum price of school lands was set at
$12 an acre, later reduced to $5, then to $4. Accord-
ing to Knight, the average sale price of two-thirds

'This is the niiinlu'r of aores rpjjortcd l)y tlio Commis-
sioner of the General Land OfRco. Knifjlit in "Mich. Pioneer
and Hist. See. Collections," VII, 28, gives the total num-
ber of acres patented to the State at 1,067,397.

138 RURAL MICHIGAN

of this grant disposed of before the year 1885 was
$4.58 an acre. The university lands sold at some-
thing over $11 an acre on the average. Of these
school lands the State still (July 1920) owns 8,066.15
acres. In addition to the school lands, grants were
also made by the United States to the University,
the z\gricultural College and the normal schools.
Through purchase, also, these became incorporated
mainly in the agricultural lands of Michigan. A
much larger contribution of acreage resulted from
the act of Congress of 1850, which conveyed to Ar-
kansas by name and other states by inclusion "wet
or swamp lands" within their borders. Out of this
legislation Michigan derived by patent from the
United States 5,655,689.56 acres, likewise largely dis-
posed of for the benefit of the primary schools.

The average price of improved farms in Michigan
in 1921 is placed at $91 an acre by the statistician
of the Cooperative Crop Eeporting Service. This
represents an increase of $4 an acre over the pre-
ceding year, although the downward tendency of
prices of farm products was beginning to manifest
itself in land valuations in some localities.^ How-
ever, in a state where soil and climatic conditions
vary so markedly, with differences in market and
transportation conditions, extreme variation in the
valuations placed on agricultural lands are to be
expected. The appraisers for the Federal Land Bank
of St. Paul have found that, in evaluating lands, each
farm presents a distinct problem in itself, particularly

^ "]\Iich. Crop Kept.," Lansing, March, 1921, 4.

THE OCCUPATIOX OF THE LAND 139

in the less developed sections. One of these ap-
praisers found the highest priced land to be in the
southeastern counties of Monroe and Lenawee, his
valuations running as high as $200 an acre with in-
stances of sales at a higher figure. Yet he found
some lands in those same counties worth not over $10
an acre. The least valuable farm lands, as might be
expected, were in the northern jDortion of the Lower
Peninsula (the Upper Peninsula was out of his juris-
diction), where the most worthless land was ascribed
to Muskegon, Lake, Kalkaska and Eoscommon
counties. In this region the valuations were $5 to
$15 an acre for uncultivated tillable land, and $30 to
$40 an acre for the best grades of cultivated lands.
Starting with a base line of $0.00 for some land in
every county, his colleague finds his maximum valua-
tion for land to be $200 an acre in Oakland, Wayne,
Macomb, Genesee, Branch and Gratiot counties, $250
in Saginaw County, $150 in St. Clair, Lapeer, and
Midland counties; $100 in Huron and Isabella; $80
in Alcona County, $70 in Alpena, Gladwin and Clare
counties; $30 in Roscommon County; $50 in Oscoda
County, and $40 in Montmorency County, while the
fruit-raising county of Grand Traverse in the same
latitude attains values of $100 an acre. The ap-
praiser for the LTpper Peninsula finds the most
highly developed agricultural counties having, con-
sequently, the highest range of land values, to be
Menominee, Delta, C^hippewa and Houghton, in
which his valuations range as high as $100 an acre,
although he concedes that sales occasionally occur

140 RURAL MH'lltaA}^

in excess of that price. Tliis is not essentially in-
consistent with the opinion of the Assistant State
Leader of County Agents in tlie Upper Peninsula,
who reports the highest land vahu'S to be reached
in Menominee County at $150 an acre.

It is in the Upper Peninsula and the northern
half of the Lower Peninsula that approximately
12,000,000 acres of cut-over lands are located, whose
price is an object of interest to the seeker after
cheap raw lands capable of development by hard
labor into productive agricultural holdings. One
railroad company gives the minimum price for its
cut-over lands at $7 an acre. A land company op-
erating in the neighborhood of Chatham and Trenary
southeast of Marquette has sold its holdings at an
average price of $17.90 an acre. Another company,
Avith 10,000 acres at its disposal, has placed a price
of $15 to $20 an acre on its holdings. Another con-
cern, operating between Keweenaw and Huron bays,
has sold eighty "forties" at prices ranging from $10
to $15 an acre. It should be understood, however,
that the sales of these lands go with reservations
of mineral and frequently many other rights and
privileges which impair the title and of themselves
reduce the value of the property. ... In a state
where land values vary so markedly as in Michigan,
an average price for farm land as a whole is not
very significant; however, the Fourteenth United
States Census found the average acre value of land
alone in Michigan to be $50.40. (See Appendix A.)

These prices refer to lands from which the forest

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 141

has been removed, "cut-over," which composed nearly
one-third of the State's area.^ These are largely un-
productive stump tracts, increasing, it is estimated,
at the rate of 100,000 acres each year.^ At a time
when it is difficult to retain Michigan farmers on
improved lands in the most favorably situated sec-
tions of the State, these northern cut-overs have not
proven very attractive to those in quest of land to
till. Of late, however, there has been a consider-
able influx of grazers, chiefly from the depleted ranges
of the West, to whom free pasturage for a period of
years with the final option of purchase at a low
price is given. The abundant summer forage, in-
sured by seldom failing summer rains, the presence
of water and favorable proximity to the Chicago
market have interested a considerable number of
these grazers; and when the problem of winter feed-
ing has been squarely met through the growth of
winter forage by the grazers themselves, an increas-
ing demand for these stump lands may be looked
for.

Aside from these deforested regions are consider-
able tracts of wet lands, only Florida, Mississippi,
Louisiana and Arkansas exceeding Michigan in the
possession of such areas. ^ The counties in the Lower
Peninsula below latitude 41 degrees are credited with

' Estimate of F. Roth, Professor of Forestry, Univ. of
^licli., "Rpport of the Public Domain Commission," Jan. 9,
1920, p. 5.55.

^Tanette: "Michigan's Millions of Idle Acres," Detroit,
1920. p. .32.

* Miller and Simons: "Drainage in Michigan," p. 17.

142 RURAL MICHIGAN

2,1'''5,000 acres of reclaimablo wet lands. Beyond
this line to the Straits ol' Mackinac these are esti-
mated at 661,000 acres, while the Upper Peninsula
is 25 per cent swamp, or 2,598,000 acres, according
to the authors of "Drainage in Michigan." Like
the cut-over tracts, these wet areas present a problem
to those who would extend agriculture to the idle
acres of the State. Much wet land has hitherto been
reclaimed by local drainage operations, but for much
of that which remains. State aid and management
would seem required. Thus the great Taquamenon
swamp in the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula,
said to cover 500,000 acres, much of it otherwise
fertile clay, will require the removal of a rocky ele-
vation in the lower course of the Taquamenon River
before its drainage can be accomplished ; and this is a
task better proportioned to the resources of the State
than of a local drainage district. Th-at the State
has considerable tracts of land which, as hitherto
utilized, cannot yield a livelihood to their possessors
and pay the taxes assessed, is indicated by the re-
version to the State since 1893 of 2,300,000 acres.
Of this amount, 445,798 acres were re-sold, of which
there again reverted to the State 190,598 acres.^
The number of acres now (1920) in arrears for taxes
is stated to be 3,000,000.- This is one-twelfth of
the total area of the State, and is indicative of the
effect of poor soil and other adverse conditions on
agriculture. However, it is also significant of nu-

' Janette, supra, pp. 14, 16.
''Ihid., p. 12.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 143

merous wild-cat operations by private agencies and
of a defective public policy on the part of the State
government itself. No one doubts that there is
much excellent agricultural land in Michigan, but
this is often segregated in tracts of moderate propor-
tions, without any trustworthy indication of its true
extent and general desirability for the home-seeker.
The State is at present without a comprehensive and
detailed classification of its lands, and it remains to
be seen whether the soil survey now in progress under
the auspices of the Michigan Agricultural College,
the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the
United States Bureau of Soils is really to be of
very much help in determining the relative desira-
bility, ultimate productiveness and most economi-
cal use of each parcel of land. The legislation of
1917 made provision for a soil classification of
this character, but for reasons variously set forth,
the work, then assigned to the Geological Survey of
Michigan, was not proceeded Avith, and the present
survey is under quite diff^erent auspices and lacks the
cooperation of all agencies that might naturally be
expected to partici])ate. If the various types of land
are clearly differentiated and classified, it should
have the effect of more chjsely approximating land
prices to worth as related to productivity in the eco-
nomic sense of the term.

With one-third of the area of the State in unpro-
ductive cut-over lands, and these in the hands mainly
of a few large owners, the problem of their disposi-
tion remains unsolved. Marquette County is one of

144 RURAL MICHIGAN

the most developed in the cut-over section ; yet with
an area of l,li)G,800 acres, it has only 900 farmers
and these own only 90,000 acres, 500,000 of wliich
are tillable. Many of the large land holders employ
agents to promote the sale of their cast-off real estate.
These rough lands do not appeal to native American
farmers ; and it is, therefore, necessary to interest
recent arrivals from Europe, whom necessity and a
less fastidious standard of living have prepared for
the hardships of this pioneer agriculture. Stumps
have to be removed, the virgin sod turned under,
fences and buildings erected — a procedure that has
been repeated in Michigan during five generations at
least, and which must continue for still other genera-
tions before the State is beyond the pioneer stage
throughout the two peninsulas. The mechanical
agencies are now more effective, but the human factor
may still be quite without capital and perhaps without
the New World experience that fits him fully for his
task. The process of creating such a pioneer agri-
cultural community may be illustrated by reference
to the settlement of "Aura" between Keweenaw and
Huron bays, Baraga County. The land was under
control of Charles Hebard and Sons, Incorporated,
lumbermen of Pequaming. "In the spring of 1914,"
writes W. J. Colenso, secretary of the Company, "we
put our Point Abbaye lands on the market, and by
early summer six or seven families had built houses
and began cultivating the soil. We sold these lands
on contract, requiring twenty per cent of the pur-
chase price as the first payment, and the balance in

THE OCCUPATIOy OF THE LAND 145

five equal annual payments with interest. To date
have sold eighty forties, or 3,200 acres on Point
Abbaye. This locality is called Aura, and is located
about four miles from this village (Pequaming),
and the settlers are all Finns. A large school has
been built there by the L'Anse township, and they
have a large attendance. These farmers have gotten
together and purchased a tractor which will be used in
clearing and cultivating the land. This country is
rapidly developing into a first-class farming district.
We still have about 120 forties of cut-over lands on
Point Abbaye to dispose of."' The company did not
extend financial assistance to these settlers, so far as
is known, wlio are described by J. H. Jasberg, gen-
eral colonization agent of the Mineral Eange Rail-
road, as quite penniless and able to succeed only by
outside work, particularly in the woods in winter.
The company built a road into the settlement and
sold lumber to the settlers, it is said, at a figure
below the market price. This firm is credited with
marked liberality in its dealings with employees,
and it is likely that the Aura settlers have been
afforded rather more favorable consideration than
normally elsewhere in the district. It has become
manifest to some observers, however, that successful
colonization of these cut-over lands requires very
liberal terms as regards payments of interest and
principal, a carefully elaborated system of financial
credits for the purchase of equipment and live-stock,
and adequate provision for the installation of
improvements and community conveniences and ad-

146 RURAL MlCHIGAJs

vantages. Some preliminary work has been done
in this direction, but no definite project has as yet
(October, 1920) been undertaken. As yet the idea
of exploitation rather than that of reconstruction
is the common conception, and the State has done
very little to promote a different policy.

The United States Census of 1910 indicates that
the number of farms operated by their owners was
172,310; by managers, 1,961 ; and by tenants, 32,689.
This signifies that something less than one-fifth of
the operators were tenants. Ten years later, before
the publication of the results of the fourteenth cen-
sus as related to farm tenure, a study made by the
]\[ichigan State Farm Bureau indicated that tenancy
of farms in Michigan had increased 2 per cent in
the interval. This survey covered 52,561 farms in
thirty counties. In these thirty counties the number
of rented farms was 9,637, while farms operated
by their owners numbered 42,92-1. The increase in
farm tenancy the Bureau attributed to the inade-
quacy of long-time rural credits which permitted
the purchase of farms without assuming intolerable
burden of debt, a disproportionate rise in the price
of country real estate as compared with economic
value, lack of cooperation "which takes .the extreme
elements of chance out of farming," and the greater
attractiveness of city life. Of the thirty counties,
it was found that tenancy was actually increasing
in eighteen, unchanged in six and decreasing in six.
The counties surveyed were said to be well distributed
throughout the State. The survey elicited the fact

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 147

that tenancy is much more prevalent in the Lower
than in the Upper Peninsula. The percentage of
rented farms in the two peninsulas is given as 21 and
8 respectively.

In 1921, the statistician of the Cooperative Crop
Eeporting Service found that approximately 18 per
cent of the farms of the State is rented, of which
15 per cent is on shares and 3 for cash. The aver-
age size of theso farms is §8.5 acres with a value
of $7,750. The average cash rental paid was $175
per annum, which averages something over five dol-
lars an acre.^ The Fourteenth United States Cen-
sus indicates that, in 1920, the numbei- of farms
operated by owners had fallen off 12,901 during the
previous decade ; while the number of farms operated
by tenants had increased by 2,033. The number of
farms operated by managers had increased by 358.
(See Appendix A.)

As compared with the southern peninsula, land
holdings in the north of Michigan are much larger
and ownership is concentrated in a few persons and
corporations. The situation is set forth by the
Bureau of Corporations of the United States De-
partment of Commerce in its report on the lumber
industry of July 13, 1914. The investigations of
the Bureau led it to the conclusion that of the
Upper Peninsula's area of over 10,080,000 acres,
about 56 per cent was held by ninety owners. Thirty-
two owners held 47 per cent of the area ; thirteen
37 per cent, and one, the Cleveland Cliffs Iron

»"Mich. Crop. Kept.," March, 1921, p. 4.

148 RURAL MICHIGAN

Company, owned 14 per cent. The last mentioned
corporation, with its subsidiaries, was credited with
holding 1,515,392 acres, a tract of land which, if
blocked off in a single area, would comprise sixty-
six townships whose circumference would amount to
195 miles. There were twelve holders of over 100,000
acres each, nineteen of 40,000 to 100,000; twenty-
seven of 15,000 to 40,000; and thirty-one of less
than 15,000 acres each but still possessing over
60,000,000 feet of timber. These ninety holders of
land in the Upper Peninsula possessed 5,999,036
acres, which comprised 56.3 per cent of the whole
area.^ These extensive holdings were promoted by
the large grants of land conveyed by the federal gov-
ernment in aid of various works of internal improve-
ment, roads, railroads and canals, with lavish gen-
erosity and with little consideration of the prospec-
tive value of the rights bestowed. Thus the rail-
roads of this section received grants from Fort Wil-
kins on Keweenaw Point to the Wisconsin state line,
221,013 acres were patented to the builders, and
762,803 acres in the northern peninsula alone in
aid of canal construction.

In 1850, Congress had bestowed on the states tracts,
designated "swamp lands," within their borders, on
condition of their being reclaimed; and Michigan
thus came into possession of 5,655,689 acres to June
30, 1914. These lands were in turn disposed of
in large amounts in aid of the construction of roads
and railroads. Thus in 1881, the just completed

'"Lumber Industry," II, 188-190-198.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 149

Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Eailroad, joining
Marquette with the Straits of Mackinac, received
from the State 1,32G,G88 acres lying in the eastern
counties of the Upper Peninsula ; and of this grant
the Upper Peninsula Land Company — a subsidiary
of the present Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company — came
into possession of some 700,000 acres. A group of
holders in addition to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Com-
pany also became the owners of another very large
aggregate of these swamp lands. There have been
no very considerable alterations in the general situa-
tion as regards land tenure in the Upper Peninsula
since their report was prepared. Present-day pur-
chasers or lessees of undeveloped tracts in this section
must deal with one or another of these large land-
holders. Of these undeveloped lands, more than
10,000,000 acres are in the northern peninsula.
Much of the acreage not here in farms is in the pos-
session of one or another of these large land-owners.
While it is their policy to dispose of holdings except
where these are required for mineral or lumber opera-
tions, provided their terms can be met, there has been
no systematic plan of land colonization yet under-
taken by them.

The influx of immigrants had very little direct
encouragement or direction from the State itself.
In creating the Public Domain Commission in 1909,
the Legislature made provision for an immigration
commission. The secretary of the Public Domain
Commission was permitted to act as immigration
commissioner. The organization thus established

loO RURAL MICHIGAN

was directed to collect, compile and publish in-
formation likely to prove attractive to settlers
within the commonwealth, but was given slight
resources or machinery for accomplishing important
results. In December, 1918, an agent of the com-
mission was stationed in New York for the pur-
pose of directing newcomers towards Michigan, but
to the end of the fiscal year just preceding the
outbreak of the World War, he appears to have
persuaded only twenty-four • farm laborers to seek
a domicile in this State. The War caused a dis-
continuance of even this effort, and the commis-
sion lacked faith in its efficacy. The sugar com-
panies have maintained agents in New York for the
purpose of directing immigrants to the beet fields and
factories of Michigan, but quite without avail. The
attitude of the commissioner was apologetic and
evinced little faith in the work the statute set
for him to do. It was undoubtedly a fundamental
error to combine the office of Immigration Commis-
sioner and Secretary of the Public Domain Commis-
sion. No effort was made to secure a commissioner
with special experience and aptitude for such work
as the law contemplated. Nor were the resources
placed at the disposal of the commissioner at all
adequate for liis task. The State has never had a
comprehensive soil classification; and, therefore, the
Commissioner of Immigration was unable closely to
define and discriminate parcels of land in wliich
home-seekers might be concerned. It was quite
impossible for the commissioner to indicate to a

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 151

land-seeker definitely the location of tracts of each
type of soil, the character of the drainage, soil-mois-
ture, subterranean water, climate, economic and so-
cial environment, and such other information as
would determine for the inquirer whether or not that
location was for him desirable. There remained,
therefore, in the view of the commission, little more
than the poor expedient of general advertising of
the resources of the State directly and through the
agency of development bureaus. To obtain such
detailed information for the whole State or for any
large portion of it will require years.

The basis of Michigan's homestead exemption law
is found in an article of the second state constitu-
tion adopted in 1850 and attributed to Eev. John
D. Pierce, better known for his connection with the
early school system. Its inclusion in the legal system
was characteristic of the reforming tendencies that
centered about the middle point of the last century,
and it remains essentially unchanged, a part of the
constitutional law of the commonwealth. "Every
homestead of not exceeding forty acres of land,"
runs the second section of Article XIV, "and the
dwelling house thereon and the appurtenances to be
selected by the owner thereof and not included in
any town plat, city or village," or in lieu of this
a certain amount of urban property "shall be exempt
from forced sale on execution or any other final
process from court." This exemption does not apply
in case of mortgage or other lawful alienation of
title, but in such cases the previous consent of the

152 RURAL MICHIGAN

wife, if the owner be a married man, must be secured
to the document. "The homestead of a family, after
the death of the owner thereof," stipulates the third
section, "shall 1)e exempt from the payment of his
debts in all cases during the minority of his chil-
dren"; and another section protects the same privi-
lege of the owner's widow during the period of her
widowhood. Thus does the State seek to relieve its
inhabitants from the liability to eviction from the
family homestead, a proceeding prejudicial to family
life and the well-being of the community.

THE HUMAN FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE

Historically speaking, the Indians were the first
agriculturalists of Michigan. This population has in
historic times belonged mainly to three Algonquin
tribes: the Chippewas (or Ojibways), the Ottawas
and the Pottawatomies. Of these the Chippewas and
the Ottawas dwelt chiefly in the Upper Peninsula
and the northern portions of the Lower Peninsula,
and to them may be added a few Menominees ad-
jacent to the river called by their name. The Pot-
tawatomies are associated more especially with the
southern sections, but there has been, in fact, con-
siderable intermingling of tribes throughout the two
peninsulas. The census of 1910 showed the Indian
population of Michigan to be 7,519, and that it had
been increasing. Their number in 1920 was 5,614.
The most considerable numbers were in Baraga,

TEE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 153

Emmet, Isabella, Mackinac, Chippewa and Leelanau
counties, all in the north; although counties as
far south as Allegan, Saginaw, and Cass made a
fair showing. The presence of missions, schools
and reservations, together with the distribution of
game (for the Indian is still a huntsman) seems
to determine the location of this Indian population.
This same census also disclosed that among the
Chippewas, 109 were farmers, and 286 farm laborers
in 1910; that of the Ottawas, 109 were farmers
and 278 farm laborers; and that among the Pot-
tawatomies 35 were farmers and 63 farm laborers.
While neither quantitatively nor qualitatively is
the Indian a present important agricultural factor
in Michigan, the pioneer farmers of European stock
had to reckon with him in many ways. While the
Michigan Indians seldom were dangerous, except
sometimes when in liquor, they frequently were an-
noying. Even if their labor was not prized, they
might on occasions keep an ill-provided family from
starvation with their berries, corn and maple sugar,
venison and fish. Indian agriculture was crude. It
was exemplified by the squaw, not by the men. "They
were excellent judges of land," writes C. A. Weissert
of Hastings, "and cultivated the prairies or the black
soil of the river flats. They planted their corn not
in rows but haphazardly, the product being softer and
whiter than that brought in by the whites. To pre-
serve it the Indians smoked it and then buried it in
the earth." He tbiiiks that this "probably was the

154 RURAL MICHIGAN

original maize commonly raised by the Indians in
this country." ^ Weissert was writing of Barry
County in 1911, and he remarks that "traces of their
garden-beds were visible until recent years." In-
deed, evidences of their primitive agriculture were
seen in many other points of the State before being
obliterated by the tillage of the whites. Even yet the
steel point of the plow sometimes turns up the primi-
tive stone hoe and other stone and copper implements
of these pioneer tillers of the soil in Michigan. Yet
contemporary opinions of the Indian's agricultural
importance do not seem to be flattering. One state-
ment reports that he is too much inclined to loaf, that
his methods remain primitive, ami that, even as a
farmer, he often produces less food than he consumes.
The national government has sought to do something
to correct these tendencies. In the first of the last
century, one Trombley is said to have been main-
tained as an agricultural instructor for the Indians
near the present site of Bay City.^ Various treaties
with the Indians entered into by the United States
had promised some provision for Indian education,
and at length, in 1891, an act of Congress established
an Indian school in Isabella County, which was
located on the property of an old Methodist mission
adjacent to Mt. Pleasant. Agriculture is included in
the course of study of this school, whose 320 acres
of land afford opportunity for its practical study.

^"Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII,
662.

="'Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," V, 275.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND l53

Of the 150 graduates since 1905, 24 are reported to
be farmers. The present Congressional appropriation
is on the basis of an enrollment of 350 students.
The larger number of these Indians of Isabella
County are stated to be good farmers.

The first Europeans to establish themselves in
Michigan were the French. The motives of their
coming were the propagation of the gospel among the
heathen and the fur trade. The first settlements were
at such strategic points as Sault Ste. Marie, tSt.
Ignace and Mackinac, and Detroit. These spread
along the Detroit and St. Clair and about the head
of Lake Erie, and eventually appeared in the valley
of the St. Joseph Eiver, while detached posts were
established on the Upper Grand, Kalamazoo, Shia-
■wassee and other streams. In their settlements there
was little significance for Michigan agriculture.
Their proper environment was the forest and the
water-courses; their implements the paddle and the
rifle. In the period following the American Revolu-
tion, however, a considerable number of French-
Canadian farmers settled in southeastern Michigan,
usually in compact 'groups of farms all fronting on
one or another of the rivers of that section. The
French were a peculiarly sociable folk and these
water-courses afforded a ready means of inter-com-
munication. In a country, too, where springs were
scarce and wells were drilled only with much labor
in the refractory clay soil, the P^corse or the Rouge
were a convenient substitute for the town pump. So,
side by side, the Canadian French held their farms

15G RURAL MIVIIKIAN

of eiglity, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and
sixty or two hundred French acres (embracing some
four-fifths the area of an American acre), each on
a narrow river frontage .of twenty-three to fifty-eight
rods. Eventually there were several hundreds of
these French farms (442 in 1805) extending eight
or ten miles, sometimes farther, up the Rouge, the
Eaisin, the Iilcorse, the Clinton and Huron rivers,
with still others on the Detroit and St. Clair.

As a farmer, the Frenchman here was very unlike
the Yankee soon to appear. He saw no reason for
aggressive energy in clearing the land and putting it
to agricultural uses. His tillage was strictly limited.
His interest in horticulture was greater, and apples
and pears, peaches and cherries were grown in con-
siderable quantities for home consumption and for
export by themselves or in the form of cider. As a
husbandman, the Frenchman was quite as thriftless
as his Indian friends. He is charged with habitually
depositing his barnyard manure on the ice of river
and lake or of removing his out-buildings when the
accumulations became insurmountable, rather than
spreading them over the fields: and some state that
he threw away the wool sheared from the backs of
his sheep rather than spin it into yarn — a practice
which, however, was undoubtedly exceptional. Ac-
counts seem generally to agree that, if his farm
buildings were shabby and his agriculture not suf-
ficient for home needs, the Frenchman's heart was
light, his loyalty certain, his piety complete, his hos-

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 157

pitality unstinted/ His children were more numer-
ous than his cattle, and today there are in Michigan
approximately 100,000 inhabitants reporting French
as their mother tongue. The total immigration into
the State seems not to have been extensive. Families
were large generation after generation. During the
past century, however, there has been some innuigra-
tion from Canada, from the eastern states, and from
France itself. Inquiries regarding motives for their
coming to ]\Iichigan elicit the "rentier" system in
Quebec, whereby the eldest son of the family is en-
gaged to work the homestead and provide for his
parents, necessitating that the other children seek
their fortune elsewhere; or that it was the attrac-
tiveness of work in the woods or surface labor about
the mines (one does not find many underground
workers among the French) ; or it was to escape
military service in the occupied portions of Alsace
and Lorraine that brought the normally non-
migratory Frenchman overseas and to Michigan. Not
many of these have gone into farming, nor are they
regarded as an agriculturally important stock. Ob-
servers, even among the French themselves, state
that they are too conservative, too easy-going. With
exquisite humor James Hoar of Lake Linden relates
how Farmer Buckwheat from the thither-side of
Torch Lake engaged the reverend father of the parish
to employ priestly rites for the banishment of the
grasshopper, and when results did not approximate
'"Census of 1910, Population by Mother Tongue," 980.

158 RURAL MICUIGAN

expectations, refused the fee. Observers say that the
more hardy Finn is replacing the French farmers
in the Upper Peninsula. In the Lower Peninsula he
has ceased to be a distinguishable factor in rural
life.

If the Indian and the Frenchman were first on
the ground, it was the Yankee who dominated the
institutional growth of Michigan; and who, in so
doing, manifested scant regard for his forerunners
in the region. There was no. accident about his com-
ing. He entered the territory usually, though not
always, by the water route which, after 1825, ex-
tended from Lake Champlain to Detroit. Not a few
came hither from the Genesee Valley in western Xew
York by the same avenue of approach ; and others
re-migrated from the western reserve of Ohio, which
the foresight of Connecticut had set aside along with
the southern shore of Lake Erie as a boon to her
Revolutionary veterans and as a condition of her
cession of sovereignty in that quarter to the United
States. If by the same token Massachusetts had not
retained any portion of the soil of southern Michi-
gan, her progeny were there in due time. There were
instances of overland journeys both to the north and
the south of Lake Erie from western New York into
southern Michigan ; but normally the immigrant
made his ingress by Erie Canal boat and lake steamer
to Detroit, perhaps to Monroe or even to the Lake
]\Iichigan ports of the west shore. Beyond the roads
were very bad : one might fare better on the rivers
or within the open forest. Gradually and not slowly

J--

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 159

the southern counties filled up from Lake Erie to
Lake Michigan with these masterful people of the
stock that had converted colonies into a nation and
whipped Indians and French, British and Hessians
in the process. These were to renew the battle with
the wilderness and convert it by the millions of acres
into farms and homesteads and into desolate wastes.
In 1830 Michigan Territory had a population of
less than 30,000. In the ensuing ten years it aug-
mented at the rate of nearly 20,000 each year. It
was during this decade that the foundations were
laid of institutional life. The town meeting, a heri-
tage from New England, became definitely a part of
the governmental system as community after com-
munity appeared, mushroom-like, in the Michigan
woods. A territorial enactment of 1827, greatly re-
sembling an early pronouncement of the IMassachu-
setts general court, made provision for popular edu-
cation ; but it remained for the Constitution of 1835,
embodying the ideas of Isaac E. Crary, to determine
the fundamental elements in the public school sys-
tem: common school and higher education, state
directed and natiou-illy assisted, with public libraries
but at first without free tuition. The Yankee was
a Puritan and as such he did not forget to illegalize
Sunday sports, gaming and merchandising; and even
today it is without the law in Michigan to indulge
in Sunday baseball, theatrical performances, racing,
or to operate a place of business. All this applied to
the State as a whole, but when adopted, Michigan
was predominantly rural, and the town meeting has

IGO RURAL MICHIGAN

continued to be an important and interesting feature
of rural life even to the present time, wherever the
population is mainly of this same Yankee stock or
has come under strong Yankee influences. On the
first Monday in April in these sections of the State
]\Iichigan farmers still gather within their township
at the town hall or school-house, or, if the day is
favorable, in the open air in the yard, for the purpose
of arriving at a decision in regard to the building
or improvement of public roads and bridges, and it
may be for the enactment of ordinances and the
consideration of other aifairs of local concern. It is
genuine democracy similar to that which framed
measures against the tyranny of George III or exists
in the smaller cantons of Switzerland.

As pertains to county government, the example of
New York is most closely adhered to. The township
supervisors who assess the farmer's property for pur-
poses of taxation meet jointly at the county seat to
attend to the administrative and legislative affairs of
the county as a whole, while the farmer's deeds and
mortgages are recorded with the county register of
deeds who produces an abstract of title for a fee. The
county surveyor may be called in to run a line or
establish a corner, and the county drain commis-
sioner lays out the drainage ditches that run from
farm to farm into the natural water-courses. Eural
justice is administered in the first instance and in
cases of minor importance by one of the four justices
of the peace of the township; the constable is the
same innocuous official that time and literature have

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 161

found him to be elsewhere. Michigan state police,
created by the legislature in 1919, is extending its
watchfulness into the rural districts for the appre-
hension of thieves, often of urban domicile, and other
law-breakers who trouble the peace in rural Michigan.
The township board of four ex-offieio members
administers township affairs in accordance with the
resolutions of the town meeting, corresponding to
the selectmen of New England. The township board
of health should attend to public health and sanita-
tion within the township where other higher authority
does not enter, and it has charge of rural cemeteries
in most cases, although cities and villages often
locate their cemeteries well without their borders and
thus serve rural as well as urban dwellers. The
record of rural births and deaths is kept by the
township clerk, with whom chattel mortgages are
recordecl. The township may have made provision
for fence viewers, pound-masters, destroyers of
noxious weeds and inspectors of fruit-trees. These
institutions of local government have a familiar New
England influence in the copper country or Marquette
as in Marshall or Lansing. It worked effectively also
in the realm of finance, for it was New England capi-
tal that developed the copper and iron mines of the
Upper Peninsula and the first railway lines of the
Lower Peninsula.

Most ubiquitous of the foreign whites in Michigan
are the Germans. They came early, almost as soon
as the Yankee element, and their coming was en-
couraged by the abortive revolutions of 1830 and of

162 RURAL MICHIGAN

1848 in the Fatherland. They settled in Wayne,
Macomb, Washtenaw and Saginaw counties before
Michigan became a state, and then in Berrien, St.
Joseph, and St. Clair counties, in Clinton and
Leelanau, and in Marquette County by the Lake
Superior shore. In 1910, they composed one-sixth
the population of Berrien County, one-sixth of
Monroe, one-fifth of Huron, one-seventh of Mason,
one-fifth of Washtenaw, one-fourth of Manistee, and
one-fourth of Saginaw. These are counties of the
southern peninsula, and mostly of the southern half
of it. They have never constituted such a large pro-
portion of the northern peninsula, although the popu-
lous county of Houghton contained (1910) more
than 5,000. The aggregate of these people, born in
Germany or the children of parents born there, was
quite 425,000 in 1910. Or if they are differentiated
on the basis of mother tongue, their number in the
Thirteenth Census (1910) was 396,513. That would
make them about one-seventh of the State's popula-
tion.

Revolutionary disappointments were not the only
occasion for the German migration to America and
to Michigan. Compulsory military service expatri-
ated some of these folk, while burdensome restraints
and the difficulty of securing land attracted still
others to the freer American life and to good farms
on easy terms. A south German farm would cost, as
Andrew Tenbrook of Ann Arbor has pointed out,
perhaps two hundredfold the price of a Michigan
homestead, and if the Michigan acquisition were in

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 163

a wilderness where hardship and hard labor was the
rule of daily life, the German could work and so
could his entire family, for that had been the prac-
tice in Bavaria and Saxony and would be no novelty
here. Intensive agriculture was the necessary regime
of old Germany, where every rod of ground must do
its bit in the maintenance of a large and increasing
population. The habit of thrift and industry learned
in the old home was steadily maintained in the
American home, and German farmers have habitu-
ally been regarded as good workers in Michigan,
They excelled as truck-gardeners, and while German
cookery did not always commend itself to the Yankee
palate, their sauerkraut and kohlrabi became domesti-
cated in many a home devoid of all other German
associations. It would have been well if the Old
World German practice of preserving the forest cover
on hilltops had been retained here to the advantage
both of our uplands and lowlands. The Germans
were religious and communities congregated here
and there throughout the State: Lutherans in Ann
Arbor, Eoman Catholics in Westphalia, Clinton
County, Mennonites at "Holy Corners," Kent County,
while Moravians, United Brethren and Dunkards
might arouse curiosity by rites unfamiliar to the
native churches. For German women to work in
the field was normal overseas but attracted disapprov-
ing attention here, where standards of life and think-
ing were different. However, this responsibility for
the common income raised the family from poverty
to affluence and furthered the economic well-being of

1G4 RURAL MICHIGAN

the whole State. It coiihl not exliibit itself in min-
ing as in agriculture, and the mining industry of the
northern peninsula has never had a large German
element attached to it. Thus the iron mining county
of Iron, in 1910, had a German population of only
750 in a total of more than 15,000 inhabitants.
Gogebic County numbered 1,430 Germans in a popu-
lation of 23,333. On the other hand, the "Green
Garden" settlement of Germans near Marquette is
one of the most attractive agricultural communities
in the State, and the corn and cabbages, apples and
plums, grown within sight of Lake Superior in the
season of 1920 would have done credit to the best
agriculture of a more southern latitude.

When ]\Iichigan had been ten years in the Union,
there appeared on its western shore southwest of
Grand Eapids a colony of Hollanders. Eeligious
differences in the mother-land had caused this band
of pilgrims to come overseas and, after some investi-
gation, they established themselves in their Michigan
"Canaan," where, as the Moses of their exodus.
Pastor Van Eaalte notes, fruit-raising, with general
farming, might prove a desirable form of agriculture.
Although some of the immigrants settled in Iowa,
the major portion of them came to Michigan. They
included heads of families, persons of the middle
classes and of rural experience. They were very
religious and have been tenacious of their faith and,
to some extent, of their language to the present time,
although readily assimilated to the common life of
the State. They held education in high esteem, as

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 165

was manifested by the founding of Hope College as
an academy in 1851 and as a college in 1866. They
became a highly respected element in the population
of Michigan. The settlement began in privation and
extreme suffering like that of the Pilgrims of 1620;
but their industry and sobriety subdued the wilder-
ness and made of central western Michigan one of
the most highly developed farming areas of the State.
Even in point of numbers the Dutch element became
important. The United States Census of 1910 makes
the foreign whites reporting Dutch as their mother
tongue to number 92,694 (p. 979). This population
is centered heavily in Kent and Ottawa counties. Of
Kent's population in 1910 (nearly 160,000), ap-
proximately one-fifth was born in Holland or the
children of parents born in that country. This
represents, no doubt, a considerable urban popula-
tion. However, the statement still applied to some
7,000 of the county's inhabitants living outside of
Grand Eapids. In Ottawa — a more definitely rural
county — the proportion of direct Dutch descent was
still greater, one-third of the population in 1910
being of Holland birth or parentage for both father
and mother. Allegan County also showed a strong
Dutch element.

The Finnish element in the rural population of
Michigan is very largely, although not exclusively,
in the Upper Peninsula. The Finns seem to have
been attracted hither chiefly by the opportunity for
work in the woods and mines. Finland is, however,
primarily an agricultural and not a mining country, a

1(U; RURAL MICHIGAN

land suitable to stock-raising and forest industries.
The Finn is an excellent dairyman, aiid in northern
Michigan, as iji old Finland, \vhatever he does he is
very likely to own a milch cow or two and to care
for them A-ith what the Yankee would consider quite
absurd solicitude. Finland is a country of dense
forests and is extremely well watered; so is — or was
— the northern peninsula of Michigan, where the
Finn feels very much at home, a sentiment enhanced
by climate and topography. Most Finns here have
once worked in the mines; but many have come out
of the earth to earn a livelihood from its surface.

The Finn is hardy, conservative and clannish. His
standard of living normally is not high. He is fit
for pioneering, and competent observers believe,
probably correctly, that the agricultural future of
the northern section of the State is chiefly in his
hands. He is of one of the least assimilable stocks
in rural Michigan, but he is educable, and such a
project as the Otter Lake Agricultural School in
Houghton County has effected an improvement in his
husbandry. He is by nature refractory and must be
handled tactfully. The Finn is very different from
some of the other elements in the rural population,
taciturn, unemotional, seemingly devoid of humor.
He represents the Asiatic Turanian type, with a
language wholly unrelated to the native tongues of
western Europe; and some of his presumed natural
uncommunicativeness and sullenness may be attrib-
uted to linguistic shortcomings rather than to a will-
ful resolve to say or do nothing pleasant. In the Old

THE VCCUPATION OF THE LAND 167

World, ethnologists discriminate several types of
Finns each with its own Finnish habitat: one type
less "heavy-headed" and obtuse than the other. Both
types seem to be represented in America. Finland
is a tri-lingual country, Russian and Swedish being
domiciled there with the vernacular. In Michigan,
it is not easy at once to determine whether one is
dealing with a Finn or a Swede. The name is
Swedish and Swedish may be readily spoken by the
person in question. The slightly almond eyes and
general appearance of the features help to resolve the
doubt in favor of a Finnish prime relationship,
although here, as in Finland, there may be an inter-
mingling of these stocks by marriage. Normally
the Finn was temperate even before the adoptioii of
prohibition, contrary to common opinion, as was
shown by his vote in favor of constitutional prohi-
bition. In the copper country, for example, mining
locations with a large Finnish element, and certain
rural precincts almost wholly Finnish in composi-
tion, were overwhelmingly in favor of the prohibitory
amendment, leaving it to urban constituencies of
definite American and aristocratic tendencies to tip
the balance to the contrary, side. How far the Finn
leans to socialistic doctrines is not easy to determine,
although the strike of copper miners in 1912 showed
that these views were frequently held, even in rural,
as distinct from mining, locations. A similar ten-
dency in Finland has been attributed to the system
of land tenure in large estates, to opposition to the
tyranny of the one-time rule of the Czar, and per-

168 RURAL MICHIGAN

haps also to a close connection between Finnish and
German higher education and philosophic thought.
Tendencies acquired in the Old World may have
persisted in iVmerica through a failure thoroughly to
assimilate the Finn in this country and to his
subordinate position in economic life. It is believed
that education, proprietorship, and the breaking down
of isolation will counteract his interest in Marxian
doctrines. On the other hand, the Finn's willingness
to dwell in isolated communities and to perform hard
labor under rough conditions adapts him to rural
life in the undeveloped portions of the State, and
it must be remembered that these areas are still very
extensive. The fact that these Finnish farmers are
at the outset often ill provided with capital increases
their readiness to settle on cut-over lands, when those
in a more favorable financial situation would prefer
to purchase improved farms. With little capital
save their physical strength, they are credited with
great reliability in meeting their financial obliga-
tions. The agent of one large land company in the
Upper Peninsula informs the writer that he has en-
dorsed promissory notes on behalf of many Finnish
clients of his, aggregating some $30,000 in amount,
and never lost a dollar in any transaction.

Bearing in mind the conditions under which the
Finn lives in the Old World and the tenacity with
which he retains his habits, one is not surprised
to find transferred to American soil practices from
eastern Europe. Thus one sees in northern Michi-
gan instances of those curious combinations of house

TEE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 169

and barn with some question as to which portions are
occupied by man and which by beasts, although the
impression should not be created that Finns com-
monly live in this manner. They are likely sedu-
lously to exclude the outer air from their dwellings,
and cases of tuberculosis are especially frequent
among them. Adjoining the farm-house is probably
the bath-house, where the bather steams himself
thoroughly by throwing water on heated stones in
the center of the floor, and perhaps terminates the
process by a roll in the snow outside. His live-stock
is as well housed as himself, and, although his thrift
may cause him to shear his sheep at least twice in the
year, involving a winter as well as a summer clip,
he seeks to make amends by withholding the shorn
brute from all contact with the outer air, a procedure
which is said often to result in serious respiratory
difficulties, but one which he is loath to abandon.
The wool so derived is frequently carded and spun
at home and knit into mittens and socks. There still
is considerable demand for the old-fashioned spin-
ning-vvneel, thought to be a relic of a well-nigh
forgotten art practiced by our grandmothers, but
still in use in many localities of northern Michigan.
The Finn, like the German, is musical, but what he
regards as music the American commonly frankly
spurns, because the native American is prone to mis-
understand Finnish art as well as Finnish character.
Finnish music seems usually to run in the minor key
as if consonant with the normal minor mood of the
race. The annual "saengarfests" held at various

Fig. 5. Density of total population of Michigan by counties (1920)
(For explanation of sliading see Fig. 6.)

170

Fig. 6. — Density of rural population of Michigan by counties (1920).

171

172 RURAL MIC IJ WAN

points in the Lake Superior region where Finns con-
gregate for the purpose, merit more attention than
they have received.

Testimony is not lacking from authorities as to
the capacity of the Finn for assimilation into Ameri-
can life. They point to the supreme test of assimi-
lability, the frequent inter-marriages between those of
Finnish and of native American stock. The Finnish
farmer is the most teachable of any national element
and his capacity for cooperation is notable. If a
Finnish farmer loses a horse or a cow, it has been
observed, his neighbors make up a contribution that
compensates the loss of the animal. They are
mutually very helpful in time of trouble. Coopera-
tive business enterprises are common among them.
At the little Finnish settlement at Eock in Delta
County, there has been conducted a cooperative store,
flour-mill, creamery, insurance society, and pure-
bred bull association. This case is not imique by
any means.

It is striking that more than one-fourth of the
Finns in the United States — numbering more than
200,000 when classified by their mother tongue —
dwelt in Michigan in 1910, and presumably do so
still. At that time an excess of 11,000 persons in
Houghton County were born in Finland, with large
numbers in Marquette, Gogebic and the other coun-
ties adjoining Lake Superior, a much smaller pro-
portion in the southern counties of the Upper Pen-
insula and a very trifling but widely scattered
Finnish population in the Lower Peninsula. While

THE OCCUPATION' OF THE LAXD 173

it cannot be stated definitely what proportion of the
Upper Peninsula Finns are in agriculture, the num-
ber is large and is increasing, for the Finn has a
very strong inclination to the land and towards forest
industries, and testimony is general that he is forg-
ing ahead of other racial stocks in the agriculture of
the northern peninsula.

The Scandinavian element in the State has not
been as large as in Minnesota or Illinois, for example.
The census of 1910 showed that in Michigan there
were 16,454 inhabitants who spoke Danish as their
mother tongue, 17,891 speaking Norwegian, 64,391
speaking Swedish. How this Scandinavian popula-
tion distributes itself between town and country can-
not be stated definitely. There are both urban and
rural communities having a large Scandinavian ele-
ment. They are proportionally numerous both in the
city of Marquette and in some townships of ]\Iar-
quette County. As farmers they seem to be uni-
versally regarded with much favor. Their farm-
steads are commonly neat and well maintained. They
are in a high degree literate and are of a deeply
religious character. A Swede will not willingly labor
on Midsummer Day, the day of St. John the Baptist,
which is for him a religious holiday. A wedding is
not an occasion for hilarity : it is a solemn religious
event, obsen^ed with prayer and pastoral disserta-
tion. Topographical and climatic conditions un-
doubtedly directed Scandinavian migration towards
the northern boundary of the United States. In
these respects the Upper Peninsula is said greatly to

174 RLUIL MWlllUAN

resemble Sweden, where also mining is an important
pursuit. At present, however, there are few Swedish
miners, agriculture and urban callings having drawn
most Scandinavians out of the mines, except in
Gogebic County. They are a very readily assimilated
racial stock and, unlike their neighbors the Finns,
are soon lost in the general mass of Americans. It
should be noted, however, that among the number
of those in Michigan who speak Swedish as their
mother tongue, there are numbers (how many can-
not be stated) of Swedish-speaking Finns, who, in
the opinion of some observers, possess in a high de-
gree the tendency to go to extremes in belief and
conduct that is associated with the Finnish type.

The Bohemian population of Michigan has never
been large, and niimbered only 10,130 according to
the census by mother tongue of 1910. In recent
years, however, it has become a much more important
factor in the rural districts of some parts of the State.
It was attracted thither by the introduction of the
cultivation of the sugar-beet and thus is a particu-
larly important element in the population of the
territory adjacent to Saginaw Bay. In southern
Gratiot and Saginaw counties, these Czechs are
steadily taking over farms formerly possessed by
more familiar American types. T. P. Steadman of
Elsie writes as follows in regard to these newcomers
who have fallen under his observation : "As a aren-
eral thing, they are honest and reliable financially.
They are good workers and usually law-abiding, al-
though they sometimes fight among themselves.

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 175

They are good farmers and are quite quick to take
up American methods. Their standard of living is,
of course, much below that of the native-born Ameri-
can, although the second generation mark a distinct
improvement in that particular. During the war
they were law-abiding and patriotic. They bought
liberty bonds quite freely and are holding them quite
as well at the present time as the native-born Ameri-
cans. They seem to be little concerned as to political
matters, local or general. In this they are distinctly
different from German communities which I liave
known. They patronize savings banks quite freely
and rely greatly upon the banker whom they have
learned to trust." Steadman is of the opinion that
one-fourth of the farms in the vicinity of Bannister
and Ashley, Gratiot County, have come into the pos-
session of Bohemians. They are very well adapted
for developing the rougher lands of the State. Their
Slavic congeners, the Croatians, Slovenians and
Poles, are also settling in small communities in
upper Michigan.

The negro population of Michigan is relatively
sparse, particularly in the rural districts. The total
in 1910 was only 17,115, being six-tenths of one per
cent of the whole population. More than one-third
of this numl)er belonged to the urban county of
Wayne, and only 4,959 were represented as rural.
Outside of Wayne County, only Washtenaw and Cass
counties had a negro population exceeding one thou-
sand, Avhile some of the counties of the northern
sections of the Lower Peninsula were almost wholly

17() RURAL MICHIGAN

without this element. The populous counties of
Houghton, Marquette, and Gogebic on the south shore
of Lake Superior, had respectively sixty-one, eighty-
three and six negro inhabitants, indicating that min-
ing does not attract colored folk. Nor did such
dominantly rural counties as Clinton and Gratiot,
with thirty-eight and ninety-two negroes numbered
in tlieir census, indicate that agriculture is a popular
vocation for negroes in this State. Even the popu-
lous county of Saginaw contained only 343 negroes.
In the rural county of Cass the situation is peculiar
and interesting. Here the 1910 census showed a
negro population of 1,414. Booker T. Washington
has described the negro community in Cass County
after a brief visit to it in 1903.^ He ascertained that
it was composed of the descendants of escaped slaves
who sought refuge among the Quakers of that section
about 1840 and thereafter, to whom also came num-
bers of manumitted slaves and free negroes. They
engaged in agriculture. They became a well-estab-
lished, intelligent, law-abiding community. In
Calvin township, the negroes became the larger part
of the population and a considerable element in
Porter and some other townships. In the quality of
their agriculture, he found they compared very
favorably with their white neighbors and presented a
marked contrast to most southern communities of
negroes with which he was familiar. Their standing
and relationship with the whites he describes as
excellent. They have good land, good buildings,
^ The Outlook, LXXIII, 292.

THE OCCUPATIOX OF THE LAND 177

modern equipment, schools, churches, bank credit
and hold otHce quite without distinction of race.
They are situated in the southernmost tier of coun-
ties, close to the boundarj- of Indiana, in one of the
oldest and best-developed agricultural counties of
Michigan.

The impression one receives from a study of the
settlement of Michigan, as of other American states,
is primarily of a group of communities whose mem-
bers are associated together by a common origin, by
religious afliliations, or by a common language and
national relationship. Besides the large racial ele-
ments already noted, there are in rural ]\Iichigan
communities formerly Belgian, Lithuanian, Polish,
Croatian, Eussian, English and Scottish in nation-
ality. With the non-English-speaking stocks here
represented, the problem of assimilating them into
common American life has not been solved. Studies
conducted by Gilbert Brown of the Department
of Psychology in the Northern State Normal
School indicate how completely isolated, socially and
intellectually, many of these rural enclaves have
remained to the present time. For the purposes of
this investigation Brown employed the rural census
blank used by the College of Agriculture of the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin. The collation of the informa-
tion so obtained brought out such facts as the fol-
lowing : In one community of ten families including
seventy-eight persons, of whom thirty-three were
born in Finland, two in Sweden, and forty-three in
the United States (all the parents being born in

178 KDRAL MICHIGAN

Europe), the Finnish language was spoken in nine
homes and Swedish in one. The language of the
newspapers read in these homes corresponds to the
foregoing classification. Only a "cheap grade of farm
Journal" formed the magazine-reading in six homes,
while no magazines were taken in four homes. All
these people had church aMiations, but this was Avith
a foreign-language church. No societies were repre-
sented in these homes, but in all cases there was
membership in the Grange. The only community
events attended by these people were represented by
two school socials during the period under review.
There were four children of school age not in attend-
ance. All fathers in this community, except one,
could speak English, but none could read or write it.
All mothers in the community, except one, cannot
speak English, and none can read or write it. This
is undoubtedly but one of many instances. Brown
believes that there are at least seventy-five such com-
munities in the Upper Peninsula, which is doubtless
a conservative estimate; and the Lower Peninsula
has its quota. One agent of a colonization company,
who has looked over the situation in Michigan with
a view to a systematic attempt at establishing farmers
on the less developed lands of the northern part,
emphatically objected to this segregation by national
groups of new settlers in rural districts. He believes
it feasible so to organize a scheme of colonization that
nationally non-related individuals will be associated
together, and by this very situation will be much
more quickly merged in the common life of the

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 179

State. Perhaps this is true, but surely the presence
of people in the same locality, kindred in speech, re-
ligious connection, economic and social status, has
encouraged and comforted the members of the group
in their new and strange situation and rendered them
less ready to leave their rural homes for urban life.
Either way has its advantages and disadvantages,
which it is not the purpose of this book to discuss
in detail. Here the problem is only recognized as it
exists.

The question as to what contributions have been
made to agricultural practice in Michigan by the sev-
eral European stocks is not readily answered. While
the existence of some procedure within a certain
group may suggest its foreign antecedence, only very
careful investigation can determine the facts beyond
question. The writer's observations have suggested
a number of rural customs unfamiliar at least in the
older more thoroughly Americanized sections of the
State: For example, the practice observed among
Finnish and Swedish farmers of exposing hay and
grain in the fields on long narrow racks or about
stakes, to facilitate drying and curing. L. M.
Geismar, an Alsatian by birth, introduced among the
farmers of the copper country the Alsatian practice
of sheep-raising, Avhereby capitalists in town provide
the means for acquiring small flocks of sheep, which
are turned over to small farmers for care and main-
tenance on an agreed basis of compensation and
division of the returns. That Finnish farmers shear
their sheep twice or more each year and not infre-

180 RURAL MICHIGAN

qiiently spin their own yarn and work it up into
mittens and socks is understood to be derived from
a custom of old Finland. Those who have partaken
of a meal at the table of a Finnish or a German-
American farmer are at once confronted with dishes
and flavors to which the Yankee palate is unaccus-
tomed. Equally odd appeared the wooden shoes of
the Hollanders of west IMichigan and the two-wheeled
cart that sometimes still moves upon our country
road. In settlements of newcomers from Europe,
these roads are frequently private ways with bars up
at intervals, although in appearance they are public
thoroughfares of inferior construction. There are
undoubtedly many strange customs of this order in
rural Michigan awaiting study and description as
opportunity presents itself.

For statistics of population, see Appendices C, D
and E, and also Figs. 3-6.

CHAPTER V

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES, PLANTS AND CROPS

OF MICHIGAN

The statistician of the Michigan Cooperative Crop
Reporting Service states that the average value of
the tame hay crop of ]\Iichigan for the past fifteen
years is $44,514,000; of corn, $41,540,000; of oats,
$31,760,000; of wheat, $19,4 '29,000; of potatoes,
$18,334,000; and of beans, $17,184,000 (six-year
average). Charts prepared by the same agency indi-
cate that corn is one of the three leading crops in all
counties of the Lower Peninsula except Presque Isle
and Alpena in the northeastern section; while it
appears in this class only in Luce and Menominee
counties in the Upper Peninsula. Similarly oats is
the leading crop in Presque Isle, Alpena, Oscoda,
Alcona, Ogemaw, Iosco, Sanilac, and St. Clair in the
southern peninsula; and in all counties of the Upper
Peninsula save Luce, IMenominee and Keweenaw.
Potatoes are shown to occupy a position not lower
than third in all counties of the Upper Peninsula,
the northwestern counties of the southern peninsula,
together with Lapeer and Oakland towards the south-
east. For statistics of farm crops, see Appendix F.

181

183 RURAL MWIIIGAN

HAY

The marshes and prairies provided native grasses
that have served as forage both for the pioneer and
for farmers of tlie present day. Even now one fre-
quently observes in regions peopled by Finns cocks
of marsh hay gathered with much persistency even
miles from home. With the removal of the forests,
the cut-over country also provided great stretches of
grass-land for pasture, if not for a native hay crop.
In the Lake Superior country, clover is now growing
in places in great profusion in a wild condition. In
the cultivated sections, clover and timothy hay have
for years been the standard, but more i^ecently alfalfa
has steadily progressed as a favorite source of hay
and is grown as far north as the Lake Superior
region. It cannot as yet be regarded as the dominant
hay crop of the State. Statistics regarding alfalfa
in Michigan are not available. In 1920, hay main-
tained its position as the State's most valuable crop,
its value being placed by the Bureau of Crop Esti-
mates at $38,004,000. This represents a yield of
3,149,000 tons, which was 150,000 tons less than the
sixteen-year average. The average yield was 1.3
tons to the acre.^

While definite information regarding the quantity
of hay of different types grown in the State is not
available, the United States Monthly Crop Report
for January, 1919, gives the percentages of the vari-

>"Mich. Crop Rept.," Lansing, Jan., 1921, 7.

AGRICULTLEAL INDUSTRIES 183

ous kinds of hay produced in Michigan, as follows:
Clover, 27; timothy, 26; clover and timothy mixed,
35 ; alfalfa, G ; millet, 2 ; other tame grasses, 1 ; grains
cut green, 1; wild hay, 2. There has undoubtedly
been an increased yield of alfalfa in the interval
and, in the opinion of the statistician of the Bureau
of Crop Estimates, it may now amount to 8 or 10
per cent. Chippewa County in the eastern Upper
Peninsula has for years been a leading commercial
producer of hay, and its yield in 1921 was 52,210
tons. The largest producers of hay, however, are
such well-developed agricultural counties in the
Lower Peninsula as Gratiot, Sanilac, and St. Clair,
each yielding more than 100,000 tons. One occa-
sionally, also, finds farmers who have grown millet,
vetch, sweet clover and other forage crops not regu-
larly at home in Michigan. Some efforts to grow
such imported species as lupine, serradella, spurry-
grass have sporadically been undertaken.

GRAIN CROPS

Wheat was the most important money crop in
Michigan for very many years. Indeed, even when
its cash return was trifling and did not cover the
cost of production, habit and the belief that this
crop was a prerequisite to successful seeding of hay
caused farmers annually to set aside a portion of their
tilled land for wheat. It has been the staple crop
chiefly of the southern section, and the Thirteenth
Census showed few counties whose wheat production

184 RURAL MICHIGAN

ran into six figures outside of the four southerly tiers,
where alone was a county yield of at least one-half
million hushels. Here the clay and clay-loam soils
were favorable to its growth^ and the climate was
considered to be so, although the freezings and thaw-
ings, light snowfalls and occasional icing of the land
surface, were in reality frequently detrimental to the
growing crop. Winter wheat was commonly groAvn,
although spring wheat was sometimes planted in the
pioneer period. In the Upper Peninsula, as might
be expected, it has been more common to plant spring
wheat, although the abundant winter snows have
demonstrably been favorable to winter wheat, when
the crop has been sown sufficiently early, usually in
August, to gain a good start before winter has set in.
In the pioneer days, wheat was often planted year
after year on the same field without rotation, a prac-
tice which brought its inevitable result of depleted
soil and diminished product to the acre. At first
yields ran from thirty to forty bushels to the acre, but
in the eighth decade thoy had fallen off to half this
quantity or less, attributed to non-rotation, non-
fertilization, greater severity of the winters and the
increase of insect pests; so that wheat, which was at
one time regarded as the surest of all cereal crops,
suffered seasons of quite complete failure in the late
nineties, and farmers began to consider whether it
was desirable to plant it at all.^ Production has by
no means ceased, and the yield for the State in 1920
was 13,795,000 bushels of winter wheat and 480,000
^ "Kept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1876, 390.

erf

-a

o
(.1

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 185

of spring wheat. In the pioneer era^ wheat was
planted on the newly cleared field among the stumps
on the vmplowed ground which was lightly dragged
in preparation for receiving the seed. The crop has
never been cultivated, as in some parts of Europe,
except in a few instances for experimental purposes,
although a special wheat-cultivator is said to have
been invented in Oakland County.^

Standardization of types of wheat was not secured
for years and many varieties were grown, such as
Eeed Chaff, Bald, Mediterranean, Club, Soules,
White Flint, Eed Amber, Tappahannock, Blue Stem,
Boughton, Lancaster, while the Diehl and Treadwell
were considered especially choice sorts.^ In 1877,
the Fultz wheat was referred to as a new variety, the
seed for which was introduced by the United States
Department of Agriculture. It is described as hav-
ing white chaff and stiff straw, growing to medium
height, and as the earliest variety then grown. It
was a red wheat, with a berry bright, plump and hard,
and was said to be the heaviest kind then known, one
farmer reporting a bushel that weighed sixty-five
pounds. It was reported to be well adapted to heavy
rich soil.3 The Gold Medal resembled the Fultz,
but was a white wheat of fine quality. The Clawson,
introduced from New York after the Civil War, be-
came a favorite variety. It is described as a red
chaff, bald wheat, hardy, a strong grower, standing

•"Ropt. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1889, 449.
''Ibid., 1877, 141.
^Ibid., 141.

186 • RURAL MICHIGAN

up well, of soft straw, not apt to rust, with long
heads, bowing down, filled with a large, white, plump
berry, surpassing in beauty all other kinds while
standing in the field ready for the reaper. The most
recent variety of wheat to win favor among Michi-
gan farmers is that known as Eed Eock, reported to
have had its origin from an individual kernel selected
from a white Plymouth Rock wheat, and which was
planted at the Experiment Station of the Michigan
Agricultural College in the autumn of 1908. This
i^ a bearded red wheat having also a red chaff. The
qualities claimed for Red Rock wheat are exceptional
winter hardiness, high yield, extra stiff straw, and
those characteristics that yield a bread far above
that usually produced from Michigan-grown wheat.^
This wheat is reported to have withstood ice condi-
tions during the winter better than other varieties,
to have righted itself well after lodging, to be un-
usually rich in protein content, and to outweigh
the official standard bushel of sixty pounds. It has
been grown in the Upper Peninsula with very satis-
factory results.

Climatic conditions in the southern portion of the
Lower Peninsula are favorable to the growing of
corn ; but to the northward the season is normally
too short and the temperature too low for the suc-
cessful maturing of the grain, although at intervals
fully ripened corn is secured as far north as Lake
Superior and corn for forage is commonly produced
throughout the State. The light sandy soil fre-

J'^Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1917, 659,

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIEf? 187

quently occurring in some of the northern counties
is likewise unfavorable to corn culture. The firm
quality of the soil and moderate height of the stalk
does not require the deep planting characteristic of
the prairie states, and IMichigan corn is sown in hills
by a corn-planter, the hills being placed equidistant
to permit cultivation in either direction without
alternating the reach of the cultivator, if grain
rather than forage is sought. Corn was grown by
the aboriginal inhabitants of Michigan, who, as one
pioneer describes it, planted the seed not in rows but
haphazardly, the grain being softer and whiter than
that brought by the whites. To preserve corn, the
Indians are stated to have smoked it and then buried
it in the earth. To prepare it as food, the squaws
pounded the kernels in a mortar made by burning a
bowl in the end of a log or in hollowed blocks of
stone. It was eaten in the form of soup or cooked
with venison or other meat.^ This is the true Indian
corn, bv which desisrnation it is commonlv referred
to by the early settlers rather than "maize," by
which it is known to Europeans. The immigrant
whites also relied on corn for food for man and
beast, and sometimes made extremely long journeys
to obtain a few bushels of seed for sowing among
the stumps or girdled trees or after the first breaking
of the virgin soil. A chain dragged back and forth
across the field was a primitive corn-marker before
the advent of the three or four legged home-made

*"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII^
662.

188 RURAL MICHIGAN

device that even yot fnnftions in that capacity.
Some farmers insisted tlie seed must be in the ground
by the fifth of May, while May tenth came to have
ahnost the force of a Biblical injunction, althougli
good crops were secured I'roiM dune plantings. The
number of kernels to bo placed in each hill was re-
duced to a poetic formula :

"One for the blackbird, one for the crow;
One for the cut-worm and three to grow."

Frost had to be reckoned with in the pioneer era,
even more than now, for the heavy timber impeded
the free movement of the atmosphere and the ground
deep with humus might be damp and cold. If corn
was good for folks, it was also well liked by "friends
in feathers and fur," and it required constant vigi-
lance to save its tender shoots from the deer and its
grain in the ground or the shock from the pigeon
and the wild turkey, the squirrel and the raccoon.
What escaped these claimants to the first fruits was
ground in a hand-mill, a half-bushel in an evening,
says one narrator; or even a large coffee-mill might
be pressed into service. In the pioneer period, more
concern was manifest in corn as human food than as
provender for live-stock, at a time when pigs ran
freely in the woods and were nourished by its acorns
and beech-nuts.

Corn has continued to be an important element
among Michigan field crops. In 1904, the yield was

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 189

37,000,000 bushels produced on one and one-quarter
million acres, and its value was $19,235,000.^ The
average yield for that year was given as 28.6 bushels
to the acre, while for the decade, 1895-1901, it was
32.13 bushels. Among the corn-producing states,
only Iowa exceeded Michigan's product to the acre,
as reported by the State Board of Agriculture.^ An
additional value to the Michigan corn crop accrued
from the general use of the stalks as fodder and for
industrial purposes. The Michigan Corn Improve-
ment Association was organized in 1904 with the ob-
ject of promoting the production of more and better
corn in this State. An annual exhibition of prize
corn was planned in connection with the farmers'
"round-up"' at the Michigan Agricultural College,
cash prizes being offered for the best exhibits. At
that time many varieties of corn were grown in the
State with little attention to purity of type. A list
of varieties in 1906 included Hathaway, Pride of
the North, Hackberry, Mortgage-lifter, Huron Dent,
Reid's Yellow, Leaming, Shenandoah Valley, Min-
nesota King, and Golden Ideal, which were said to
be grown in Michigan in "fairly pure form." ^ Other
varieties of that year included White Dent and White
Cap Yellow Dent, of which several good types were
said to exist in the State. The Giant Cuban was
grown as ensilage corn. The dent corns also included
Calice, Eed, Strawberry and California Calice; while

^"Rcpt. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1906, 293.
''I hid., 1900, 293.
'-Hid., 295.

190 RURAL MICHIGAN

among the flint corns, there were reported Smut-nose,
King Philip, Yellow, and White.^

The census of 1910 showed a production of
52,906,812 hushels of corn. The counties yielding
more than 1,000,000 bushels were Allegan, Barry,
Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Eaton, Gratiot,
Hillsdale, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent,
Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland,
Saginaw, St. Joseph, Shiawassee, Tuscola, Van
Buren, Washtenaw ajul Wayne. The premier corn
county was Lenawee with a yield 'of 3,053,197
bushels. It will be observed that these are all south-
ern and the oldest agricultural counties in the State.
By 1920 the yield had advanced to 65,000,000 bushels,
at the rate of 40 bushels an acre. In that year 34
per cent of the State's acreage went into ensilage, the
average yield being 7.8 tons to the acre. The quality
of the crop in 1920 was rated at 92 per cent, 15 per
cent better than the ten-year average.^

Wheat and corn among the grains figure largest
in the calculations of Michigan farmers, but all
standard species grown in northern latitudes should
be produced on the farms of the State, most of them
on any farm in any season. In 1920, 9,702,000
bushels of rye were grown on 660,000 acres. By this
date a hardy prolific variety of rye, known as
"Eosen," and established by the Michigan Agricul-
tural College, was rapidly making its way into popu-
lar favor. "Rosen rye," writes F. A. Spragg, plant-

•"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1906, 295.

2 "Crop Kept, for Mich.," Lansing, Nov., 1920.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 191

breeder at the Michigan x4.gri cultural College, and
J. W. Nicolson, then extension specialist, "is a stiff-
strawed, large-headed variety, which when pure
ordinarily has four full rows of grain on over 99
per cent of its heads."' Eosen rye, these writers ex-
plain, "was selected and improved from an envelope
of Kussian rye furnished in 1909 by Mr. Eosen, a
student from Eussia at the Michigan Agricultural
College." The rye, after satisfactory tests at the
College, was distributed as seed to farmers through-
out the State and has maintained its high reputation.^
The Finnish farmers of Houghton County are stated
ly the agricultural agent to have grown a similar
type of rye for years. Although the average yield
to the acre in 1920 was given at 14.7 bushels, the
Eosen variety has produced from 45 to 60 bushels.

Barley has never been a popular grain crop in
Michigan, having a production of only 6,240,000
bushels in 1920, grown on 240,000 acres. The fifteen-
year average is 25.2 bushels to the acre. ]\Iost of
this is spring planted ; but the Michigan Agricultural
College, using selections derived from the United
States Department of Agriculture, has developed a
type of winter barley adapted to the climate of the
State. This was distributed to growers through the
Michigan Crop Improvement Association. Yields
exceeding fifty bushels to the acre have been attained.^
The most widely grown variety of barley in ]\Iichi-

^ Spragg and Nicolson : "Rosen Rye," Mich. Agr. Coll.
Ext. DivV. I'.ull. No. it July, H)I7.
'^ Michigan Farmer, CLV, 1G7.

193 RURAL MICHIGAN

gan, according to J. F. Cox, is the common six-row
type, with the Wisconsin Pedigree as the highest
yielding strain. He (k'scribcs this as "a bearded type
well adapted to Michigan." A black barbless type of
barley has also l)een introdnced, described as an ex-
cellent yielder and drought-resisting.^

The climate of ]\Iichigan is regarded as especially
favorable for the growing of oats, both in respect to
moisture and length of season, with relative freedom,
especially in the northern sections, from prolonged
hot dry periods. The clays and clay-loams are well
adapted to this crop. Its relation to other crops,
clover, timothy, alfalfa, and sweet clover, also favor-
ite forage crops of the State, also encourages the
production of oats. The average yield, 1905-1919,
was 33.1 bushels to the acre. The tendency to raise
oats is increasing. The southeastern counties of the
State lead in oat production northward to the
"Thumb" district.- In 1920, 56,430,000 bushels of
oats were produced on 1,425,000 acres, a yield that
averaged 39.6 bushels an acre.

Fields of buckwheat are encountered on many
Michigan farms, although they are usually small.
In 1920 this grain recorded an output of 609,000
bushels from 42,000 acres, which was 4.4 per cent
of the United States crop.

Not all farmers attempt to raise clover seed, and
the yield in 1920 all told was reported at 120,000

^Michigan Farmer, CLIV, 451.

''Mich. Agr. Coll. Bull.: Cox: "Oats in Michigan," 1920,
3.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 193

bushels on 80,000 acres. In the Lake Superior coun-
try, clover seed is represented as difficult to secure
in good condition because rain is likely to occur in
the harvest time. It is grown in marketable quan-
tities in Ontonagon County.

VEGETABLES

Michigan produced nearly 29,000,000 bushels of
potatoes in 1919, and 35,700,000 in 1920, which was
8.3 per cent of the United States crop. They are
of predominant importance in certain portions of the
State, particularly in the central counties of the
northern Lower Peninsula and in Marquette, Me-
nominee, Delta and Houghton counties in the Upper
Peninsula. Thus, in 1919, the counties producing
more than 1,000,000 bushels in the southern penin-
sula were Mecosta, jMontcalm, Osceola, together with
Oakland in the southeastern section ; while in that
year Houghton County led the Upper Peninsula with
a yield of 650,000 bushels, followed by Menominee,
Delta, and ]\farquette counties. Montcalm's product
of 2,381,730 bushels led the State. With potatoes, as
with other products of the soil, the tendency has been
to eliminate many varieties in favor of a few types
of approved quality. The report of the Michigan
Board of Agriculture for 1868 lists fifty-five varieties
of potatoes with the yield of each as determined ex-
perimentally. In this list the now long-forgotten
Chenery topped the production record with 353
bushels to the acre. The average yield in 1920 was

194 RURAL MICHIGAN

111 bushels an acre, but in the newer sections of the
State much hirger yields have been recorded. Yields
of 400 bushels to the acre in the Upper Peninsula
have been maintained for several years in succession,
and 500 to 600 bushels have been reported. In 1920,
a farmer near Marquette gathered sixty-five potatoes
from one hill, more than fifty of marketable size.
The cool moist climate of this area and of the neigh-
boring region of the southern peninsula is favorable
to this crop. J. ^^'ado Weston enumerates the
varieties of potato best adapted to this territory as
the Irish Cobbler, Early Ohio, and Triumph, for
early kinds, and Green Mountain, I'ural, and Russet
Burbank for late types.

Michigan pioneers soon discovered the potentiali-
ties of the potato crop. Thus a pioneer farmer of
the Grand Traverse region planted potatoes among
the logs on the virgin soil by merely gashing the
earth with his ax, placing the seed in the opening
and re-covering the hole with turf. These primitive
methods of culture produced results far above ex-
pectations and demonstrated the capacity of the
north country for potato production.^ The total
output of the State in 1882 is reported to have been
11,078,796 bushels on 113,745 acres. The price for
potatoes in that year ranged from 63 cents in April
to 47 cents in October.^ The production varied little
from this quantity during that decade. The price
ranged well below $1 a bushel, dropping to 15 cents

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Roc. Collections," 38, 304.
^"Rept. Mich. Ed. Agr.," 1892, 401.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 195

in 1888, but the average for the ten-year term was
about 50 cents.

To improve the quality of the crop, there exists
the Michigan Potato Producers Association, which,
starting as a series of county organizations chiefly
for educational purposes, was reorganized in 1920,
primarily for the purpose of inspection and certifica-
tion of seed potatoes, with attention to exhibits,
education and legislation in relation to the industry.
In 1920, the Association reported the inspection of
269 acres of seed potatoes, of which 192 acres passed
inspection and were certified. Approximately 25,000
bushels of certified seed potatoes were for sale in
Michigan in that year. In this work of inspection
and certification, the Association cooperates with the
Michigan Agricultural College, which provides the
inspectors. Two field and one bin inspections are
made. The standard for certification adopted by the
Association requires that a field must not show at
the first inspection moje than 10 per cent of black
scurf, wilt, blackleg, leaf-roll, curly dwarf, spindling
sprout, mosaic or hills weak from other causes, or
more than 15 per cent of all diseases combined. At
the second inspection a field is disqualified if it
shows more than -1 per cent of any one, or more than
8 per cent of all combined of the diseases named
above. Fields are disqualified if they show more
than 10 per cent of varietal mixture at the first
inspection, and more than 1 per cent at the second.
Fields infected with late blight or tip-burn, or in-
fested with leaf-hoppers, Colorado beetles or with

196 RURAL MICHIGAN

other pests to such an extent as to make identifica-
tion difficult are disqualified. To pass the bin
inspection, potatoes must show freedom from scab,
black-scurf and late blight, not have over 10 per
cent of light or 2 per cent deep infection of wilt, and
be free from other diseases and from frost-injury.
Potatoes in the bin must show not over 1 per cent
of varietal mixture and must conform to varietal type,
be uniform, symmetrical, smooth, and practically free
from serious cuts, fork punctures, bruises and other
mechanical blemishes. There are also limitations on
weight. Potatoes are sold in clean bags holding one
hundred pounds and bearing the certification tag of
the Association. For the purpose of introducing
certified seed potatoes into new localities and of
determining results from the use of such seed, the
Association furnishes certified seed to growers for
such demonstrations, and it publishes lists of growers
of certified seed, which, in 1920, bore thirty-seven
names, of whom eight were in- the Upper Peninsula.^
Michigan beans, grown in the southern counties,
have an established reputation and have been a highly
favored money crop. The output in 1910 was
5,282,511 bushels, chiefly from the counties of Clin-
ton, Eaton, Genesee, Gratiot, Huron, Ingham, Ionia,
Isabella, Kent, Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Mid-
land, Montcalm, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee and
Tuscola, each of which produced more than 100,000
bushels. There is a tendency for the counties impor-

^ From statement and pamphlets furnished by the Secre-
tary of the Mich. Potato Producers Assoc.

AGRICULTURAL IXDUSTRIES 197

tant in the bean crop to coincide with those producing
largely of corn, but the two lists also show interesting
differences, indicating a somewhat more northerly
trend of bean production, although the crop is not
regarded as a safe venture in the northern counties.
How^ever, on the Lake ^Michigan shore of the Upper
Peninsula, excellent yields of beans have been secured
year after year. A hardy rust-proof type was
developed at the experiment station at Chatham and,
when sown in the northern latitude, has given very
satisfactory results. Anywhere in the State the bean
crop is attended with much uncertainty, and this,
together with unsatisfactory market conditions, has
somewhat discouraged bean culture, so that in 1920
the production fell off from the 1910 figures to
3,575,000 bushels, grown on 275,000 acres and hence
averaging a product of 13.5 bushels an acre. In 1921,
by a cooperative arrangement between the Farm
Bureau and the United States Department of Agri-
culture, a laboratory was established at Saginaw for
the study of bean diseases with a view to their
eradication.

Peas as stock feed and for canning are grown in
both peninsulas and are occasionally met with as an
important local crop.

The abundance of rich muck lands and the com-
paratively cool, moist summers of Michigan are
favorable to the growing of celery.^ The industry
has developed largely in the territory about Kalama-
zoo, Muskegon, Decatur, Grand Ifaven, Vriesland

»"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," lOl.J, p. 32.3.

198 RURAL MICHIGAN

and Hudsonville; while the celery grown on the
Taquamenon Swamp near Newberry in the Upper
Peninsula, though not large in amount, is very highly
prized because of its flavor and crispness. Celery is
also grown in truck-gardens about such large market
towns as Detroit, Grand Eapids, Bay City and many
other cities of the southern peninsula. The Bureau
of Crop Estimates of the United States Department
of Agriculture gives statistics of the commercial
acreage and production of celery in Michigan as
follows: 2,935 acres with a yield of 168 crates pro-
ducing 2,465 cars of celery. By counties the acreage
ran thus in 1919 :

Counties Acres

Allegan 150

Bay 25

Berrien 35

Cass 40

Kalamazoo 790

Kent 400

Lenawee 140

Muskegon 144

Ottawa 730

Van Buren 200

Washtenaw 30

Total 2,684

These statistics are undoubtedly not complete,
since they represent the acreage for Luce County in

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 199

the Upper Peninsula as zero, while other reliable
sources of information indicate a shipment of 100
dozen stalks six days of each week from October 1 to
January 1. The acreage is small, but is said to be
readily increasable with favorable labor conditions.

Michigan celery is grown on the heavy well-
drained muck-lands of which the soil is very deep, 20
to 30 feet, with a subsoil of hard stiff clay. Three
or four feet of good top soil are said to be sufficient
for the growing of celery, provided it is well-drained
and strong. Black ash and elm muck-lands are best
for celery production. The marketing begins about
July 1 and continues until midwinter. The Kalama-
zoo, Grand Haven and Muskegon districts grow early
celery, starting their marketing about July 1, con-
tinuing until October. The Grand Haven and
Muskegon crops are shipped across the lake to Chi-
cago, while the Kalamazoo product is sold largely
in other cities throughout the United States. De-
catur, Vriesland, Hudsonville and other smaller sec-
tions where the crop is grown more extensively begin
shipping later and aim to dispose of it before freezing
weather.

In 1920, Michigan ranked fifth among the states
producing sugar-beet seed. The output that year
was 515,000 out of a total of 6,770,000 pounds. The
states exceeding Michigan were Idaho, Montana and
California. The average yield to the acre in Michi-
gan was 765 pounds, which falls considerably short
of California's yield of 1,200, but not much below
that of Idaho, placed at 800 pounds. Wliilc the

200 RURAL MICHIGAN

growing of sugar-beet seed in Michigan is at present
confined to tlie southern peninsula, its growth in the
Upper Peninsula is advocated, as the heavy snowfall
permits the seed-producing beets to be left in the
ground during the winter, without lifting and re-
planting them in the spring in readiness for the
second year's growth in which the seed is obtained.
Frost seldom penetrates the snow covering in the
northern sections of the State and vegetables are not
likely to suffer injury from freezing. There are
other problems, however, connected with the growing
of sugar-beet seed that have as yet not been solved.
The United States Bureau of Markets reports an
average yield of sugar-beet seed in Michigan for
1919 of only 430 pounds, and in 1920 of 715 pounds.
In 1919 Saginaw County produced the largest quan-
tity of sugar-beet seed, the reported output being
105,000 pounds, followed by Lenawee County Avith
43,500 pounds, Montcalm with 35,000, Gratiot with
34,000, Isabella with 32,000, Clare with 30,000,
Huron with 18,000, Tuscola with 10,000, and Bay
County with 9,000 pounds.

FRUITS

The profusion of fruit-growing in the vicinity of
the Detroit River, which aroused the admiration of
Cadillac, also attracted the favorable comment of
the Jesuit Father, Nau, who, in a letter descriptive
of his field of labor, under date of October 2, 1735,
speaks of "this stretch of country" as "the finest in

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 201

Canada. There is scarcely any winter, and all kinds
of fruit grow there as well as they do in France." ^
Many years later another observer recounts how,
along the Kiver Eaisin, "everywhere, in the wild-
Avood and in the glade, on the river's edge, and as
far away under the over-arching trees as the eye
could see Avas a wealth of grape-vines. Everywhere
hung clusters of rich, purple fruit; everywhere, with
a wild luxuriance that far surpassed the stories their
fathers had told of the vineyards of sunny France."
And it is related how at one point a man walked for
eighty rods on grape-vines without touching the
ground. These wild vines, in the hard cold season
of 1875, are stated to have been the only grapes
that matured sufficiently for the requirements of the
local vintage, although by that time cultivated varie-
ties had been introduced.^

When American settlers began to enter the Michi-
gan territory after the War of 1812, they found a
varied assortment of native fruits already established
there. Some of these are strictly indigenous, such
as the wild plum, wild crab-apple, wild cherry,
and many varieties of berries, such as the wild
strawberry, black, white and red raspberry, blue-
berry, huckleberry (high-bush and low-bush). The
salmon-berry, variously styled also the white-flowered
raspberry, and, in the Lake Superior country, the
thimble-berry, produced its attractive white flowers
on its broad-leaved stem, and then its delicate pale red

* "Jesuit Relations," LX\aiI, 283.
^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1875, 81.

202 RURAL MICHIGAN

fruit, in the region north from Houghton Lake in the
southern peninsula and throughout the northern
peninsula and on Isle T^oyale; and it remains a popu-
lar element in the wild fruit resources of the north-
country even now. Enormous quantities of these
wild berries are still consumed locally and exported.
In both peninsulas, also, the tiny delicious winter-
green was a favorite for gathering in the early spring,
both for the diminutive red berry and the leaves.
It must have been the French voyageurs, the mission-
aries, or some Johnny Appleseed who established the
apple in Michigan, but it is reported in many widely
separated sections of the territory and the State by
the pioneers: along the Detroit River, in Huron,
Eaton, St. Joseph, Shiawassee, Lenawee, on Scales'
Prairie in Barry County, in the Saginaw Valley and
in the vicinity of Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula.
Along the Detroit River, in the Grand Traverse
region and elsewhere appeared the pear, whose intro-
duction is credited to the French of the early eigh-
teenth century.

Nurseries were established in the southeastern
settlements even before Michigan became a state,
and in the first decade of statehood. Throuijh their
agency improved varieties of fruit were introduced.
Among the varieties of apples thus brought into
Michigan at the outset of its history are the Baldwin,
Bellefleur, Tart Bough, Canada Red, Snow, Rhode
Island Greening, Fall Pippin. Sunmier Pippin, Green
Newton Pippin, Porter, Rambo, Golden Russet, Tal-
man's Sweet, Green Sweet, Esopus Spitzenburg,

AGRICULTURAL IXDUSTRIE.^ 203

Swaar, and Twenty-ounce apple.^ Varieties of
pears inehuled the Bartlett, Biiifum, White Doyenne,
Flemish Beauty, Seekel, and Stevens' Genesee.^ Of
peaches, there were the Early Anne, Sweetwater,
Royal Kensington, Prince's Eed, Eareripe, Orange,
Pound, Barnard, Early York, Malta, and Red-Cheek
Melcoton/ Efforts to grow apricots and nectarines
failed through unfavorable climatic conditions.
Among the cherries, the Amber Heart, Black Heart,
Black Tartarian, May Duke,. Ox Heart, Carnation,
and ^^^lite Tartarian ; and among the plums, Coe's
Golden Drop, Duane's Purple, Green Gage, Bleekers
Gage, Hulings Superb, Smith's Orleans, Washington
and Yellow Gage, are noted. J. C. Holmes, who
was both practically and officially connected with this
early period of Michigan horticulture, concedes that
many varieties of early fruits at first introduced into
Michigan proved unsuitable, but others on the lists
just recorded are still standard varieties for the
State.

Fruit-culture was quite generally distributed
throughout the settled portions of the State in the
period before the Civil War. There is abundant testi-
mony that the removal of the forests, by exposing
the land surface to frigid air currents, made the cul-
ture of the less hardy varieties, such as the peach,
increasingly difficult and the return much more un-
certain in the inland counties, and by the war era

^ Listed in a paper by J. C. Holmes, read before tbo
Mich. State Pomoiogical Soc at R^f^tle Creek, Feb. 25.
1873; "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," v. X, p. 73.

204 RURAL MICHIGAN

the Lake Michigan shore had definitely become the
great "fruit-belt" of the State. Commercial peach-
growing in Berrien County is dated as far back as
1835 with the first shipment of the fruit from St.
Joseph in 1840.^ Grapes soon appeared in the
vicinity of Grand Haven^ on .the western shore, al-
though the wild variety had grown with the most
extraordinary profusion near Lake Erie in the south-
eastern section of the southern peninsvila. While
exceptionally severe winters, such as those of 1873
and 1875, which iced the surface of Lake Michigan,
were quite disastrous to fruit-trees even in the far
western counties, the normal mild winter and cool
growth-retarding temperatures of the lake shore
country were so advantageous to the fruit-growers
that the industry naturally settled itself in that dis-
trict, and has remained its dominant agricultural
interest to the present time. By 1884 a very large
fraction of the State's total output of fruit was
credited to the three southwestern counties of this
region, Allegan, Van Buren and Berrien, which pro-
duced one-ninth of the apples, two-thirds of the
peaches, and three-fifths of the grapes grown in
Michigan, as calculated from the return of the State
census of that year.-

By 1899, the State production of orchard fruit was
reported in the United States census returns as
9,859,862 bushels, and ten years later at 15,320,104
bushels. Among the several species of these fruits,

'"Kept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1888, 283.

=" Thirteenth U. S. Census— Abstract. 411.

AGRICULTURAL IXDUSTRIE^^ 205

apples had a yield in 1909, according to the same
source, of 12,332,296 bushels, while the yield in 1920
was 16,500,000.1 Peaches produced 1,686,586
bushels; pears, 666,023 bushels, while in 1920 the
yield was 1,100,000; plums, 181,188 bushels; cher-
ries, 338,945 bushels; while quinces, always a low
yield in Michigan, recorded 13,481. Grapes, which
produced 41,530,369 pounds in 1899, rose to 120,-
695,997 pounds in the decade following.-

The distribution of this production by counties in-
dicates the areas in which the fruit crop bulks largest
in the agricultural economy of the State. The
counties yielding more than one-half million bushels
of orchard fruit in 1909 include Allegan, Berrien,
Kent, Oceana, Van Buren and Grand Traverse,
arranged in the order of their relative importance.
Allegan County in that year had an orchard crop of
more than one million bushels. Among central and
eastern counties, which rank high in field crops, the
fruit counted for relatively less; thus, Genesee
County produced only 143,800 bushels of orchard
fruit; Lenawee, 254,514, and Hillsdale, 186,917
bushels. That hardy fruits comprised the main crop
of these same counties is indicated by Genesee's out-
put of 130,568 bushels of apples; while Lenawee's
apple yield was 230,581 bushels, and Hillsdale's,
164,432 bushels. Hardy fruits, like apples, plums
and cherries are well distributed throughout the

'Thirteenth U. S. Census— Abstract. 411.

='U. S. Dept. Agr.: "Monthly Crop Reporter," April, 1921,

206 'RURAL MICH 10 AN

State and as far north as the Lake Superior shore in
the Upper Peninsula where very abundant yields
occur. The north Michigan counties made a very
small showing in the fruit returns for the Thirteenth
Census, but in the interval, numerous young orchards
have been set out in this section and these give prom-
ise of very satisfactory yields henceforth. While
peaches and grapes make a showing at many points,
particularly in the southern peninsula, many miles
from the lake shore, these are usually points of good
elevation and consequent air drainage. However,
they are not unknown even as far as the Lake Su-
perior shore-line, where, at Marquette, a very hardy
variety of peach, named from that city, has had
quite accidental origin but seems destined to persist
and at least to provide good budding stock for a
more favorable peach latitude but where climatic
conditions still demand exceptional hardiness.

Berries and cherries, both wild and cultivated, are
found in many parts of the two peninsulas, but
certain sections have emphasized the production of
one or another of them. Thus the region of Grand
Traverse Bay has been described as the "original
home of the North Michigan cherry," while On-
tonagon County in the extreme northern portion of
the Upper Peninsula and St. Joseph County in the
extreme southern part of the Lower Peninsula have
been famous in the production of strawberries. There
is a large local demand for the output, yet rail ship-
ments from some sections are heavy in the height of
the season. In 1909 the aggregate strawberry pro-

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 207

duction for Michigan was ascertained by the federal
census to be 14,218,708 quarts. Of this total, Berrien
County produced more than three million. Van Buren
County more than one million, and Wayne County,
1,425,320 quarts. These counties have excellent
markets for this fruit close at hand. The raspberry
output of the State in the year was 8,381,943 quarts,
with Berrien County here leading also with its crop
of 2,849,794 quarts, and with Sanilac also a heavy
producer. While in the Upper Peninsula the com-
mercial berry crop is small, there is a remarkable
in-gathering of the wild red raspberry, blueberry,
and "thimble-berry," a portion of which is con-
sumed locally while thousands of crates are sent to
Chicago and other southern urljan markets during
the season. The State's cherry crop in 1909 is rep-
resented by 338,945 bushels, with Grand Traverse
County's 40,000 bushels leading and with large out-
puts from Allegan, Benzie, Berrien and Oceana, all
on the Lake Michigan shore.

NUTS

Among the indigenous forest trees of Michigan
were many bearing edible nuts, such as the hickory,
oak, butternut, walnut, beech, and the hazel-busli.
While nut-growing forms no part of systematic agri-
culture in the State, the natural output has a place
in the domestic economy of the southern peninsula
and of the southern counties of the northern penin-
sula, where, near the Lake Michigan shore, the

208 RURAL MICHIGAN

butternut grows freely and yields profusely. The
Thirteenth Census (1909) gave the output of nuts
of all kinds in Michigan at 961,137 pounds. Coun-
ties with relatively large outputs were Allegan, Clin-
ton, Ionia, Iosco, Lapeer, Oakland, St. Joseph, and
Wayne, all of which exceeded 40,000 pounds. Oak-
land led with 75,917 pounds, followed by Calhoun
with 07,435 pounds. In the Upper Peninsula only
Chippewa County made any visible showing with its
paltry 100 pounds (possibly beechnuts) although the
situation in Delta County adjacent to Big Bay de
Nocque would seem to have warranted high expecta-
tions in relation to butternuts. The chestnut is not
common in Michigan and seems to be at home only
in the southeastern counties, and its artificial plan-
tation was undertaken some years ago by the Lake
Shore and Michigan Southern Railway along its
right-of-way north of Adrian. Sporadic attempts
at the introduction of nut-bearing trees have occurred
in Michigan, looking to the addition of the filbert,
the almond, the pecan and the Persian and Japanese
walnuts to the native nut-trees. The results are
understood not to have been greatly encouraging.^
State law has made provisions for the planting of
nut-bearing trees along the highways and the legis-
lature of 1919 laid such a duty on the broad shoulders
of the State Highway Commissioner. - Interest in
the commercial growing of nuts has led to the or-
ganization of the Northern Nut Growers Association

^Michigan Farmer, Sept. 25, 1920, 367.
=*?. A. 36-1919.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 209

(1910) for the purpose of promoting an intelligent
interest in nut-culture and of scientifically investi-
gating the problems and the introduction of new
varieties. In the membership of this association are
several residents of Michigan. The use of nuts in
the diet prescribed at the famous Battle Creek Sani-
tarium has undoubtedly done something to enhance
public interest in nut-culture.

SPECIAL CROPS

The wet lands in the .southwestern portion of the
southern peninsula have been quite extensively used
for the growing of mint. In 1919 the assistant truck
crop specialist of the United States Department of
Agriculture estimated the production of peppermint
and spearmint in INIichigan by counties as follows :

Peppermint: Spearmint:

County Acres County Acres

Allegan 300 Allegan 550

^o"-

Berrien 395 Berrien 290

Cass 520 Cass 50

Gratiot 50 St. Joseph 80

Muskegon 30 Van Buren 750

St. Josepli 550

Van Buren 625 Total 1720

Total 2470

The major portion of the commercial mint crop
in the country is grown in this section of Michigan
and in northern Indiana, and, according to the
expert just mentioned, the higli tide of production

210 RURAL MirillGAN

was reached in 1914, wlieii the two states yielded
some 600,000 pounds of mint. Then the production
fell off until 1919, when the output was 225,000
pounds. Mint, when harvested, has its essential oil
removed by distillation. Mint is said to produce
normally 30 pounds to the acre, but yield? are .said
to vary from 10 to 80 pounds. The mint is cut
with a scythe and, after the oil is extracted, the
straw is used as a stock food.^

The commercial growing of mint in Michigan is
said to date from the year 1830. In 1847 the price
of ])eppermint oil has been given at $1.25 a pound,
while in 1919 prices are reported to have varied
from $3.50 to $G.(i0 a pound. In the record pro-
duction year of 1914, mint oil sold at about $1 a
pound, according to the expert of the Department
of Agriculture. The industry seems to have suffered
occasionally from over-production and from mo-
nopoly, and as far back as 1888 the c(mipetition of
Japanese oil was taken notice of, although in 1886
St. Joseph County, Michigan, was credited with a
production of 70,000 pounds of peppermint oil, one-
fifth of the world's outpiit." The oil is used for con-
fectioners' and medicinal purposes. In 1920, the
experimental growing of peppermint in the Upper
Peninsula was undertaken by the Land Commissioner
of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad,
with apparently satisfactory results. In this instance,

^ On mint-culture in Midi., see Kept. State Bd. Agr.,
1888, 452.
''Ibid.. 4rA.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 211

the plot was located in a portion of the Seney Swamp
east of Marquette ; but it has been claimed that mint
will do well on dry lands, if the soil is sufficiently
rich. Since South Bend, Indiana, is at the center
of the mint-growing territory of Indiana and Michi-
gan, the mint-growers in that area have been or-
ganized for their mutual advantage, with official
headquarters in that city.^

In 1909, the value of ginseng produced in the
State was, according to the Thirteenth Census,
$13,794.

Of late the culture of goldenseal has become of
commercial concern in the Upper Peninsula, where
one grower estimates the yield to the acre in the
quadrennium at $20,000 to $25,000.

CROPS FOR MUCK-LANDS

In Michigan agriculture, muck and sandy lands
present special difficulties. It is recognized that
muck-land farming presents peculiar problems : of
drainage, of fertilization, of discovering crops suited
to such lands. As stated by Ezra Levin, of the
State Department of Agriculture, who has an estab-
lished reputation as an expert in this department of
agriculture, "there are two types of muck-farming
in Michigan: extensive and intensive." Extensive
muck-land agriculture "is concerned with celery,

i"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," v. 18, 51.5.
See also Van Fleet: "The Cnltivntion of Pepj)ermint and
Spearmint," U. S. Dept. Agr., Bull. 604. 1917; Henkel:
"Peppermint," U. S. Dept. Agr., Bull. 00, 1905.

213 RUh'AL MICHIGAN

onions, cabbage and lettuce. Less than one-half
of one per cent of the total area of muck and
peat lands in Michigan is given over to intensive
farming. Not very much more than that is being
extensively farmed.'^ Levin believes that "the de-
velopment of swampy lands in Michigan will come
through extensive farming." The problem, then, is
to bring about a safe system of agriculture for these
swamp lands. He proceeds to point out that two
factors in relation to muck-lands must constantly
be kept in mind : frost and the quality of the soil.
The crop rotation for such lands "has to do with
cattle — either dairy or beef cattle — as a pivot, alsike
and timothy or white sweet-clover hay, corn or sun-
flower form silage, and sugar beets — the sugar beets
and hay as cash crops."^

Hay, Levin holds, constitutes an excellent cash
crop for muck-lands, since it removes nitrogenous
elements of which the soil already possesses an ex-
cess supply.- He points out, however, the value of
green-manure. While small grains are regarded by
Levin as subject to special risks as muck-land crops,
the order of preference among thom he gives as
follows : oats, spring barley, rye, winter barley and
wheat. Levin further recommends for grain cul-
ture on muck-lands: 1. "Heavy seeding, at least
one and a half times the amount of seed that the
highland farmers use in the vicinity; 2. Applying
acid phosphate or potash, or both; 3. Thoroughly

'Letter of Oct. 25, 1920.

^Journal of the Amer. Peat 8oc., No. 3, July, 1920, 297.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 213

rolling the seed-bed." ^ He further states that
"buckwheat and millet are considered important
muck crops in subduing the sod. It cannot be said
that those are profitable as a regular part in the
rotation." Levin is also quite sure that sugar-beet
culture offers the best prospect of success in muck-
farming. It must be understood, however, that Lev-
in's conclusions are not universally accepted.

CROP IMPROVEMENT PROGRESS

One of the most striking features of Michigan
agriculture has been the gradual elimination of a
great number of mongrel varieties of grain and
the progressive standardization of types to a few
varieties of approved quality and character. In 1918,
J. F. Cox, of the Michigan Agricultural College,
recommends among the red varieties of wheat suit-
able for bread-making, the Eed Rock, or, in lieu of
that, Egyptian, Shepherd's Perfection, Mediterra-
nean, and Eed Wave, among such excellent types as
are available. Among the white wheats adapted
for pastry flour and breakfast foods, he mentions
Plymouth Pock, White Pock, Dawson's Golden Chaff,
and American Banner as leading varieties.^

The Michigan Agricultural College is stated to
have begun the distribution of pedigreed grains from
its breeding plats in 1909.^ Several of the varieties

^Jmi/rnal of the Amer. Peat Soc, No. 3, July, 1920, 298.
2"Rept. Midi. Bd. Agr." 1918, 652.

' MS. article by A. L. Bibbins, Secretary, Mich. Crop
Improvement Assoc., 1920.

214 RTRAL MICIIKIAN

of wheat just noted were among the first released
by the College. To systematize this work of grain
improvement throngh cooperation with the Michigan
Agricultural College, a number of farmers, in 1911,
organized "The ]\Iichigan Experiment Association."
"The plan generally followed," says Bil)bins, secre-
tary of the Crop Improvement Association, "was to
allow any member of the Association to obtain from
the station plat an amoimt of grain varying accord-
ing to the supply, from one peck to one bushel. The
member was then required to sow this seed beside
his own variety and report his results to the secre-
tary of the Association." The Association recognized
the impossibility of securing a single type of any
grain adapted to all portions of a state so varied
in conditions of soil and climate as Michigan ; but
the type adapted to particular conditions might be
ascertained. Thus, as Bibbins states, it was de-
termined that the Worthy oat is suited to rich heavy
soil, and this is said at present to be the most ex-
tensively grown variety in Michigan. Coincidentally,
it was ascertained that the Alexander oat is appar-
ently best adapted to sandy loam types of soil. Simi-
larly Rosen rye was first distributed by the College
through the members of this Association. It had
been the function of the Michigan Experiment As-
sociation to determine experimentally suitable varie-
ties of grain. To develop its work among the farm-
ers of the State and carry out a more extensive
scheme of crop improvement, a reorganization was
effected in 1917, under the designation of "The

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 215

Michigan Crop Improvement Association." "This
organization/' writes its secretary, "includes in its
activities the testing out of improved varieties and
methods in cooperation with not only the farm crops
department (of the Michigan Agricultural College),
but also with other departments closely related with
successful crop production, such as plant pathology,
bacteriology, etc.'' The Association does not confine
its attention to varieties of grain developed at the
College, however, but is concerned with types origi-
nated on the farms of the State and elsewhere.
Agents of the Association make inspections of such
grain just before harvest and then after the seed is in
storage. Ninety-nine per cent of purity, practical
freedom from noxious weeds and disease, conformity
to a prescribed standard of germination, color and
weight a bushel are required for approval by the
Association. After inspection, the Association pub-
lishes a list of farmers having approved seed for
sale. Marketing of pure seeds is now also effected
through the Michigan State Farm Bureau, through
cooperation with the Michigan Crop Improvement
Association. Through various agencies of publicity,
the county agricultural agents, the grain exhibit in
connection with farmers' week at the Michigan Agri-
cultural College and otherwise, the character and
advantages of improved types of grain are brought
home to the agricultural population. While farmers
are traditionally conservative, such demonstrations
are not lost. Thus, the sowing of the initial one
bushel of Rosen rye in Jackson County in 1912 ex-

210 RURAL MICHIGAN

tended among the farmers of the State until in
1918 it was estimated by the Crop Improvement As-
sociation that Si per cent of the rye in Michigan
was of the pure-bred variety. The Michigan Crop
Improvement Association now (Jan. 4, 1921) has
five hundred members, twenty of whom reside in the
Upper Peninsuhi.

During the period from 1910 to 1920, the plant-
breeder, F. A. Spragg, of the Michigan Agricultural
College, is credited with contributing to Michigan
agriculture such new plant varieties as Worthy oats,
Alexander oats, Eosen rye, Red Rock wheat, American
Banner wheat, Michigan Two-row barley, Michigan
Black Barbless barley, and Robust beans. ^ The new
white sweet clover was also introduced into the State
in this period. Corn variety tests were undertaken
to establish local standardization of the grain. It is
also claimed that wheat variety tests conducted
throughout the State in recent years have established
the outstanding excellence of Red Rock and Egyptian
of the red wheats, and the American Banner of the
white wheat. Variety tests for oats have shown, it is
asserted, the Worthy, Wolverine, College Suc-
cess and College Wonder to be "outstanding." In
southern Michigan, Cox enumerates the Johnson,
the Strube in the Saginaw A^alley, and the White
Bonanza, New Victory and Swedish Select as excel-
lent types over a wide territory. Among the six-row
barleys, Wisconsin Pedigree is placed in the lead,
while of the two-row types, the Michigan Two-row

• J. F. Cox in TJie Michigan Farmer, Feb. 5, 1921.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 217

is the best producer. The Michigan Black Barbless
barley is said to out-yield other kinds in adverse years
and yields high in favorable seasons. Eight years of
experience with Eosen rye left its supremacy unchal-
lenged. Tests were also conducted in relation to
soybeans to determine the types best adapted to
Michigan. Bean tests have placed the improved
Eobust variety in the lead as a hardy disease-resistant
type. Northwestern varieties of alfalfa were tried
out and it was demonstrated that the Grimm, Cos-
sack and Baltic were of outstanding excellence for
Michigan.

Evidence accumulates that Michigan farmers are
increasingly particular regarding the quality of the
seed they plant. April 29, 1921, the Michigan State
Farm Bureau reported that, during the preceding
winter, fifty thousand Michigan farmers had bought
seed through their seed department. The department
stated that it had put out three million pounds of
seed of "known origin, adaptability, purity and per-
cent of germination." It claimed to have increased
the registered Grimm alfalfa acreage of the State
by 500 per cent, and it handled 750,000 pounds of
]\Iichigan-grown clover seed and retained it for
Michigan users, it reported. As evidence of the in-
creasing diversity in field crops, it was then stated
that the department was handling sweet clover and
vetch, for which there was reported a good demand,
and millet and Sudan-grass were also on their list.
Twelve carloads of "ITubam" (annual white sweet
clover) were reported to have been sown in the

218 RURAL MICHIGAN

season of 1920, and it was anticipated that there
would be 1,000 acres planted in the season of 1921.
It was claimed that this new crop would revolutionize
crop rotation and the productive power of the soil.^
' Mich. State Farm Bur. News Serv., April, 29, 1921, 2.

CHAPTEE VI

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES OF MICHIGAN

Blois' Gazetteer of 1838 estimated the number of
neat cattle in Michigan at 149,350. Of horses the
number was 23,430; of sheep, 37,806; of hogs,
181,825. The total amounts to 392,411.

A glimpse of the place of live-stock in Michigan
agriculture in the middle of the last century is ob-
tained from a survey, the results of which are pub-
lished in the collections of the Michigan Pioneer
and Historical Society for 1887. Of Shiawassee
County, it is said that ''raising stock has become
quite a business. Besides the cattle slaughtered at
home, the amount sold and taken out of the county
for each of the years 1852 and 1853 was not less than
$10,000. Almost every farmer has a flock of sheep,
and wool-growing has become an important business,
the amount sold in 1853 exceeding $10,000. Nearly
every farmer raises or makes his surplus amount of
butter and pork."^ The township of Napoleon,
Jackson County, with a population of 301, produced
"80,000 pounds of wool, 800 barrels of pork, and
700 barrels of beef."^ Wayland Township, Allegan

' "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XII, 388.
'Ibid., 396.

219

220 RURAL MICHIGAN

County, witli its population of 331, produced "1,350
pounds of pork, 247 pounds of wool sold, 3,825 pounds
of butter made." ^ From Ann Arbor came the report
that 'Sve raised and disposed of in the year of 1853
in our county 1,000 head of fat cattle, 2,000 hogs
fatted, 1,000 store hogs, 10,000 sheep-pelts, and
200,000 pounds of wool." ^ For statistics of live-
stock see Appendix G.

One of the most striking evidences of the advance
registered in Michigan agriculture has been the re-
placement of mongrel live-stock by pure-bred types
of a few standard varieties. Thus in the census of
1920, 1,293 farms reported 2,779 head of pure-bred
horses, including 478 Belgian, 45 French Draft, 14
Hackney, 1,63 G Percherons, 59 Shire, 205 standard
bred, 123 Clydesdale, and 219 of other types. The
same census showed 62,800 pure-bred beef breeds
of cattle, and 46,533 head of dairy breeds. Of the
beef breeds, there were enumerated 1,519 Aberdeen-
Angus, 1,825 Hereford, 1,067 Polled Durham, 11,712
Shorthorns, and 144 of other types. Of the dairy
breeds, 291 were Ayrshire, 429 Brown Swiss, 3,369
Guernsey, 32,702 Holstein-Friesian, 8,296 Jersey,
1,446 all other breeds. The total number of pure-
bred sheep reported from 2,639 farms were 21,342,
comprising 24 Cheviot, 72 Dorset Horn, 1,910 Hamp-
shire Down, 100 Leicester, 268 Lincoln, 4,998 Merino,

Ubid., 400.

^ "Thirteenth Census of the U. S. Abstract with Supple-
ment for Mich.," 1910, 336.

AXIilAL IXDUSTRIES 221

2,800 Oxford, 2/267 Eambouillet, 7,942 Shropshire,
42 Suffolk, 919 other breeds. The swine numbered
33,527, reported from 7,656 farms. Of these the
Berkshire breed had 1,618, the Chester- White, 7,869,
the Duroc-Jersey, 12,842, the Hampshire, 1.023, the
Poland-China. 8,739, the Spotted Poland-China, 219,
the Tamworth, 135, the Yorkshire, 376, and all
others, 676. Statistics of pure-bred live-stock are
given in Appendix H.

The Michigan Improved Livestock Breeders and
Feeders Association was org:anized in 1890. and its
membership fluctuates from 200 to 300. although its
annual meetinsrs at East Lansinor orenerallv brincf
out twice or thrice these numbers. The object of
the Association is declared in its constitution, "to
promote the interests of breeders of the various breeds
of improved livestock in Michigan," and "any per-
son interested in improved breeds of livestock may
become a member of this association by paying one
dollar into the treasury." The annual dues are one
dollar. The secretary states that, when this Asso-
ciation was established, there was not sufficient in-
terest in particular breeds of live-stock to organize
separate societies for them individually. In the
interim, however, separate organizations have been
created for horses, sheep, swine and cattle, and vari-
ous varieties of each species, although thev are
affiliated with the general parent organization. At
their annual conferenc-e held at the 5lichigan Agri-
cultural College during the winter, discussions take

223 RURAL MICIIIGAN

place relating to problems connected with improving
live-stock, protection from disease, market conditions,
and the like.

SHEEP

The number of sheep in Michigan in 1878 is given
at 1,670,790, producing 8,666,467 pounds of wool,
an average of 5.19 pounds a head. By 1884 the num-
ber had increased to 2,453,897, yielding 13,827,542
pounds of wool. Thence the number declined and
reached 1,260,295 in 1897-8, producing 8,207,594
pounds of wool. In the latter year, however, the
amount of wool to a head of sheep was 6.51 pounds,
indicating, with the similarly increased output of
the year immediately preceding, an improvement of
the wool-producing types of sheep in the period.^
In the years Just given, the counties showing the
largest number of sheep in the order named were
Washtenaw, Eaton, Jackson, Calhoun, Lenawee,
Ingham, Branch, Livingston, Oakland and Hills-
dale.^ Washtenaw's quota was then 79,059, while
Hillsdale possessed 46,519 sheep, representing the
extremes of the ten counties mentioned. Not only
did Washtenaw County excel in the number of sheep,
its yield of wool to a head (7.79) was in excess of
the State's average. Several counties showed a still
larger average product but the total number of
sheep was small. It will be noted that the counties
excelling in the number of sheep owned were all

'"Kept. :\Iicli. Bd. Agr.," 1900, 202.
UbicL, 204.

AXIMAL IXDUSTKIES 223

southern, the oldest agriculturally of the State, where
sheep-raising had long been a well-established busi-
ness. The ten counties enumerated had nearly one-
half the sheep and wool output of Michigan.

The severe drought tliat afflicted the range country
east of the Rocky Mountains in Montana and adja-
cent territory in the summer and autumn of 1919
forced large shipments of cattle and sheep into more
favored regions. The cut-over country south of Lake
Superior, well supplied with succulent grasses and
brush, received large consignments of animals. The
United States Department of Agriculture and the
Tapper Peninsula Development Bureau promoted this
migration, and very considerable numbers of sheep
found their way into the northern peninsula of
Michigan. The movement was continued in 1920,
but with the return of more favorable conditions in
the seasons of 1920 and 1921, the tide fell off. Its
recession, however, left the northern counties of the
State much better stocked with sheep than had for-
merly been the case, and the ten million acres or more
of cut-over lands of Michigan were being seriously
considered as a new range for the live-stock industry.^

In addition to this large-scale sheep ranching in
the northern range country, there has been developing
a small-scale intensive sheep business participated
in by farmers, chiefly of Finnish nationality and of
limited means, financed by townsmen on a profit-
sharing basis.

Of the breeds of sheep represented in Michigan

^"Yearbook," U. S. Dept. Agr., 1919, 401.

224 RURAL MICIIIOAN

during this period, the Oxford Downs are said to
have been imported in about the year 1883. It is
stated by one breeder of this type that up to 1887,
"there were less than half a dozen flocks of pure-
bred Oxfords in Michigan."^ The popularity of the
breed seems to have increased. The breeders, cen-
tering in Genesee County, organized an association,
and by 1899, the estimated number of pure-bred Ox-
fords in the State is placed at 2,500.^ The lowest
average yield of wool to a head up to that date is
given at 8.5 pounds. One flock is credited with an
average of 11.5 pounds a head, while this record
had been exceeded in some instances, it is claimed.
Other breeds of sheep in the State during the period
under review included the American, French and
Delaine Merinos, Shropshire, Hampshire, Southdown,
Cotswold, Lincoln, Leicester and Horned Dorset. In
popularity the Shropshire is reported as leading, and
although at that time the Merinos are said to have
composed the chief flocks of the State, they were
giving place to the Shropshire breed. ^

Michigan had 2,224,000 head of sheep on January
1, 1920, valued at $11.80 a head, with an aggregate
farm value of $2G,243,000. In 1919, these sheep
produced 9,554,000 pounds of wool, weighing on an
average 7.4 pounds. The total number of fleeces
was 1,291,000.* Flocks of sheep on Michigan farms

^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1899, 398.
'■"fbid., 400.
^Ibid., 1892, 365.

* "Yearbook," U. 8. Dept. Agr., 1919, 669-672. The re-
turns of the Fourteentli U. S. Census show that there were

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 225

normally are small, probably averaging 25 to 30
head. In 1920 a very bad situation in relation to
the wool market reacted adversely on the sheep in-
dustry of the State. The Bureau of Crop Estimates,
however, found that the number of lambs at the close
of the year had increased as a result of slow market-
ing, so that the net loss of sheep stood at only 4 per
cent, and the total number of head was found to be
2,135,000 in February, 1921. The estimated valua-
tion of 14,000,000 was not much over half that of
the preceding year.

Classified with reference to breeds, the Cheviots
numbered 1.1 per cent of the aggregate; the Cots-
wold, 2 ; Oxford Downs, 6.9 ; Rambouillet, 6 ; Shrop-
shires, 46.8; Southdowns, 2.8; Tunis, .1; others, 4;
jSTondescript, 4.1 per cent.^

With increasing stringency, the statutes of the
State seek to protect sheep and other live-stock
against the depredation of dogs. Dogs are required
to be licensed and wear a tag, and they may be killed
on view when attacking live-stock or trespassing in
rural districts on private property. The proceeds of
the dog tax are primarily for assignment, on order
of a city council or township board, to the owners
of sheep killed by dogs. Since sheep suffer also from
the depredations of wolves and coyotes, a large bounty
of $35 (until 1921) was provided for their destruc-

in Michigan (Jan. 1, 1920) 1,209,191 sheep on hand on
farms, and that 7,835,558 pounds of wool were produced in
1919. Of mohair, 1,617 pounds were produced in Michigan
in 1919.

^"Mich. Crop Kept.," Bur. Crop Estimates, May, 1920, 6.

226 RURAL MICHIGAN

tion, which, however, did not prove very eiTective.
It has been necessary in certain districts to call in
the systematized efforts of the United States Bio-
logical Survey to reinforce whatever may be done
by the State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Commis-
sioner's department in ridding the State of these
noxious animals in the interest of the sheep in-
dustry. The problem of these destructive pests is
admittedly difficult. According to the expert in-
vestigations of the United States Biological Survey,
coyotes made their way into Michigan some ten years
ago and are now thought to number one thousand
individuals. Since they enter mainly from Wiscon-
sin and Minnesota, the task of dealing with them
is at least a tri-state problem. They have penetrated
nearly to tlic Straits of Mackinac (January, 1921)
and are likely to cross the Straits over the ice and
become at home in the southern peninsula as well.
Timber wolves have entered the State from Canada
over the ice of Lake Superior and were in 1921
considered to number some five hundred individuals.
Both wolves and coyotes have caused considerable
damage to sheep and to a less extent to other do-
mestic animals, as well as to deer and other wild life.
It was recommended that the present ineffective
bounty on predacious animals be abolished and that
local wardens, or deputized hunters, operating under
the immediate direction of the regular force of dis-
trict wardens of the State Game, Fish and Forest
Fire Commissioner's department, should be regularly
employed to destroy the varmints, and that the op-

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 227

erations of this force should be supervised by an
expert of the United States Biological Survey, it
was so ordered in 1921. It is believed that this pro-
cedure would well-nigh rid the State of these
predatory animals which otherwise are likely greatly
to discourage the sheep industry in the Upper Penin-
sula.^

HOKSES AXD MULES

Horses were introduced into ]\Iichigan by the early
French, "hardy, strong, of quiet disposition, some
of them quite speedy." An amalgamation of this
type with the breeds introduced by the American
settlers is said to have taken place. The horses
introduced by the eastern immigrants are described
as of moderate size, being fifteen to sixteen hands
high and weighing 1,000 to 1,200 pounds. English
thoroughbred stallions crossed with native mares im-
proved the strain, contributing the carriage and
driving horses of later days. About 1854 the Morgan
and Blackhawk horses were introduced from New
England, it is stated. Hamiltonian and other trot-
ting blood was similarly brought in. During this
period also draught horse breeds, mainly of English
blood, entered the State. Then came Percherons
from France. Next came Clydesdales and English
types. In 1892 the Percheron type is said to have
been rather more popular than the Clydesdale and

UL S. Bur. F^iol. Survey: "Special Rcpt.— :\Ii jhioan In-
vestigations— Predatory Animal Control," 1020-1921: J.
S. I-igon, Predatory Animal Inspector.

228 RURAL MICHIGAN

P^iiglish shire animals. By this date also other types,
SulTolk Punch, and Belgians, were in evidence. The
Belgians have made excellent records here and
are found in large numbers on the well-known
"Prairie Farm" in the Saginaw valley.^ Cleveland
Bays and French coach horses were also represented
in Michigan. It was averred that "the common horse
has seen its best days. Electricity has killed him,
and henceforth he will not pay his breeder unless
the American public can be induced to follow Paris
fashion to eat him."' The intervening thirty years
since the foregoing was written have hardly vindi-
cated the prophecy. In 1893, Michigan numbered
530,294 horses, valued at $40,659,072, averaging
$76.67 each.-

The Yearbook of the United States Department
of Agriculture for 1919 informs us that, on January
1, 1920, there were 6-10,000 horses in Michigan,
whose farm value was $60,800,000, at an average
price a head of $95. To this may be added 4,000
mules, at an average price of $99 a head, with an
aggregate farm value of $396,000.^ The increas-
ing use of automobiles and tractors is displacing
horses and mules, and the Bureau of Crop Estimates
finds the number of colts and young horses less in
1920 than in former years. The decline in the total
number of horses in that year is 4 per cent, equivalent
to 26,000 head. The average price a head in 1920

* Michigan Farmer, CLIII, 806.

="-Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1892, 373, 375.

= "Yearbook," U. S. Dept. Agr., 654.

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 229

is estimated at $93, which is also a decline of $2
for the year.

SWINE

The statistics of the United States Department of
Agriculture show that on January 1, 1920, there
were in Michigan 1,450,000 sw^ine. Their average
price a head was $22, and their aggregate farm
value $31,900,000.^ In the case of swine as of other
animals, the year 1920 registered a decline in num-
bers, but of only 1 per cent, due to a retardation of
marketing caused by adverse market conditions. The
indicated number of swine in the State on January
31, 1921, was, therefore, 1,435,000 head, valued at
$20,520,500, a loss of more than $11,000,000 during
the year.

The relative number of the several important
breeds of swine in ^Michigan were distributed by the
Bureau of Crop Estimates as follows : Berkshire,
8.4 per cent; Cheshire, 1.2; Chester-White, 24;
Duroc-Jersey, 29.4 ; Hampshire, .9 ; Poland-China,
25.7; Tamworth, .2; Kazorback, .2; others, 4.6; non-
descript, 4.7 per cent.-

Returns to the Secretary of State's office in 1892
showed the total number of swine in Michigan to be
301,812. These were distributed widely throughout
the State, each farmer maintaining a few animals.
The most popular breeds were then stated to be the
Poland-China and Berkshire. However, other breeds,

* "Yearbook," U. S. Dept. Agr., IfllO, 676.
^"Mich. Crop. Kept./' May, 1920, 6.

230 JU'UAI. MirillflAN

now little heard of, were found in Michigan in the
middle period. Thus the Essex hog, described as
"a small boned black liog with generally an erect
ear, and distinguished by the softness of the skin
and fineness of the hair, with fine-grained and de-
licious meat,"' is said to have been introduced into
^lichigan about 18()8/ Somewhat later appeared
the Duroc-Jersey, or "Jersey Red," which experiments
at the jMichigan Agricultural College in the late
eighties seem to demonstrate as a superior breed,
and which has become a favorite in the State.^

CATTLE

Again, in 1892, a general review of live-stock con-
ditions in the State was presented in the Eeport of
the Michigan Board of Agriculture for 1892. It
was recognized that "cattle-growing has not been
conducted on so extensive a scale in this state as in
some of the western states, but all farmers grow
more or less cattle. N^early all milk their cows and
manufacture the milk into butter, or contribute to
cheese-factories, and grow the calves on skim milk." ^
The writer further explains the breed of cattle most
in demand "up to a very late date had been that
which included cows that were fairly good milkers,
and that would ijroduce calves that would grow into
good beef cattle. For a few years past more atten-

^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1892, 381.
''Ibid., 384.
^Jhid., 357.

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 231

tion has been given to dairy breeds and now many
farms are stocked with this class of cattle exclusively.
Nearly all the improved breeds of cattle have been
introduced and kept in the state, although some
breeds have so far made little showing. In many
sections of the state there are large feeders of cattle
which consume the coarse products of the farm, as
well as purchased grain, at a fair profit, and leave
a large quantity of manure. The num1)er of cattle
in the state at last report was 643,452." ^

The number of milch cows in Michigan, January
1, 1920, was 873,000, at an average price a head of
$96, with a farm value of $83,808,000. To this
are to be added 773,000 head of other cattle, having
an average price a head of $42.80, and a farm value
of $33,084,000.2 The Bureau of Crop Estimates
in its report on live-stock for 1920 notes a 2 per
cent decline in the number of milch cows during
that year, which is equivalent to 17,000 head. The
decline in numbers and of price, put at $26 a head,
is attributed to the lessening in demand for dairy
l^roducts. The decline in the numbers of cattle other
than milch cows was found to be 6 per cent, while
a loss of 34 per cent in price was announced.

Of the total number of cattle in Michigan, the
Bureau of Crop Estimates (May 1920) reported that
Aberdeen-Angus amounted to 1.7 per cent; Ayr-
shire, .5; Brown Swiss, .6; Devon, .1; Dutch Belted,
.1; Galloway, .7; Guernsey, (i.l; Hereford, 4.1;

'"Kept. Mich. Bd. A;,n-.," 1892, 357.

* "Yearbook," U. S. Dcpt. Agr., 1919, 659.

233 RURAL MICHIGAN

Holstein, 40; Jersey, 11.1; Polled Durham, 1.4; Eed
Polled, 1.7; Shorthorn (Durham), 23.9; others, 1.8;
nondescript, C.2. This illustrates the very evident
preference of Michigan farmers for the Holsteins.^

POULTRY

The Census of 1910 reported that Michigan had
9,967,039 fowls of all kinds. Their value amounted
to $5,610,958. The number of chickens and Guinea-
fowls was 9,724,713, and of turkeys, ducks and
geese, 202,778.

BEES AND HONEY

The United States Census indicates the production
of honey on farms in Michigan in 1909 to have
been 2,507,810 pounds. As these statistics are under-
stood not to have been obtained from beekeepers
within cities and villages, where also considerable
quantities of honey are produced, they must be re-
garded as inadequate. The same source of informa-
tion reports a production of 28,524 pounds of wax
in 1909. The value of both honey and wax was
placed at $296,742. The latest available informa-
tion regarding honey production in Michigan is from
the State Apiary Inspector, who estimated (Feb-
ruary 1921) that the output of extracted honey is
8,000,000 pounds; of comb honey 2,000,000 pounds;

^"Mich. Crop Kept.," Lansing, May, 1920, 6,

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 233

and of bees' wax 500,000 pounds. The beekeeping
industry is well distributed throughout the southern
peninsula but chiefly in the "Thumb" section and
has made a good beginning iji the northern region,
where conditions have been found very favorable,
owing to the large amount of wild vegetation which
yields subsistence for the little workers.^

The beekeepers of Michigan are organized in a
State association which is interested in their social
and educational affairs. There are thirty-five county
societies, while the marketing of their product is in
charge of the Michigan Honey Producers Exchange.
The home market is excellent but is said to be in-
adequately supplied. In the view of the State Apiary
Inspector (1921), beekeeping is now passing into
the hands of specialists, the general farmer having
relinquished the business very largely. There are
reported to be from 8,000 to 10,000 beekeepers in
the State. ( An estimate of the Michigan State Farm
Bureau puts the number of beekeepers in Michigan
at 15,000, possesvsing 150,000 colonies of bees.)

]\Iichigan possesses several kinds of native and
cultivated plants well suited to the bee industry,
including the clovers, white and yellow, alsike, and
the white sweet clover; while in the northern counties,
the raspberry, milkweed and firewood are the chief

^ See Michigan Farmer, Aug. 13, 1921, pages 9-137. Cf.
Cliap. IX. Anioiif,' tlie plants siiilal)le to hoes in the north-
ern cut-over area, the State Apiary Inapeetor notes alsike
and white clover, wild red raspberry, blackberry, fire-weed,
bassvvood, boneset and aster,

234: RURAL MICUUIAN

sources of honey. There are also goldenrod, Spanish
needle, asters and boneset; also buckwheat and bass-
wood, producing honey of a definite and much
prized flavor, and the dandelion and fruit blossoms.^
' Michigan Farmer, Mar. 12, 1921, 3.

CHAPTER VII

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING

In the annals of the pioneers of Michigan, an
ever-recurring note is the remoteness of the settler's
market, the difficnlty of getting there and the reac-
tion of this situation on prices and production. Ob-
viously, roads when they existed were bad, excep-
tionally so in a country of swamps, bogs and marshes.
The rivers were useful, but, although early territorial
and state statutes dignified most of them by the
designation "navigable," it made considerable dif-
ference what vessels sought to navigate them and
how far one ventured up their tortuous channels.
Daniel Ball endeavored to transport flour regularly
from Owosso to the mouth of the Saginaw by water,
but was not long in relinquishing the attempt. The
Grand, Saginaw, Huron, St. Joseph and Kalamazoo
served well the first inhabitants of the State, when
/oads were fathomless in mud and the rail head was
at Pontiac, Ann Arbor and Hillsdale. The Upper
Peninsula streams were little used save for lofirijinff
operations, since most of them were short and rapid,
particularly on the Lake Superior side of the divide.
In south Michigan, ])efore the middle of the last
century, the patient slow-moving oxen commonly

23.5

23G lilJRAL MICHIGAN

took wheat and corn to the mill and returned with
flour and meal and sundry articles of family use
from the country store or even from Detroit or
Grand Eapids.

"When winter came and the sleighing was good,"
relates Edward W. Barber, a pioneer of Vermont-
ville, Eaton County, "father yoked the oxen, hitched
them to a rough sled, drove to Marshall, twenty-
eight miles distant, purchased a load of wheat at
forty-four cents a bushel, had it ground and was
home again in four days." This illustrates the
market facilities of pioneer Michigan. "It was some
years before a mail reached us once a week unless
the river was high," says R. C. Kedzie of his Lenawee
home of the second quarter of the last century. "We
were twenty-five miles from a mill, store, post-office,
doctor, minister and civilization in general and par-
ticular. Our roads were merely trails through the
woods marked by blazed trees, and our only bridge
over the river was a canoe." In going to mill, "the
bags of wheat were carried over the river in the canoe,
the horses were unharnessed and made to swim the
stream, the harness piece by piece was ferried over,
then all parts put together again, the grain loaded
up and the driver could then go to Monroe to get
his grist ground."^ When Captain Scott of Clinton
County went to Ann Arbor for seed- wheat in 1834,
he traveled with an ox team. "Not having bags to
put the wheat in, it was put loose in the wagon-
box. On the way home, the wagon got mired cross-

^ "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX, 529.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 237

ing the swamp, and we had to spread down our
blankets and carry the wheat in pails and put it
on the blankets, and when we got the wagon out,
load up again." ^ The father of L. D. Watkins
of Manchester, that same year, required six days to
transport his family and effects the fifty-nine miles
to "Fairview Farm." ^

For the convenience of the first travelers, woods-
men and farmers, a remarkable network of paths
interlaced through the forests and prairies, wrought
by the feet of the deer, the Indians and their ponies.
Some of these well-marked routes bore special desig-
nations, as the Canada trail down the Huron Valley
to the Ontario shore of the Detroit Eiver, the "Nesh-
inguak" between Detroit and Saginaw, while other
foot-ways ran to the Grand Biver Valley, between
the Grand River and the Kalamazoo, even to far
away Mackinac, Joining lake with lake, stream with
stream, camp-site with camp-site. The pioneer soon
learned their utility, and, if he paused to note the
beauty of the physical environment through which
they passed on the line of least resistance, he also
was glad that he could so readily advance through
a wilderness that, without these primitive thorough-
fares, Avould have greatly restricted his movements
and have retarded the penetration by the whites of
the inner reaches of the country.

However, the old trails were narrow and unsuited
for wagons and sleighs. The settler must almost at

^Ibid., XVII, 412.
== Ibid., XXII, 262.

238 RURAL MICHIGAN

once become a builder of roads. The national govern-
ment led the way in this work, for reasons of its own,
primarily of a military character, and constructed
roads from Detroit to Chicago (early in the second
quarter of the last century), from Detroit to Fort
Gratiot at the mouth of Lake Huron, to Saginaw
Bay and into the Grand Eiver Valley. These na-
tional thoroughfares have left a considerable impres-
sion on the pioneer literature of the State. "When
the four-or-six-horse stage-coaches" entered Saline
on the Chicago Eoad, "with a grand flourish of wliip
and tin horn blowing and prancing horses, nearly
every person in town would be at the tavern — all
business at a standstill — to see, as a great' event,
with almost as much of a curiosity as a menagerie,
who had come or who were going . and the horses
changed." ^

Perhaps the deepest impression of all was im-
planted by the horrible roads that joined Detroit with
its hinterland, through a welter of mud and marshes,
until a plank-way relieved the unhappy situation in
which travelers had formerly commonly found them-
selves in traversing this section of the State. Occa-
sionally the stage departed from the established route
altogether and sought a more passable way over the
forest floor among giant trees whose enormous tops
had spaced the trunks at ample distances from each
other. "The roads were almost always poor and
often terrible," writes W. J. Beal. "People frequently
went on foot from place to place or rode in lumber

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXV, 394.

TRAlsS^PORTATIO^' AXD MARKETING 239

wagons, sometimes over a road of poles on stringers
a quarter of a mile long without dirt or gravel on
top. This was corduroy road, long to be remembered
by anyone who has ever ridden over such a thing
in a wagon without springs." ^

These difficult conditions in respect to transpor-
tation reacted adversely on market conditions and
the price of the products of the pioneer farms. In
early Eaton County, meat sold at four cents a pound
and eggs at three cents a dozen. An Ottawa County
reminiscencer quotes the local price of wheat as fifty
to sixty cents a bushel, of pork as $2.50 to $3 a liun-
dredweight, and of flour as $2.50 to $3 a barrel.
In his home town the price of horses was $30, of
cows, $8, of oxen, $30. This reacted on land values,
which here ran at $4 an acre in addition to the
government price of $1.25. The assessed valuation
of four townships in this county is stated to have
been $19,081." At Vermontville, potatoes are said
to have sold for a shilling a bushel in 1839. Since
whatever was produced before the advent of the rail-
road must be consumed in the locality, there was
likely to be a surplus that must be disposed of at
prices which now seem absurdly low. It was other-
wise in the northern peninsuUi where much of the
population was engaged in mining and lumbering,
and required largo importations of food-stuffs and
manufactured articles to satisfy the local require-
ments. Beef came hither on the hoof on shipboard,

'Ihid.. XXXTT, 246.

2 "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," IX, 264.

240 RURAL MICHIGAN

and hay was transported from Detroit to the copper
country in the period following the Civil War.

To ameliorate transportation conditions was the
great desire of the settlers. The territorial council
chartered companies for the purpose of improving
the navigation of certain rivers by removing obstruc-
tion and straightening the water-courses. Other
companies undertook the construction of plank-roads,
or turnpikes. Tlie territorial and state governments
established highways between such important points
as Pontiac, Ann Arbor and Adrian; Monroe and
Ypsilanti ; Mount Clemens, Saginaw and Sault Ste.
Marie; Niles, Kalamazoo and Saginaw, Marshall and
Grand Eapids, Coldwater and Berrien. Blois' Gazet-
teer of Michigan for 1838 describes forty-two mail
routes in the State, indicating that there was weekly
mail service between Detroit and Lapeer, Detroit
and Utica, Detroit and Howell, Maumee and Jones-
ville, Ypsilanti and Plymouth, Saline and Grass
Lake, Jonesville and Marshall, Coldwater and St.
Joseph, Ann Arbor and Pontiac, Ann Arbor and
Ionia, Marshall and Coldwater, Marshall and Cen-
terville, Pontiac and Ionia, Mount Clemens and
Lapeer, Adrian and Jonesville, Adrian and Defiance,
Ohio; Michigan City, Indiana and Grand Haven;
Battle Creek and Eaton, Kalamazoo and Saugatuck,
Ionia and Saginaw. Thrice in the week, it appears,
the mail passed between Toledo and Adrian.^ Mitch-
ell's Tourist Map of 1835 describes three principal

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII,
594.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 241

stage routes in jMichigan. Of these one ran from
Detroit through Ypsilanti^ Saline, Tecumseh, Jones-
ville, Coldwater, Niles, La Porte and Michigan City
to Chicago. The schedule called for a stage over
this route three times each week. A second stage
line Joined Detroit with Monroe, Toledo and Lower
Sandusky, also with a thrice-a-week stage. Twice
in the week the stage ran from Monroe through
Adrian to Tecumseh. The same map indicates steam-
boat lines on the adjoining Great Lakes between
Buffalo, Detroit, Fort Gratiot, and Chicago. The
steamers touched at the coast villages, and ascended
or connected with steamers that ascended the larger
rivers, such as the Grand and the St. Joseph. Blois
gives the registered tonnage for vessels on Lake
Erie in 1836 at 24,045, represented by 45 steamboats
of an aggregate tonnage of 9,016, and 211 other
craft. The steamer Illinois of 755 tons, built in
1838 at Detroit, is credited with the maximum ca-
pacity for her day.^

It thus appears that, at about the time Michigan
gained statehood, immigrants and merchandise
could pass between Michigan and the Atlantic sea-
board by a route which involved on the westward
journey a short steamer run up the Hudson to
Albany, a canal passage of three or four days be-
tween Albany and Buffalo, a ride of forty hours by
steamer from Buffalo to Detroit, and thence a stage
or wagon journey into the interior.

If the facilities for reaching the inner portions

Ubid., 595.

243 RURAL MICHIGAN

of the State were arduous and inadequate, the rail-
road quickly suggested a remedy for the delays and
losses which the frontiersmen suffered because of
these conditions. The first charter granted to a
railroad in Michigan was that of the Detroit and
Pontiac Eailroad under date of July 31, 1830. Up
to 1837 nineteen other railroad companies were char-
tered with an aggregate capital of $10,000,000. If
charters could have built railroads, a contemporary
suggestion that the horse would soon become a su-
perfluous animal might readily have become a reality.
The actual work of railroad-building did not follow
immediately on the grant of charters.

Article XII, section 3, of the Michigan Constitu-
tion of 1835, under which the first State government
was organized, declared that "Internal improvement
shall be encouraged by the government of this state;
and it shall be the duty of the legislature, as soon
as may be, to make provision by law for ascertaining
the proper objects of improvement in relation to
roads, canals and navigable waters."^ This section
was the constitutional expression of an ardent popular
desire. Governor Mason in his message of January
2, 1837, definitely brought the subject to the fore.
He declared that Michigan was "amply competent
to construct her own internal improvements." He
would have the State undertake the construction
of a trans-state canal beween the lakes to the east
and west of the southern portion of Michigan; and
he suggested that the headwaters of several streams
^ "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 597.

Cm
i-i

PL,

Oh
0;

■*->

so
bfl

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 243

having their rise near the center-line of the State
might readily be given canal connections and hence
establish additional trans-state waterways. Indeed,
the sanguine temperament and exuberant imagina-
tion of the youthful governor, reflecting well the
temper of his fellow citizens, hardly placed bounds
to any conception of internal development that might
be brought forward at the moment. The legislature
acted promptly. "The subject of internal improve-
ment," declared its committee which took the matter
under advisement, "is one which is occupying the
intelligence of the age." Internal improvement was
"the great lever which is opening the sealed-up foun-
tains of national wealth and civilization." Michigan
seated "by nature in the very lap of wealth and
power" should not be laggard in seizing her oppor-
tunity. She was not laggard. Under the direction
of a State Commission of Internal Improvement,
the construction of three railroads was undertaken :
the Northern, joining the St. Clair and Grand
River; the Central, joining Detroit with the mouth
of the St. Joseph River; and the Southern, con-
necting Lake Erie with southern Lake Michigan.
Private enterprise had already established a rail-
road between Maumee Bay and Adrian, which served
the needs of passengers and freight in that direction,
and had instituted construction on the central line
west from Detroit. The Commission on Internal Im-
provement eagerly pressed its own projects until
financial difficulties forced the cessation of work and
finally the sale of the publicly owned railroads that it

244 RURAL MICHIGAN

had extended to Kalamazoo and to Hillsdale but could
not continue beyond these points. The sale to private
corporations was effected in ISiG, and six years
later, private enterprise had extended the central
and southern lines to Chicago, thus for the first
time given an eastern rail connection with Lake
Erie and the east. The Michigan Southern Kail-
road consolidated with the old Erie and Kalamazoo —
the first railroad opened in Michigan, — and with the
line joining Detroit and Toledo, the beginnings of
Michigan's present railway system were definitely
secured. Within three years after the Michigan
Central and the Michigan Southern railroads reached
Chicago in 1852, they were linked up with the New
York Central and the Erie railroads of New York
State by lines to the northward and the southward
of Lake Erie, thus giving southern Michigan an
eastern market and rail connection with the eastern
seaboard.

The establishment of all-rail transportation be-
tween Chicago and the ocean, by its saving of time
and money, stimulated immigration into the North-
west. This and reduced freight charges increased
the aggregate of production, then chiefly agricultural,
in this region. Eingwalt, quoting Henry C. Carey,
ascertains the cost of traveling from New York to
Chicago in 1838 to have been $7-1.50. The Com-
mittee on Internal Improvement of the Michigan
Legislature stated (1837) that the rate for passengers
by stage in Michigan M-as six to eight cents a mile,
and for merchandise between Detroit and Marshall

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 245

$2 a hundredweight. In 1854 the cost of carrying
freight by wagon was estimated to be fifteen cents
a ton-mile.^ It was the steam railway that wrought
a fundamental change in the situation of Michigan
agriculture as related to transportation and markets.

Clearly an inhabitant of Jackson County, for ex-
ample, could not have prospered unless he could dis-
pose of his surplus wheat and live-stock beyond the
bounds of his own neighborhood. Detroit was his
best market, as it had at least water transportation
to the seaboard. However, to get to Detroit with a
load of grain or live-stock was costly, until, in the
forties, steam wrought a fundamental change. Eing-
walt, quoting Williams' "Traveller's and Tourist's
Guide," gives the passenger fare from Boston to
Chicago in 1851 as $23. The fare from Boston
to Detroit was $1G. From New York to Chicago,
according to Carey, the fare was $17. A railway
convention held in Cleveland agreed on passenger
fares between Xew York and certain western cities
for the year 1855. In this agreement were included
the New York Central, the Xew York and Erie, the
Pennsylvania, and the Baltimore and Ohio railroads.
By this agreement, fares like the following were
established : Between Xew York and Sandusky,
$14.65 ; Xew York and Cleveland, $13 ; Xew York
and Detroit, $15; Xew York and Chicago, $22;
Xew York and Toledo, $10.^

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII,
603.

^ Ibid., 604; quoting "The Michigan Commercial Register
and Citizen's Almanac for 1855," 41.

24G RURAL MICHIGAN

Doggett's "Railroad Guide,'* as quoted by Eing-
walt, gives the freight rates in Michigan for 1848
at $0.0844 a ton-mile for first-class freight. For
second-class freight the rate was $0.0650. The Michi-
gan Central Railroad in 1848 charged $6.04 to carry
a ton of wheat from Detroit to Kalamazoo. For
a ton of merchandise, the charge was $11.64. The
price for ten barrels of flour was $6. In 1850, this
same railroad charged $4.40 to transport a person
the same distance of 146 miles. Doggett's "Railroad
Guide" for 1848, according to Ringwalt, reports the
average passenger fare for the 241 miles of Michigan
railways at 3 cents a mile. These are significant
facts in relation to the settlement and development
of the Northwest.

Time is also an important factor. Quoting Wil-
liams' "Traveller's and Tourist's Guide," Ringwalt
gives the time required for a journey from Boston
to Detroit in 1851 as forty-three hours, and from
Boston to Chicago as fifty-four hours. The Michigan
Central and the Michigan Southern railroads had
then not been completed, nor were their eastern con-
nections established. After their completion, Roberts,
in his "Sketches of the City of Detroit" (1855),
writes that the establishment of the direct line to
St. Louis, Missouri, via the Michigan Central and
the Joliet and Northern Indiana railroads, made it
possible to set down passengers in St. Louis forty-
eight hours out from NeM^ York.^

Statistics of the commerce of Detroit in 1854 con-

^ 'Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 605.

TRAX^rORTATION AXU MARKETIXG 247

tained in "Sketches of the City of Detroit," make
the shipments from that city by way of the Great
Lakes and the Canada Great Western Railway (now
the Grand Trunk), to include 337,000 barrels of
flour, 897,000 bushels of wheat, 587.000 bushels of
corn, 228,000 bushels of oats, 2,000,000 pounds of
wool and a very large quantity of other commodities.^
In 1854, the Michigan Central Railroad is reported
to have carried through Detroit 451,689 passengers.
The influence of this railroad on the development of
the interior of southern Michigan is legitimately in-
ferred. The author of the "Sketches" tells us that
the population of that section of the State tributary
to the Michigan Central was, in 1855, 216,852; that
the number of acres of improved land was 844,309 ;
and the products of this district in 1854 included
3,137,875 bushels of wheat, 3,450,946 bushels of
corn; 943,330 bushels of other grains; 1,078,244
bushels of potatoes ; 86,760,889 feet of lumber. There
are said then to have been 298 sawmills and 93 flour-
mills in this section.

The State and the railroads grew together. Be-
tween 1840 and 1845 Michigan increased by 90,000
in population; 95,000 were added in the next five
years, 110,000 in the next five years, and nearly a
quarter of a million between 1855 and 1860.

The present railway system of Michigan had its
inception in these two great trunk lines begun under
public auspices and completed by private enterprise.
The decade following their completion in 1852 saw

^Ihid., 606.

248 RURAL MICHIGAN

the establishment of another trans-state route, the
old Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Eailroad,
which reached Grand Rapids in 1857 and Grand
Haven on Lake Michigan in the following year.
The main line of the Grand Trunk was formed out
of several elements, the easternmost of which date
from the eighth decade of the last century, at the
close of which this line reached Chicago. The first
constituent line of the Pere Marquette was opened
from Saginaw to Flint in 1863, and the system,
which now has its ramifications throughout a large
portion of the southern peninsula, was gradually
built up out of some fifty different entities, through
numerous reorganizations and financial performances
that left the company with a dubious record.^ These
units with their connections and feeders are the
main elements in the railway system of the Lower
Peninsula. The development of raining and lumber-
ing in the Upper Peninsula led to railway extensions
in that direction, consummated in the ninth decade
of the last century, with the construction of the
Michigan Central to the Straits of Mackinac (1881),
and the Grand Rapids and Lidiana (now a part of
the Pennsylvania system) a year later where a con-
nection was established with the Detroit, Mackinac
and Marquette line (now a part of the Duluth, South
Shore and Atlantic Railroad). The Ann Arbor
Railroad reached out towards northern Michigan
by a route deflected somewhat more toward the north-

^Ivey: "The Pere Marquette Railroad Company," Lan-
sing, 1919.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 249

west, joining Toledo, Ohio, with Frankfort on the
Lake Michigan shore in 1889. All these railroads
which had their terminus on the Lake Michigan
shore have established car ferries, thus opening up
through routes with railways in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.

In the Upper Peninsula railroad construction had
its inception in the short line connecting the lake
port of Marquette with the iron mines about Ne-
gaunee and Ishpeming, which was opened in 1857.
Out of this as a nucleus has developed the present
Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic system, which
represents a series of consolidations such as are char-
acteristic of the larger Michigan railway companies.
One element in this "South Shore" system reached
L'Anse on Keweenaw Bay in 1872, while another
was projected easterly to the Straits in 1881. Eleven
years later the gap between L'Anse and the copper
country on the Keweenaw Peninsula was filled in,
connecting with the local lines there already estab-
lished. Then the line extended easterly to Sault
Ste. Marie, and westwardly to Duluth. Meanwhile,
one element in the line of the Chicago and North-
western had joined the ]\Iarquette iron range with
water transportation by way of Lake Michigan, when
Negaunee and Escanaba were connected in 1864; and
a direct route to Chicago was established when the
gap between Escanaba and Green Bay, Wisconsin,
was filled in in 1872. Tjater the Northwestern Line
reached out to the towns of the Menominee and
Gogebic iron ranges in the southwestern portion of

250 RURAL MICHIGAN

the Upper Peninsula, while the Chicago, Milwaukee
and St. Paul entered the same territory and reached
into the copper country through its connection with
the Copper Eange Eailroad and the South Shore.
The "Soo Line" Railroad was constructed east and
west through the southern portion of the Upper
Peninsula, and eventually this line and the "South
Shore'' fell under the control of the Canadian Pacific.
These railways, with their branches, and numerous
short independent lines built by lumbering and
mining companies for their own local requirements,
provide the railway system of the northern penin-
sula of Michigan.

By 1850 Michigan had 350 miles of railroad,
which, according to Romanzo Adams, was five times
the mileage of Ohio. Steadily year by year, the
remoter portions of the State were brought into
relation with this railway network, until in 1918
the total railway mileage was 9,035, of which 6,762
miles were in the Lower and 2,273 in the Upper
Peninsula.^

In 1886 came the electric street railway, first in-
troduced into Michigan, it is claimed, on the streets
of Port Huron in that year. Four years later the
■ era of the inter-urban railway was inaugurated with
the establishment of the line from Ypsilanti to Ann
Arbor. At first the motive power was the "Porter
enclosed steam motor," changed to electric traction
in 1896.^ This new service, according to Junius E.

^"Rept. Mich. Railroad Commission." 1918. 78.

= "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXV, 261.

TRA'ST^PORTATIO'N AVD MARKETING 251

Beal, was much appreciated by the farmers, as well
as by town-dwellers along the line, and the rate
afforded them of seventeen rides for one dollar
brought patronage that was a surprise to the pro-
moters of this pioneer enterprise. This line was
extended to Detroit on the east and to Jackson on
the west and in a few years much of the southern
territory of Michigan was made accessible to electric
inter-urban railways. The northern part of the
State in both peninsulas, where population is less
dense, is not so fully provided with electric rail-
ways, but short lines were constructed in the Upper
Peninsula nearly as early as in the Lower, and while
there are no long trunk-lines in this region, the min-
ing ranges are supplied. The total trackage in
1918 was 1,717 miles for the State. To forestall
possible electric competition, the Ann Arbor rail-
road installed motor-cars on its steam line in May,
1911. Several individual combination passenger
and baggage cars, each having its own motive equip-
ment, using at first gasoline and then kerosene as
fuel, were put into operation, and since they make
stops at cross-roads as well as municipalities, gave
a service much appreciated by the rural population
along the line. Rising costs have of late discouraged
the company and there has been talk of its discon-
tinuance.

The Constitution of Michigan permits municipali-
ties to furnish electric power to consumers without
their boundaries to an amount not exceeding 25 per
cent of that granted within the municipal limits.

252 RURAL MIC III a AN

To wliat extent farmers have availed themselves of
the opportunity all'orded to ohtain electric power for
farm use is not apparent, although there are in-
stances of their having done so, for example, at
IMarquette and Iron Eiver. The Consumers Power
Company, the largest private electric power corpora-
tion in the State, serving a wide territory in the
southern peninsula, reports considerable rural serv-
ice where power lines have been extended from cities
and villages into the rural districts adjoining them.
Eural consumers are also served from certain trans-
mission lines where the voltage does not exceed 10,000
volts. This company also has consumers at many
resorts in the Lower Peninsula. For rural exten-
sion the regular city rate is charged by this company,
except for resort business, where there is a minimum
charge of $13 a year, which is deposited before the
current is turned on and which permits consumers
to receive current at the regular city rate. Both for
public and private lines, the problem of rural service
is of high overhead cost in relation to the amount
of power furnished. It seems necessary to arrange
with consumers for the construction of the trans-
mission lines into their territory, with a surcharge
to cover depreciation and taxes on the extension.
If Michigan were an "Old World" country, her
products would be going forward to market by
water, quite as much as by rail ; but, while the State
possesses a magnificent system of water communi-
cations adjacent to her borders, little effort has been
made to develop internal avenues of transportation

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 253

by water. When the State was in its infancy, bright
dreams were entertained of such an inland canal
system linking up her river systems and affording
a ready means of trans-state shipments by water. An
abortive effort was made to join the Saginaw and
Grand Eiver basins in this way, the evidences of
which are still said to be traceable in the vicinity
of Bad Eiver, Saginaw County; and a much more
ambitious plan of canalization was undertaken^ in-
tended to unite Lake St. Clair with the mouth of the
Kalamazoo Eiver. At the same time companies were
established for the purpose of improving river navi-
gation, and the State made similar efforts on public
account. From time to time, agitation has been in-
stituted to interest the people of the State in this or
that internal waterway project, and the subject occa-
sionally is brought forward even now. The physical
conditions are most favorable on the Saginaw-Grand
Eiver route, and in former times advantage was
sometimes taken of the spring freshets which sub-
merged the low country of the region and thus made
possible the movement of logs between the two water-
courses. Farmers along the shores of the Great
Lakes and on the larger islands still send forward
a portion of their produce to market by boat, as in
the case of Manitou and Beaver Islands of Lake
Michigan, and the settlements on the "Garden"
Peninsula and on Huron Bay in the Upper Penin-
.sula, adjacent to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior
respectively.

The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 afforded

254 RURAL MICHIGAN

Michigan a direct and relatively cheap means of
transportation to the .seaboard. The traffic carried on
the Erie Canal in 1837 amounted to 667,151 tons.
By 1845 it reached 1,038,700 tons. It reached
3,159,33-1: tons in 1852, and continued above this
mark for several years, and exceeded 3,000,000 tons
in most years of the last three decades of the cen-
tury. Then a decline set in, until an upward turn
manifested itself as late as 1920.^ Meanwhile the
St. Mary's Ship Canal had been opened in 1855,
and this waterway became of vital importance to
the economic progress of the northern peninsula.
Wiseacres had opined that its traffic would never
warrant the cost of its construction, but it mani-
fested its usefulness from the outset and, by a steadily
increasing tonnage, developed a traffic which, in 1916,
aggregated almost 92,000,000 short tons. As late
as 1920, its tonnage of freight amounted to 79,-
282,496. A better conception of the significance of
these figures can be obtained when it is noted that
the 1920 traffic of the Panama Canal was 9,374,499
tons. In 1919 the Suez Canal passed 16,013,802 tons
of freight. This indicates that the Michigan water-
way exceeds threefold the combined commerce of the
two world-renowned waterways.

This enormous water-borne commerce of the Great
Lakes is promoted by exceptional docking facilities
for bulk commodities, such as ore and grain, a type
of vessel specially designed for their economical

^ "Rept. of Superintendent of Public Works, New York,"
Albany, 1919, 462.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 255

handling, and by remarkably low freight rates. In
1920, the rate on iron ore from the head of Lake
Superior to points on Lake Erie was $1.10 a ton,
and on copper $.35 a hundredweight; while the rates
on grain from Lake Superior and Lake Michigan
points to the eastern lake terminals prevailed be-
tween three and four cents, with occasional descents
below, and ascents above these points according to
fluctuations in the demand for cargo space.^

Not only has the extension of the facilities of the
United States post-office to the rural portions of the
State greatly alleviated the isolation and monotony
of rural life, but it has also materially affected rural
market conditions. On December 21, 1920, the post-
office department reported 1,800 rural mail routes
in operation in Michigan. Their mileage was 49,545.
There were also 147 star routes, aggregating 1,565
miles in length. During the fiscal year of 1920,
the rural mail routes in Michigan carried approxi-
mately 5,121,780 pieces of parcel mail, weighing
an approximate aggregate of 18,765,876 pounds. It
is manifest that the service put at the disposition
of the farming population by the post-office has been
availed of to a very considerable extent. There was
a time M'hen outlying communities received their
letters and papers by a weekly carrier on foot, sledge
or horseback, a service in which the Indian had fre-
quently an important part, as he made the long
difficult journey from Detroit to the Straits of

* "Annual Kept, of the Lake Carriers' Assoc, 1920,"
Detroit, 1920, 214, 217.

256 RURAL MICHIGAN

IMackinac, or reached tlie iniiiing settlements on the
Lake Superior shore from some point in Wisconsin,
in the season wlien the lakes were closed to shipping.
Then it was that postal rates ran at twenty-five cents
a letter and the receiver paid, if his available supply
of cash met the postal requirements.

The telephone system of Michigan^ which has
greatly quickened communication throughout the two
peninsulas and between country and town, in 1917
possessed 1,072,()51 miles of wire, and utilized 43,128
instruments, which gives a ratio of one telephone to
140 persons. In the ratio of telephones to popula-
tion, Michigan was less well served than her neigh-
bors, Ohio, 1 to 102, Indiana 1 to 162, and Illinois
1 to 172. In 1917, 603,254,645 messages and talks
occurred over tlie lines of the Bell system, while
296,575,452 messages and talks took place on the
"independent" lines of the State, the total thus
amounting to 899,830,097 telephone communications.
This very strikingly indicates the place telephone
transmission has acquired in modern life. How much
of this service belongs to the strictly rural districts
can scarcely be determined, but the census returns
for 1920 indicate that 97,874 farms in Michigan
reported telephones and that these represented 49.8
per cent of all farms in the State. The census report
for 1917 indicates that the systems and lines having
an annual income of less than $5,000, which were
1,298 in number, employed 46,941 miles of wire and
53,928 telephones, and that the number of messages
and talks over these lines was 57,840,250. The total

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 257

investment in these lesser lines was then $1,511,373,
and their gross receipts, exclusive of the assessment
of mutual companies, was $277,744.^ The major
portion of these smaller companies was doubtless as-
signable to the rural districts. The rural population
has greatly appreciated the many advantages accru-
ing to them from telephone service, so much so that
occasionally they have independently promoted their
own neighborhood systems without reference to the
larger systems under corporate control. A farmer
living on such a rural neighborhood telephone line
near Flint, explained its construction by the less cost
and less delay in its installation. Tn this instance
the farmers bought the poles, wire and equipment and
furnished the labor tliemselves. The cost is given for
each of them as $15 cash in addition to labor. The
line connected with the Bell system at Flint, the
annual cost for the connection a party being $8.00
a year, later raised to $12.00.

The general market situation may he regarded as
favorable. Both peninsulas arc in easy reach of
the great Chicago stock and grain market, while other
live-stock markets exist in Detroit, Toledo, Cleve-
land, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh
and lesser places, all very accessible by rail or water
to the producers of Michigan. The home market is
extensive, for the State has lumbering, manufactur-
ing, mining and marine industries that call largely
for food supplies. More than half the population of
the State are city dwellers and hence consumers of

'U. S. Census of Electrical Industries, 1917, — Telephones.

258 RURAL MICHIGAN

farm products. In 1909, according to the Eeport of
the State Board of Agriculture for 1914, the manu-
facturing industry of Michigan employed 271,071
persons, who received in salaries and wages $153,-
838,000. Similarly, the lumber industry then had
35,627 wage earners, and the mining industry
42,133 employees. On June 30, 1912, the'officers and
employees of the steam railroads numbered 45,252,
receiving salaries and wages of $32,635,516. In 1913,
according to this report, the electric railroads em-
ployed 9,195 persons who received $6,510,297.^

City dwellers are consumers of farm products, and
the census of 1920 showed that Michigan contained
fourteen cities with a population ranging from 10,000
to 25,000, and fourteen cities whose population ex-
ceeded 25,000. The greatest urban market was that
of Detroit, whose population had increased 113.3
per cent in the decade and numbered 993,678. Xext
in rank was Grand Eapids with 137,634, and Flint
with 91,599.

Several Michigan cities have established municipal
markets which enable farmers to dispose of their
products directly to urban consumers. Such a mar-
ket is maintained by the city of Flint, which was
established November 6, 1920. Since the first of
the year 1921, the Market Master reports, all avail-
able space has been utilized by farmers, demonstrat-
ing their interest in this facility for disposing of their
products. There are accommodations for 125
wagons. During the winter the market was opened
^"Eept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1914, 475.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 259

on Wednesays and Saturdays, but with the coming
of spring a daily service was instituted. Sales are
restricted to actual producers^ except in the case of
products not locally grown. Thus some baked goods
have been sold by non-producers. Producers are free
to establish prices without restriction. Sales to
middlemen, although favored, had not taken place
to any extent up to May, 1921. The effect of the city
market was manifested, it is reported, in the reduced
prices charged by retail stores on market days. Meat
sales ranged from three and four tons to eight and
ten tons each market day from November 1 to April
1, when they terminated because of the approach of
warm weather. The Market Master reports that
farmers realized on their sales from 100 to 200 per
cent in advance of returns under other conditions.
Thus one farmer, after disposing of 100 hogs in the
municipal market, estimated his "benefit" at $1,000.
Another farmer reported returns on the sale of seven-
teen hogs at $135 above current shippers' quotations.
Beef, selling at $96 on the market, was worth only
$35 to local butchers, it was stated. Favorable
market prices attracted large numbers of buyers
daily. Regulations enforced at the Flint municipal
market relate to sanitation and inspection of weights
and measures, as well as to quality and wholesome-
ness of products. Identification of the vendors with
addresses is required. Vendors make formal appli-
cations for stall space at the market, paying a rental
charge for the accommodation. A daily market re-
port is issued. That for April 30, 1921, relates how

260 RURAL MICHIGAN

"the first offering of asparagus appeared today and
sold quickly. Supplies of eggs, green onions, rhubarb
and potatoes were heaviest, with butter, apples, and
poultry coming next. Demand was heaviest for eggs,
asparagus, rhubarb and poultry. Potatoes were not
wanted, and other vegetables M'ere almost entirely
lacking. Apples of very ordinary quality sold well,
the supply being light. One farmer was selling
tomato and lettuce plants for transplanting, also
home-grown radish-seed and grass-seed. Dahlia
bulbs were also offered. . . . Butter was slightly
weaker, most sales made at 50.'*^ Then follow price
quotations for commodities sold on the market.
This market reporter is posted in the market and is
mailed to some fifty local producers.'-

The Detroit Board of Commerce adverts to the
opinion of transportation experts that Detroit ranks
ninth among the transportation centers of the United
States, although ranking fourth in population and
third as an industrial center ; and it believes that
this situation demonstrates "the desperate need of
the Michigan metropolis for better means of ingress
and egress, for materials and passengers." ^ The
Board puts the num.ber of industries in Detroit's
industrial district at 3,000, of which 1,411 have pri-
vate railway sidings, having a combined capacity of
17,184 cars. The city is served by fifteen railroads,

^ For a description of the farmers' market in Ann Arbor,
see The Michifinn farmer. Aiifj. 27. 1921, p. 3-175; Burd:
"The Value of a Farmers' Curb Market."

'^Detroit and World Trade, Detroit, 1920, 35.

TRA^'SPORTATION AND MARKBTlNCf 261

of which ten are classified as major systems, includ-
ing the Michigan Central, New York Central, Pere
Marquette, Wabash, Grank Trunk, Detroit, Toledo
and Ironton, the Detroit and Toledo Shore Line,
Pennsylvania, Canadian Pacific, and the Detroit
United Eailway. The line last named is an electric
system with wide ramifications. The Canadian
Pacific has only passenger service into the city, while
the Detroit and Toledo Shore Line provides only
freight service. There are five terminal railways to
assist the local distribution of freight. The railroads
which enter the city have twenty-eight freight-houses
and sixty-two sets of team tracks, with a combined
capacity of 2,989 cars. These are the terminal and
shipping facilities available to shippers not pos-
sessed of private trackage."-

Four lines of lake steamers make Detroit their
home port or port of call. These lines are desig-
nated the Great Lakes Transit Company, the Detroit
and Cleveland Navigation Company, the White Star
Line, and the Ashley and Dustin Line. These lines
operated thirty-seven vessels in 1920, whose total
freight capacity was 122,500 tons.

The distribution of freight by motor truck, both
inter-city and intra-city, is said to be dominated by
the Detroit Transportation Association, of 400 to
500 members, operating 2,000 motor and 500 team
trucks, whose aggregate capacity is 7,000 tons.^ It
is estimated that about half of the mileage of im-

^Ibid., 37.
mid., 40.

202 RURAL MWIIIGAN

proved highways in ]\Iiehigaii is comprised in those
pntering Detroit, and these roads connect the city
with the other large population centers throughout
the southern portion of the peninsula.

It is apparent that Detroit's transportation facili-
ties, as here described, have great significance for
jlichigan agriculture. The Detroit Board of Com-
merce reports an aggregate freight tonnage entering
the city by rail in 1918 at 32,700,774,169 pounds;
by electric railways at 184,796,000 ; by steamships at
3*78,582,000; while the highway tonnage by trucks
is estimated in 1918 at 87,640,000 pounds. It does
not appear what proportion of this in1)ound tonnage
is attributable to the products of Michigan farms.

M-AEKETING ASSOCIATIONS AND KEGULATIONS

The development of Michigan's transportation as
indicated in the foregoing pages suggests that this
first condition of a market for farm products has
been fairly adequately solved. Latterly the farmers'
chief problem has been one of selling their output
at a remunerative price, and to this end various
agencies have been called into service. The statutes
of the State forbid monopolistic arrangements for the
purpose of enhancing prices. However, saving of
consumption costs has been effected through coopera-
tive purchasing, and better sale prices have been
sought through sales associations, such as those estab-
lished by grape-growers and potato-growers, and

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 263

through the agency of the newly created Michigan
State Farm Bureau.

The Michigan legislature of 1015 authorized the
State Board of Agriculture, which also has control
of the Michigan Agricultural College, to appoint a
State director of markets. It was the duty of this
official to investigate the production and marketing
of farm products, and he was given compulsory
powers in the securing of the necessary evidence.
The director was also to assist in the organization
of cooperative and other associations for improving
the relations among producers and consumers, and
afford them such services under adequate rules and
regulations as relate to standardizing, grading, pack-
ing, handling, storage and sale of products within
the state of Michigan, not contrary to law, and
enforce such rules and regulations by actions or pro-
ceedings in any court of competent jurisdiction.
This official should also give information to Michi-
gan producers regarding market conditions elsewhere
in the Union, and he should provide auction markets
for the disposal of farm products. Through bulletins
he was to give information to producers and con-
sumers in order to facilitate mutual business connec-
tions. It was expected, also, that he would investi-
gate and report to the Public Utilities Commission
delays and inadequate service in relation to the
transportation of food supplies. Similarly, he was
to keep the attorney-general informed regarding com-
binations to restrain trade and fix the prices of food-

204 RURAL MICHIGAN

stuffs. He might assist in the prevention of waste
of perishable food-stuffs.

This act seems comprehensive enough to effect real
reforms in the marketing of farm products. In
reality it amounted to very little. The oflficial ap-
pointed to the position had little faith in the efficacy
of the measure, and confined his attention very
largely to the formation of cooperative selling agen-
cies among certain groups of farmers, deprecating
any effort at assisting in direct marketing between
producer and consumer, chiefly on the ground that
85 per cent of farm products, as he stated, was not
susceptible of such market operations, since they
involved manufacturing and other intermediate treat-
ment. The act had not provided an appropriation
for the maintenance of this department and eventu-
ally the position was allowed to become vacant and
to remain so. Through a cooperative agreement be-
tween the extension department of the Michigan
Agricultural College and the United States Bureau
of Markets, some features of the work comprised in
the act of 1915 were continued. In a small way the
standardization and certification of farm products
was undertaken, but more particularly the institu-
tion of selling organizations among farmers along
the lines of such products as potatoes, grain, live-
stock and fruit was fostered after the establishment
of the Michigan State Farm Bureau, in association
with this organization.

The grapes in the southwestern counties of Michi-
gan are marketed by small local associations on a

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 265

F.O.B. basis. There is a tendency towards their
federation, thus eliminating competition among
them. These local associations are usually stock
companies which own their own offices and market
the grapes of their members commonly on a basis
of a daily pool of varieties. Most of them are said
to handle other fruits as well and to buy baskets,
twine, spray material, posts, hay and feed for their
members. Few of the individual associations actually
sell the grapes, according to the report by the United
States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Mar-
kets, but confine their activities to inspection and
loading, keeping accurate accounts of the amounts
of each variety delivered daily. The usual practice
is to give each member 75 or 80 per cent of the
estimated market value of each day's hauling and to
pro-rate the surplus among the members when the
books are balanced at the close of the season. The
returns to stockholders depend, it is stated, on the
particular arrangement entered into by each asso-
ciation.^ Grape-juice factories in this region, in
Van Buren County, buy on a standard contract that
guarantees to the grower the daily market price on
bulk stock with a fixed minimum. At Benton
Harbor and St. Joseph an active street market has
been developed, in which farmers dispose of their
product from the wagon to the highest bidder. If
the owner thinks that he can secure a higher price
for his grapes by an express or freight shipment to

»U. S. Dopt. Agr., Bull. 861 : "Marketing Eastern Grapes,"
Washington, Sept. 13, 1920, 40.

266 h'URAL AIICHIGAN

an outside market, he refuses the hids and passes
on to the railway station. This method of marketing

Michigan grapes contrasts with the sales through the
local associations, and it is questionable which yields
the higher return to the producers, although in the
opinion of the investigators already quoted, the re-
turns to those using the associations seem, in the end,
to be larijer.

Michigan grapes are of excellent quality and are
favored in the markets. Table stock is usually put
up in four-quart baskets. Baskets are packed in the
field directly from the vines. These grapes enter into
competition with those from Xew York, and, since
they are said to be packed with less attention to the
appearances, sell slightly under the New York prod-
uct, although quite equal to it in quality. The
Concord is the principal market variety. The distri-
bution of the Michigan crop is very extensive: east
to Massachusetts and New Jersey, south to Florida
and Texas, west to Idaho and Wyoming, and in 1918
shipments are said to have been made to thirty-one
states and one hundred sixty-nine cities. The great
Chicago market is close at hand with convenient
water transportation from the southern Lake Michi-
gan ports. Much of the output goes west and south. ^
The Michigan Potato Growers Exchange, organ-
ized in the summer of 1918, was one of the most
ambitious enterprises as yet undertaken in the State.
It constituted a central selling and purchasing
agency for a large number of local cooperative asso-

'lUd., 40.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 2G7

ciations of farmers living in the northern counties,
the potato belt of the Lower Peninsula, and was ex-
tended to the potato territory of the Upper Penin-
sula. Its name is somewhat misleading, for, although
its main reason for existence is the sale of potatoes
through a cooperative arrangement, it also handles
other bulk farm products, such as hay, beans, grain,
apples, and vegetables; and it purchases on account
of its members supplies for the farm, including
feeds, fuel, poison and implements, amounting in
1920 to nearly $1,000,000. At the outset, twenty-
eight local cooperative organizations were federated
under a plan which involved the exclusive handling
of certain farm products on a contractual basis of
payment for the service rendered, guaranteed with
a promissory note, so familiar a feature of present-
day cooperative agreements of this character. Simi-
larly, the individual member of each local pays his
membership fee of ten dollars and signs a binding
contract, likewise made more effective by giving his
promissory note, in no case as yet forfeited, as. an
assurance of good faith and loyalty to the associa-
tion. Xotes c.nd fees afford working capital, the
unused surplus of which is returned to members at
the end of the year. The by-laws contemplate vari-
ous associated activities for the central association,
such as the grading and standardization of product,
collection of information in regard to outside market
conditions, adjustment of traffic difficulties and
settlement of transportation problems. At the end
of the first nine months of its existence, the Michi-

2G8 RLliAL M mil Id AS

gan Potato Growers Exchange had more than fifty
local associations comprised within its organization,
and this number had been doubled by the spring of
1920, while in January, 1921, the member.ship com-
prised 12-4 locals, twelve of whicli are in the Upper
Peninsula. To June 30, 1919, the Exchange had
handled 2,227 cars of potatoes and other farm
produce and the first year's business amounted to
approximately $2,000,000. Sales had been made in
more than half the states of the Union and foreign
business was in contemplation. The business trans-
acted in the second year amounted to approximately
$5,000,000, 2,158 cars of potatoes being handled, to-
gether with 1G8 cars of apples, 174 of cider apples,
31 of peaches, 12 of onions, 3 of carrots, 18 of wheat,
3 of buckwheat, 1 of corn, 102 of rye, Gl of beans,
2 of peas, 17-4 of hay, IG of straw, 1 of posts, 2 of
wood, 74 of cherries and 113 cars of cabbage, and also
large quantities of fruit, vegetables and other
products in less than carload lots. The Exchange
operates on a commission basis, amounting to ap-
proximately 2.5 per cent, and its operating income
comprised, at the end of the fiscal year 1920,
$119,484. Its operating expenses were $95,71 G. The
reserve thus arising from the operations of the Ex-
change was placed at the service of the purchasing
department.^

In the early spring of 1921, a temporary agreement
between the Michigan Potato Growers Exchange
and the Michigan State Farm Bureau was effected.

^Micli. State Farm Bur., 'News Service, March 26, 1921.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 269

By the terms of this agreement^, "the highly special-
ized potato and other commodities marketing ma-
chinery of the Potato Growers Exchange" was "made
available to the farm bureau locals and to cooperative
associations of farm bureau members now aflfiliated
with the elevator exchange, in return for hay and
grain sales service from the farm bureau elevator
exchange." The two exchanges reciprocally took out
memberships and business operations were to be con-
ducted in each exchange as in the case of other
members.^

To promote favorable market conditions for
Michigan fruit, a considerable number of local selling
associations has been formed, including the Michi-
gan Fruit Growers Exchange, the Fenville Fruit Ex-
change, South Haven Fruit Exchange, Benzie Fruit
Exchange, Benton Center Fruit Association, Bangor
Fruit Growers Exchange, Berrien County Fruit
Association, Fremont Cooperative Produce Company,
Hart Cooperative Company, Mason County Fruit and
Produce Exchange, Milburg Fruit Growers Associa-
tion, Saugatuck Cooperative Fruit Association, and
the Shelby New Era Cooperative Association. The
plan of organization of such an association may be
illustrated by reference to the South Haven Fruit
Exchange.

The South Haven Fruit Exchange was organized
in 1914, and in 1920 had approximately 125 mem-
bers. It is a joint stock company, each member
being limited to two shares of stock. It has a pack-

•Rept. Mich. Potato Growers' Exchange, 1019-1920, etc.

£70 RURAL MICHIGAN

ing-hoiise and siding with a capacity of fourteen
cars and situated adjacent to a vessel dock. The
Excliange also operates its own cider and vinegar
plant to which low-grade apples are sent. A contract
has been entered into with a cannery for the utiliza-
tion of low-grade peaches. Stock at par is $100 a
share and a neAv member pays an additional premium
of $50. This premium is for good will, increased
value of buildings and equipment, and the like.
Partial payments for stock and premium are per-
mitted. Each member signs a crop contract agree-
ing to deliver at the Exchange peaches, pears,
quinces, apples, at "tree-run/' which are there sorted,
packed and shipped, or made into vinegar as market
condition and quality require. Net returns are paid
to growers, after cost of handling and 5 per cent sell-
ing charges. Profits are returned to growers on
basis of fruit delivered to the Exchange. Growers,
on delivery of fruit, are provided with a receipt and
later a card showing the grading thereof. Finally
comes a statement of net returns. Growers may draw
money on account as soon as they begin delivering.
The Exchange has a storage with a capacity of 5,000
barrels. It handles feeds, fertilizers, spray materials,
flour, and whatever can be purchased in quantity to
advantage. The Exchange owns 30^000 crates for
fruit. The longest distance any member hauls to
the Exchange is fourteen miles, the average being
three to four miles. ^

' Ftatoment of James Nicol, President of the South Haven
Fruit Excliange.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 271

The Michigan Fruit Growers Exchange has its
headquarters at Benton Harbor. It has some 1,200
members, and during the 3'ear 1920 handled 1,200
cars of fruit.

The constitution of The Michigan Fruit Packers
Federation, adopted February 6, 1918, describes the
organization as "a cooperative association formed for
the purpose of mutual help and without capital stock,
and not for pecuniary profit.'' Its object is stated
to be "to promote the mutual interests of the pro-
ducer and the consumer of fruits by (a) improving
the conditions under which Michigan fruits are
grown, harvested and marketed, (b) Fostering
efforts directed towards the adoption of uniform
standards in connection with the handling of fruits
from farm to market and particularly as regards
grading and packing, (c) Securing the best obtain-
able conditions and services as regards transporta-
tion, storage and refrigeration, (d) Collecting and
disseminating timely information as to supply and
demand, carlot movements to markets, and prevail-
ing prices in diiferent wholesale markets, (e) Cor-
recting trade evils and abuses, by discouraging all
customs and practices not in accordance with sound
business principles, (f) Extending and developing
markets for Michigan fruits and specifically en-
deavoring to open new markets, (g) To rent, buy,
build, own, sell, mortgage and control real and per-
sonal property as may be needed in the business,
(h) Striving to increase by judicious advertising or
otherwise the demand for the consumption of Michi-

272 RURAL MICHIGAN

<jan fruits and farm products, (i) Furnishing the
opportunity for huying cooperatively farm supplies,
(j) Providing a hasis on which member associations
may obtain needed credit, (k) Adjusting grievances
and differences between growers and their respective
sliipping associations, when requested. (1) Coiip-
erating with the state and federal agencies along
such lines as may be beneficial to the fruit-growing
industry, (m) Cultivating a spirit of cooperation
among the members and suggesting means whereby
they may be mutually helpful in every legitimate and
lawful way. (n) Generally by doing such other
things as are necessary with respect to qualities, the
cost of production and distribution of fruits and
farm products as expressed in returns to the pro-
ducer."

Any association of growers of fruits and farm
products in the State is eligible to membership in
the Federation, when it conforms to its principles
and regulations. A number of State officials having
to do with fruit and marketing are honorary mem-
bers. The management of the Federation is in the
hands of its board of seven directors. Membership
dues are $50. Two classes of contracts between the
association and its members cover exclusive selling
agreements or information service only. The oper-
ating expenses of the association are defrayed by "a
percentage charge laid upon returns for produce sold
or by a uniform fixed price per package, and upon
supplies purchased, the amount of such charge to be
fixed by a board of directors." There were, at last

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 273

report, fifteen cooperative fruit-growers associations
holding membership in the Michigan Fruit Packers
Federation.

On November 1, 1917, the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture had listed twenty-five coopera-
tive fruit and produce marketing and six cooperative
celery shipping associations in Michigan. All were
in the southern peninsula and in the vicinity of the
Lake Michigan fruit district. December 24, 1920,
the Michigan State Farm Bureau estimated that there
were three hundred cooperative elevator associations
in the State.

The production of milk in Michigan is an increas-
ingly important aspect of rural economy. In 1889,
22-4,537,-1:88 gallons of milk were produced, and ten
years later the output was 309,617,046 gallons, while
in 1909 it was 283,387,201 gallons. The recent
census of 1919 showed the product to be 337,954,884
gallons. The growth of urban centers has afforded
an increasing market for the milk supply of the
State. The associated milk producers of Macomb
County are reported to furnish approximately
70,000,000 pounds of milk to the Detroit market.
It is affiliated with a much larger organization styled
the IMichigan Milk Producers Association, of some
10,000 members, which sells milk on a contractual
basis, the Detroit price being established by a milk
commission representing the interests of producers,
dealers and consumers. The milk producer who be-
comes a member of this association agrees to "con-
stitute and appoint the Michigan Milk Producers

274 RURAL MICHIGAN

Association my agent with full authority to soil all
milk produced by me, reserving only such amounts
as are required for my family use." The agreement
further requires the handling of milk in a cleanly
manner in accordance with the rules prescribed by
the Detroit Board of Health. Inspection of the
cows, stable and equipment by an agent is permitted
with a view to the correction of such unsanitary con-
ditions as may be discovered. The association is
referee for disputes regarding weight and grading
of milk. It receives 1 per cent on gross sales in com-
pensation for its services.

Detroit is, of course, the largest urban milk mar-
ket in IMichigan. In August, 1915, the average daily
consumption was estimated to be 47,5G9 gallons,
and of market cream, 5,953 gallons, which was
thought to constitute a daily per capita consumption
of .(33 of a pint of milk and .08 of a pint of cream.
In 1921, the City Department of Health put the
Detroit consumption of milk at 80,000 gallons. It
was estimated that the summer consumption then
amounted to 700,000 pints daily, and the winter
consumption to 600,000 pints. Detroit's milk supply
was, in 1921, furnished by some 7,500 farmers. In
1915, there were 140 distributors of milk in Detroit,
who obtained their supply from farmers living at
considerable distances from the city and who either
delivered their product directly as now, by wagon
or truck, steam or electric railway to consumers or
dealers in the city, or to collecting stations located
in the country, some of which had facilities for pas-

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 275

teuriziiig and cooling the milk before shipment.
Some of the larger plants were equipped to manu-
facture surplus supplies of milk into butter, cheese,
condensed milk and casein. The basic price was'
F.O.B. Detroit, resulting in varying returns to
farmers according to cost of delivery to the city
market.^

For many years it has been the practice of Michi-
gan farmers to dispose of their live-stock for ship-
ment to the Detroit stockyards, which, in 1919, re-
ceived 128,201 head of cattle, 374,903 of hogs,
314,898 of sheep, and 86,447 calves, while the 1920
statistics are: cattle, 118,755; calves, 99,009; sheep,
296,201 ; hogs, 430,863. The yards, in West Detroit,
are served by the main trunk-line railroads of the
State and Ontario, across the Detroit Eiver, and the
management takes pride in the facilities offered and
the sanitary conditions characteristic of the place.
A part of the receipts of live-stock at the yards is
taken over by the local packing-plants, of which there
were ten in 1919; and they also serve the require-
ments of stockers and feeders. In addition, a sup-
ply of live-stock is consigned direct to packing-plants,
not noticed in the figures here given. The Detroit
packers, in 1919, are reported to have slaughtered
200,000 cattle, 1,000,000 hogs, 500,000 sheep, and
100,000 calves, aggregating 13,820 tons of meat
products valued at $12,765,000. The market also
furnishes stock to the big Chicago plants. The

' Clement & Warber : "Tlip IMarket Milk Business of De-
troit in 1915," U. S. Dept. Agr., Bull. No. 639.

276 RURAL MICHIGAN

Detroit Packing Company, in the process of being
established in the -winter of 1921, has a reported
capacity of some 1^000 hogs, 150 cattle and several
hundred head of sheep^ lambs and calves daily. In
justification for Detroit's position as a packing
center, this concern points to statistics which indicate
that out of 2,500,000 cattle, 8I/3 per cent were
shipped to Detroit, while the Detroit packers are
reputed to have slaughtered 72,000 more head than
were received at the local stockyards. It is believed
that uneconomical cross-hauls are revealed by these
figures and the fact that only 26 per cent of Michi-
gan-grown hogs reached Detroit, while Detroit
packers imported into the State 62^/2 per cent of
their live hogs. It is proposed to develop the local
market for the State's live-stock resources.

On March 20 and 21, 1919, the representatives of
some seventy-five live-stock shipping associations met
at the Michigan Agricultural College for the pur-
pose of establishing an organization under the title
of "Michigan Livestock Exchange." The board of
directors there chosen represented Grand Traverse,
Cheboygan, Mecosta, Shiawassee, St. Joseph, Lena-
wee, and Genesee counties. The organization, it
was determined, should be financed by a membership
fee of ten dollars for each local association and a
charge of fifty cents a car for each carload of live-
stock shipped by local societies. Cooperation with
other associations and exchanges was contemplated
in the by-laws. Eegarding the live-stock industry of
Michigan, it was the declared purpose of the Michi-

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 277

gan Livestock Exchange "to so unite this industry
that it can bring the great prestige and financial
power which the industry represents to bear in the
solution of the many probk^ms that are now confront-
ing the live-stock organizations." ^

The Michigan Livestock Exchange, at its annual
meeting early in 19 2 1, went on record as favoring
the investigation of the practicability of establishing
cooperative commission houses in Detroit "to com-
pete with those privately owned," since it was claimed
that 90 per cent of the stock handled by such houses
now comes from Michigan cooperative associations.
The Exchange also went on record as favoring coop-
eration with the Livestock Producers Association in
its campaign to eradicate tuberculosis as related to
live-stock, which was reacting unfavorably on the
market price. The Exchange also declared its readi-
ness to affiliate with the Michigan State Farm
Bureau in such manner as had already been found
feasible by other similar associations of producers,
but at the present Avriting (April, 1921), such an
affiliation has not taken place. ^ The Michigan Live-
stock Exchange was then the selling agency for 105
locals. Each local has a constitution and by-laws in
accordance with which the directors and the manager
conduct its affairs. The manager assembles require-
ments for shipping accommodations, and when a
carload has been made up, orders the car. The man-
ager is paid on the basis of the number of head of

^Michigan Farmer, April 5, 19.19, 532.
*76mZ., Feb. 19, 1921, 222.

278 RURAL MICHIGAN

live-stock shipped, with additional allowances for
special services, such as furnishing bedding, chang-
ing partitions in cars, and the like. A protection
fund to cover losses to stock is provided, and members
are mulcted for the non-performance of shipping
ao-reements. The manager of each local association
is in active charge of all shipments, receives pay-
ments for stock shipped, and keeps the accounts;
while the Michigan Livestock Exchange is the central
agency for effecting cooperation among the locals.

In addition to the farm products sold within the
State, there is a large export business. The United
States Bureau of Markets reports the shipment of
farm products to points outside Michigan, in 1920,
as follows: Apples, 5,493 carloads; beans, 1,500;
cabbage, 298; cantaloupes, 144; celery, 549; cherries,
382; cucumbers, l(j; grapes, 4,480; lettuce, 110;
mixed deciduous fruits, 15; mixed bunched vege-
tables, 6; onions, 531; peaches, 2,160; pears, 1,109;
plums and prunes, 187; potatoes, 9,025; strawberries,
439; tomatoes, 28; watermelons, 58; carrots, 8;
cauliflower, 2.

With the purpose of establishing for agriculture
in Michigan the sort of organization that had ob-
tained results for other branches of industry and
for labor, the Michigan State Farm Bureau was
brought into existence in the autumn of 1919. Its
growth was much more rapid than its promoters
anticipated, a development enhanced by the economic
difficulties in which farmers found themselves in the
industrial slackness that ensued after the stimulating

TRANSPORTATIOX AND MARKETIXG 279

effect of the great war had spent its momentum. At
first the offices were at Birmingham, near Detroit;
but the large increase in the niembersliip and acdvi-
ties caused the Bureau to be removed to Lansing,
and a branch office was (1921) established in the
Upper Peninsula at Escanaba.

At its inception the work of the farm bureau, ac-
cording to its secretary, was threefold in purpose :
educational, commercial and legislative. Obviously
the commercial element was of chief concern; but
the agent of the organization, who carried on a vigor-
ous membership campaign throughout the State,
presented forcibly the new idea of state-wide coop-
eration, thus seeking to break down the characteris-
tic individualism of the farmers; and when the
legislature of 1919 convened, the farm bureau had
its program of legislation to lay before the law-
makers.

The constitution of the State Farm Bureau defi-
nitely set forth the aim of the organization. "The
purpose of this association," ran the first section,
"shall be to encourage, correlate and promote the
efforts of the county farm bureaus of Michigan
affiliated with it, and their individual members, and
to cooperate with other agricultural organizations in
advancement and improvement of agricultural in-
terests in Michigan and the nation, educationally,
legislatively and economically, l)y doing primarily
and princijially for nicinhcrs and not for pecuniary
profit, the following, namely: buying and selling mer-
chandise, farm machinery, fertilizer, stock feeds,

280 L'Uh'AL Alien WAN

live-stock, or any other farm products whatsoever;
operating storage warehouses, elevators, creameries
or mills; canning, preserving, pickling, evaporating,
dehydrating or otherwise converting or manufactur-
ing farm fruits, grains, vegetables or any other kind
of farm products whatsoever; securing best results
in grading, packing, marketing and advertising of
products of members ; renting, buying, building,
owning, selling and controlling such buildings, equip-
ment and other real and personal property as may
be deemed necessary in the conduct of the affairs of
this association." All these activities were to be
carried on without pecuniary profit to the associa-
tion and substantially at cost to its members. This
was a large undertaking and could not be fully
realized.

All members of county farm bureaus organized in
accordance with the constitution of the State Farm
Bureau were eligihle to membership. County farm
bureaus were admissible to membership on vote of
the executive committee and were allowed a voting
representative on the board of delegates and another
representative for every five hundred paid-up mem-
bers in addition to the first five hundred members
belonging. These voting representatives were re-
quired to be actual farmers and duly authorized by
their county farm bureau. County farm bureaus
Avere required to pay dues to the State Farm Bureau
of not less than $500, but with this amount as a
minimum their contribution was to be proportional
to the number of members. Control over the affairs

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 281

of the State Farm Bureau was vested in the board
of delegates from the county farm bureaus, propor-
tional to the membership of each as stated above.
The board was authorized to adopt "such by-laws,
rules and regulations for the conduct of the affairs
of this association as shall be deemed advisable."
The board of delegates at the annual meeting, held
on the first Thursday in February, was directed to
choose the executive committee, composed of the
president, vice-president and six other farm bureau
members. It fell to the executive committee to
"execute the policies of this association as determined
by the board of delegates," and it was "empowered
to manage the affairs of the association, to have
charge of the disbursement of funds, to judge qualifi-
cation of all membership applications, and to appoint
and employ such agents as may be necessary for the
conduct of its affairs.'"' The president and vice-presi-
dent were to be chosen at the annual meeting. The
secretary and the treasurer were to be appointed by
the executive committee. The board of delegates
were to choose representatives to the American Farm
Bureau Federation. Officials of the association- were
made ineligible to hold any state or national, public,
elective or appointive office. The by-laws provided
for various committees with special duties related to
the work of the association. ^

It was of prime importance to bring within the
scope of the farm bureau a large proportion of the
active farmers of the State. A membership organi-
zation was quickly built up and canvassed succes-

282 RURAL MWllIilAN

sively all, or nearly all, the counties. It was fre-
quently reported that from 85 to 95 per cent of the
farmers visited accepted membership. It was found,
also, that they based great expectations on their mem-
bership in this association. To meet these expecta-
tions the establishment of several departments of
work quickly ensued and, within ten months the
number of employees increased from three to ninety.
Departments of marketing, seeds, elevator exchange,
traffic, forestry and publicity were formed in quick
succession. These worked in cooperation with and
under the supervision of the secretary. The interest
of the farmer is to buy and to sell at advantage to
himself. In the course of the year 1920 the seed
department was actively procuring high-grade seed
for the members of the bureau. Buyers were sent
to the Northwest to procure northern-grown alfalfa
adapted to climatic conditions in'-]\Lichigan. Facili-
ties were afforded for the sale of high-grade Michi-
gan-grown seed, as for example, Eosen rye groAvn
on Manitou Island under a condition of isolation that
insured against cross-fertilization. Seed before be-
ing distributed to purchasers was cleaned and tested
to insure purity and germination. Later in the year,
an elevator exchange was created to establish a cen-
tral sales agency for such cooperative elevator asso-
ciations in the State as might bind themselves by
contract with this department. By the end of Janu-
ary, 1921, some fifty such associations were reported
to have accepted the arrangement which made Ihe
elevator exchange of the State Farm Bureau the

TRA^SPORTATIOX AXD MARKETiyC, 283

selling agency for the local associations with a prior,
and under certain conditions, an exclusive right of
disposing of their grain, beans and hay. Through its
wool pool, the State Farm Bureau sought to counter-
act adverse market conditions for this product and in
its warehouses, first at Lansing and Grand Eapids
and later at many other points throughout the State,
collected and held for a better market price more
than 3,000,000 pounds of wool during the lirst season
of 1920. At the beginning of 1921, a forestry de-
partment stood ready to dispose of members' fence-
posts, stakes, fire-wood and other wood-lot products,
and to supply these to members not locally provided
with them. A dairy and sugar-beet department were
then contemplated. The officers of the organization
were manifestly very ambitious of making the sales
service all-comprehensive.

The farm bureau members were concerned with
securing at low prices many commodities vital in
their industry and domestic economy ; so in the course
of 1920 the reorganized and enlarged purchasing
department handled phosphate by the train-load from
the South, tile, binder-twine, bags, coal, cement and
lime, and many other agricultural necessities. Its
dealings were with local cooperative associations and
county farm bureaus on a contractual basis. Orders
were assembled and forwarded to the Lansing office,
which in turn made its purchases in quantity direct
from the producers. The traffic department at Gtrand
Eapids assisted in the securing of freight ears for
shippers, and sought to bring about adjustments of

284 RURAL MICHIGAN

rates, over-charges, delays, and other causes of com-
pkiiits.

Meanwhile, a large force of agents was building up
the membership of the organization. Early in 1920,
it stood at some 23,000. The announced membership
increased until, July 17, 1920, it had reached some
70,000. At September 25, it amounted to 81,358;
October 16, 88,000, and at the close of the campaign
in the Upper Peninsula (November 13, 1920) 6,462
members belonged to the State Farm Bureau.

The Michigan State Farm Bureau has thus sum-
marized the results of the first year of its operation :
"It has successively placed upon a self-supporting
basis departments of seed, wool, elevator exchange,
and purchasing. Other departments, including
tralhc, legislation, organization and publicity were
developed." The membership campaign, concluded
in December, 1920, brought 97,000 ten-dollar-a-year
members pledged for three years. The seed depart-
ment had, it was averred, worked a revolution in the
Michigan seed industry, whereby a more economical
system of distribution was created; there was a 500
per cent increase in the amount of Grimm alfalfa
seed sown; while over 3,000,000 pounds of seed were
distributed throughout the State "carrying guaran-
tees that exceeded the guarantees of all state seed
concerns and even the requirements of the state law."
All of this seed was cleaned, freed of noxious weeds,
and, in the case of most alfalfa and all sweet clover,
scarified. This business was conducted through 369
cooperative associations located in seventy-nine coun-

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 285

ties. In the autumn of 1920, the seed department
claims to have bought up one-half of the world's
supply of registered Grimm alfalfa, all of which was
sown in Michigan. On the other hand, more than
750,000 pounds of Michigan-grown clover seeds were
handled by this department. All of it was certified
as to origin and history. The Farm Bureau reports
the handling of no imported or southern-grown
clover seed. Through its bonded warehouse, the de-
partment stabilized the seed market, issuing ware-
house receipts to growers and allowing pre-payment
to one-half the value of the grain handled. It was
claimed that a permanent improvement in Michigan
agriculture has been effected through the services
rendered by the seed department. Success was
claimed for the wool pool, which gave buyers an
advance of three to twelve cents a pound over the
prices offered elsewhere. The pool had handled some
3,500,000 pounds of wool to April 15, 1921, for
15,000 growers. The manufacture of 5,000 blankets
from "tags"' and "rejects" brought the grower
eighteen cents a pound, it was stated, when the
market price for such grades was ten cents. The
manufacture of suitings from the clothing grades,
under the direction of the Farm Bureau, had yielded
a return twice that which would have accrued from
outside dealers, it was claimed. Similar profits and
savings accrued from the operations of the elevator
exchange and the purchasing department, it was held.
A saving of three to thirteen dollars a ton on pur-
chases of commercial fertilizer was brought about.

286 h'LRAL MICHIGAN

The list of other commodities purchased through the
Bureau iucludes tile, harness, tires, cotton-seed meal,
oil-meal, feed, coal, building materials, and posts.
Great savings resulted from the operations of the
traffic department in adjusting claims against the
railroads, which secured 4,711 refrigerator cars for
the handling of fruit during the season, thus effecting
large savings to producers in a falling market and
rapid marketing of the crop. Cooperation between
the railroads and the shippers is facilitated through
this agency. The Bureau takes credit for the unusual
amount of agricultural legislation enacted at the 1921
session of the legislature.^

In the spring of 1921, the forest products depart-
ment of the Michigan State Farm Bureau divorced
itself, and, under the designation the "Michigan
Forest Products Bureau," undertook to continue this
specialized service to the farmers of the State. It
was planned that this service and inspection should
include : timber estimating, land classification, scal-
ing and inspection of timber and lumber, schemes of
forest planting and protection, and the listing and
sale of forest products and property. As matters
stand, on the marketing side, this service involves
the disposal of forest products grown chiefly in the
northern counties to farmers in the southern coun-
ties whose local supply is now inadequate. The
Bureau's office remains in Lansing.

In order to obtain the benefits of cooperative sell-

^Mich. State Farm Bur., Xeics Service, No. 68, May 21,
1921.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 287

ing agreements, it was necessary to devise a -plan of
organization which would avoid a violation of the
statutes of the State prohibiting combinations in
restraint of trade and for the purpose of curtailing
production and the enhancement of prices otherwise
than through the ordinary operations of the market.
Such statutes had been enacted by the legislatures
of 1899 and 1905, which declared it "unlawful for
two or more persons, firms, partnerships, corpora-
tions or associations of persons, or any two or more
of them, to make or enter into or execute or carry
out any contracts, obligations or agreements of any
kind or description by which they shall bind or have
bound themselves not to sell, dispose of or transport
any article or any conmiodity, or any article of trade,
use, merchandise, commerce or consumption below a
common standard figure or fixed value, or by which
they shall agree in any manner to keep the price
of such article, commodity or transportation at a
fixed or graduated figure, or ])y which they shall in
any manner establish or settle the price of any article,
commodity or transportation between them or them-
selves and others, so as to directly or indirectly pre-
clude a free and unrestricted competition among
themselves, or any purchasers or consumers, in the
sale or transportation of any such article or com-
modity, or by which they shall agree to pool, combine
or directly or indirectly unite any interests that they
may have connected with the sale or transportation
of any such article or commodity, that its price might
in any manner be affected. Every such trust as

288 RURAL MICHIGAN

defined herein is declared to be unlawful, against
public policy and void." ^

These restrictions have been irksome to farmers as
to others who desire to secure better prices through
restrictive arrangements and cooperative selling. A
gubernatorial candidate, in the primary campaign of
1920, who claimed to represent the agricultural in-
terests, emphasized the need and desire of farmers to
enter into agreements for the purpose of enhancing
prices. "The state of Michigan," he said, "should
ffrant to the farmer the right to collective sale of his
products or collective buying of necessaries that he
may require for the farm. ... If two or more
farmers. in the neighborhood should meet and agree
to ship their potatoes together in a carload lot to
some buyer and agree upon a price that they would
demand for their potatoes, they could be sent to jail
for conspiracy. When the farmer shall be given the
right to do this so-called collective bargaining, it
will prove a great benefit to both farmers and con-
sumers in this country." In effect, farmers have
found a method of obtaining the advantages of coop-
erative selling within the law, through the establish-
ment of agencies whereby they deliver their products
to a common organization which disposes of them
on such terms as it deems best for the producer. Act
number 171 of the legislative session of 1903 pro-
vides that "any corporation organized under this act,
the purpose of which is not primarily or principally
for net pecuniary profit, but the objects of which re-

' Compiled Laws of 1915, Sec. 15013.

TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETING 289

quire the transaction of business and the receipts
and payment of moneys in the conduct of its affairs,
shall have the right and power to transact such busi-
ness and receive, collect and disburse such moneys,
and acquire, hold and convey such properties as are
naturally or properly within the scope of its articles
of association." Many associations for the collective
purchase and sale of farm products and supplies have
been established under this statute.

CHAPTER VIII

RURAL MANUFACTURES OF MICHIGAN

For some years subsequent to the Civil War^ Michi-
gan farmers concerned themselves to a notable degree
in the growing of Chinese sugar-cane or sorghum.
The Report of the State Board of Agriculture for
1<S65 refers to its culture in the State as then of
several years duration, and the production of sirup
in that year is estimated at 400,000 gallons.^ The
juice was extracted from the cane by a roller press
operated by the grower of the crop. One producer
reports a product of two hundred gallons to the acre
of cane, which sold at seventy-five cents a gallon.^
The output seems to have been restricted to the south-
ern counties of the Lower Peninsula and to have been
greatly stimulated by the sugar scarcity of the war
era. It was hoped that sugar could be extracted
from the sorghum sirup, and led to legislation in
1881 providing a bounty for sugar production from
this source or from beets. R. C. Kedzie related how
only one farmer qualified for this bounty by pro-
ducing 20,235 pounds of sugar from sorghum.^

^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1865, 17.

^Jhid., 1870, 150.

3 "Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX, 202.

290

RURAL IIAXUFACTUREH 291

With the establishment of the beet-sugar industry,
sorghum culture languished. The Thirteenth United
States Census reported 416 acres of sorghum in the
State in 1909, yielding 2,7r)r) tons of cane, valued at
$18,595. In the period of the great war one occa-
sionally heard of Michigan-grown sorghum as a
substitute for sugar in a time of great scarcity, but
sorghum culture seems now to have become an aban-
doned phase of Michigan agriculture. On the basis
of census returns, the United States Department of
Agriculture records the production of sorghum in
Michigan as follows : In the year 1859, 86,953 gal-
lons of sirup; 1869, 91,686 gallons; 1879, 102,500
gallons; 1889, 45,524 gallons; 1899, 24,059 gallons;
1909, 21,350 gallons.^ These figures are admittedly
incomplete, since small quantities of sirup produced
were unreported.

The beet-sugar industry in Michigan had its origin
in experimental efforts by the Michigan Agricultural
College, which demonstrated the adaption of the
State for sugar-beet culture. As far back as 1881,
the State legislature had provided a bounty of two
cents a pound and tax exemption to encourage the
creation of a domestic sugar supply. Nature had
provided a delicious but inadequate sugar product
derived from the sugar maple growing everywhere in
both peninsulas. First the Indians and then the
white pioneers had exploited this native source of
sugar, but it was wholly insufficient to meet the grow-

nj. S. Dept. Agr.. P'armers Bull. 477: "Sorghum-Sirup
Manufacture," Washington. 1912, 1918,

293 RURAL MICHIGAN

ing requirements. The Michigan Agricultural Col-
lege imported some 1,760 pounds of sugar-beet seed
from Europe in 1890, which was distributed to
farmers throughout the Lower Peninsula. The re-
sults were highly gratifying. The average product
to the acre was nearly fifteen tons, with 13.86 per
cent of sugar in the juice, as reported by E. C.
Kedzie of the Agricultural College.^ Even better
results were secured from a second experimental
demonstration in 1897. By the year 1899^ the Col-
lege had distributed more than 5,000 pounds of beet
seed, and seems entitled to claim primacy in the
establishment of the beet-sugar industry in Michigan.
Meanwhile the United States Weather Bureau had
mapped the area of climatic conditions favorable to
the culture of the sugar-beet. It was believed that
the sugar-beet could not be grown far from the
isotherm of 70 degrees — an opinion since disproved
— and that three inches of rain during each month
of the growing season with ample sunshine were re-
quired. Michigan fell within this area, but it has
been demonstrated that the sugar-beet does very well
in the northern districts of the State where tem-
peratures average well below the 70 degrees isotherm,
and that the greatly enhanced amount of sunshine
and twilight resulting from the higher latitude of the
region is remarkably favorable to sugar-content. In
1897 the legislature provided a bounty of one cent
a pound on sugar produced in Michigan.

The first beet-sugar factory in ]\Iichigan was
^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX, 203.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 293

erected at Bay City by the Michigan Sugar Com-
pany in 1898. The United States Sugar Manufac-
turers Association reported in 1920 sixteen active
beet-sugar factories in the State, at Bay City, Bliss-
field, Holland, St. Louis, Marine City, Menominee,
Alma, Caro, Carrolton, Croswell, Sebawing, Mount
Clemens, Lansing, Owosso and West Bay City. Ap-
proximately $22,000,000 are invested in the industry.
The output of sugar in the season of. 1920 is 165,899
tons. The factories handled in that year 1,24:3,868
short tons of beets. The farmers received an average
price for beets of $10.08 a ton.^ Of the beet-sugar
factories here enumerated, only one is located in the
Upper Peninsula (at Menominee), and it derives
more than four-fifths of its beets from Wisconsin.
The Upper Peninsula product comes almost entirely
from Menominee and Delta counties. The excess of
sunshine and twilight are factors favorable to sugar-
beet culture in the Upper Peninsula, since it aug-
ments the sugar-content ; but other conditions seem
not to have been equally favorable, and beet culture
is a minor industry outside of the Saginaw Valley.
Here is a moist climate, a rich clay and clay-loam
soil, a water-table close to the surface, and, at the
outset, a considerable population of German-Ameri-
cans disposed to do hard labor incident to the
cultivation of sugar-beets. The presence of the raw
material, with abundant pure water of the requisite
chemical composition, of limestone and of coal in

^U. S. Dept. Agr., Monthly Crop Reporter, April, 1921,
p. 38.

294 Nlh'AL MICHIGAN

the same territory, favored the erection of beet-
sugar factories in the same portion of the State.
With the introduction of beet culture came an influx
of Bohemians and Hungarians, familiar with beet
tillage in the mother lands. From hired help in the
beet fields, these national types hitherto strangers to
this section of the State have become landed pro-
prietors and are rapidly becoming a significant ele-
ment in the agricultural population of east-central
]\Iichigan. It should be noted, however, that coun-
ties in all sections of the Lower Peninsula grow
sugar-beets to some extent, from Monroe in the
southeast and Berrien in the southwest, to Charlevoix
and Cheboygan counties in the north.

The sugar-beet growers in Michigan have for years
been dissatisfied with their contracts with the beet-
sugar companies, and, through organization, have
vigorously sought readjustments in their favor. The
Michigan Sugar Beet Association, in 1921, was re-
ported to have 9,000 members, out of the 12,000
sugar-beet growers in thirty-eight counties. The
Association prepared a schedule of prices calling for
compensation to growers of $6.45 a ton when sugar
was bringing five cents a pound. There was an
ascending scale of prices, until a price of $19.35 was
to prevail when sugar was selling at fifteen cents.
The sugar companies refused to have anything to do
with this schedule of prices and the growers were
left free to contract as they might determine.

The manufacture of cheese in the factory dates
from the close of the Civil War, and it seems to have

RURAL MANUFACTURES 295

developed rapidly in the southeastern counties of
the State.^ The institution of the factory system is
attributed to Jesse L. Williams of Eome, New York,
whence it spread westwardly to Michigan. Hitherto
cheese-making had been a domestic process charac-
teristic of the period of pioneering, and in conse-
quence the output had been small. By 1867, under
the new method, it seemed likely that in a few years
the State product would exceed local consumption,
and the price was 13.5 to li cents a pound. ^ The
low price of wool and sheep reacted on the cheese
industr}1 in the State, by promoting a transfer of
interest to this new department of agriculture, but
even so the Board of Agriculture in 18(38 estimated
that not more than one-eighth of the cheese consumed
in Michigan was then produced within its borders.
However, the domestic manufacture of cheese was
not wholly abandoned, and by 1899, 331,176 pounds
were produced on the farms of the State. The fac-
tory output in that year was, according to the
Twelfth Census of the United States, 10,422,582
pounds. Ten years later the farm production had
fallen to 291,176 pounds, while the factory output
advanced to 13,382,160 pounds. The schedule of
production by counties indicates that the center of
gravity of the cheese industry was in the central
counties of the southern peninsula in 1909, with St.
Clair leading with an output of 72,390 pounds, fol-
lowed at a distance by Kent, Montcalm and Lapeer,

'"Rept. Mich. Hd. Agr.." 1865, 133.
^Ihkl., 1867, 139.

296 RURAL MICHIGAN

■while only Houghton County in the Upper Peninsula
made any showing.

The manufacture of butter in factories was intro-
duced into Michigan apparently even later than that
of cheese-making, and was also originated in New
York.^ The Board of Agriculture in several reports
issued in the post-bellum era takes considerable
pains to explain a new method of butter-making as
an incident of cheese production whereby the double
advantage of obtaining both products from the same
milk was duly set forth. By 1888 the State's one
hundred cheese factories were matched, it was an-
nounced, by as many creameries." The making of
butter on farms has gone forward coincidentally
with its production in factories, and in 1899, the
farm output w^as 60,051,998 pounds, while the fac-
tory product was only 7,820,712 pounds, as reported
in the Twelfth United States Census. In another
decade, the farm production had fallen off somewhat
and stood at 50,405,426 pounds, and the factory out-
put had advanced to 35,511,760 pounds, indicating
a seven-fold increase in the production of creameries
during the ten-year period. The Thirteenth United
"States Census (1910) indicated that the production
of butter was then, and remains, widely distributed
throughout the two peninsulas, varying primarily
with the density of the rural population, with the
counties as Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Eaton, Gene-

'"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1868, 228.
Ubid., 1888, 388.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 297

see, Hillsdale, Ingham, Kent, Lapeer, Lenawee,
Macomb, ]\rontcalm, Oakland, Ottawa, Saginaw, St.
Clair, Sanilac and Tuscola exceeding the million-
pound rank, Kent taking first place.

The Fourteenth United States Census ascertained
that, in the year 1919, Michigan produced 382,-
822,631 gallons of milk, which represented an in-
crease of 19.3 per cent over the output for 1909. Of
the product of 1919, 130,864,366 gallons were sold.
Of butter, 25,755,423 pounds were manufactured.
The sales of butter amounted to 10,154,869 pounds,
which may be compared with sales of 30,010,783
pounds in 1909. Of cream, the 1919 sales Avere
4,459,626 gallons, compared with 2,485,061 gallons
in 1909. In 1919, butter-fat to the amount of
31,647,906 pounds was sold, compared with 18,-
287,691 pounds in 1909. The most recent estimates
available give the number of dairy cows in Michigan
as 802,000, distributed on an average of four cows
to a farm. In 1920, these cows are considered to
have produced 3,492,000,000 pounds of milk, valued
at $104,760,000. The Michigan Food and Drug De-
partment reports for June 30, 1920, 248 creameries
in Michigan, 65 cheese factories, 35 condensed milk
and powdered milk plants, 258 ice-cream manufac-
turers, 19 milk skimming stations, 1,016 cream
buying stations, 939 milk distributing plants, 98 milk
depots, 104 milk stores, and 1,742 milk wagons.^

In February, 1920, the ]\Iichigan Allied Dairy

^Michigan Farmer, May 21, 1921, 20.

298 RURAL MICHIGAN

Association was organized with headquarters in
Lansing, for the purpose of fostering and encourag-
ing the dairy industry of Michigan in cooperation
with the State Food and Drug Department and the
Michigan Agricultural College, "by endeavoring to
increase economical production of milk and cream
upon the farms of Michigan upon both a quantity and
a quality basis; by endeavoring to improve the
quality and uniformity of the dairy products of the
State; by stimulating consum|)tion of milk and
products, and in obtaining the practical and efficient
operation of any plant manufacturing and-' dis-
tributing milk and milk products in Michigan; and
also in assisting and bringing about a more complete
observance of all dairy laws now on the statute books,
in the repealing of any that may have become obso-
lete, or in obtaining new legislation designed to assist
in the furtherance of the principles and objects
already indicated." Associated in this organization
are representatives of the creamery butter manufac-
turers, ice-cream, condensed and powdered milk,
cheese, milk and cream producers, fluid milk dis-
tributors, and dairy products equipment and supply
dealers, organized under the familiar Act 171 of
1903. The Association has its board of directors abd
general officers, and employs a salaried secretary to
attend to its routine business and is affiliated with
the Michigan State Farm Bureau.

In April, 1921, it was announced that, through the
efforts of the Michigan Allied Dairy Association, a
dairy division of the newly created State Department

RURAL MAXUFACTURES 299

of Agriculture was established. The announced
duties of this division were "to foster and encourage
the development of quality dairy production in
Michigan, to enforce existing dairy laws and to bring
about needed dairy reform." It was recommended
by the Michigan Allied Dairy x\ssociation that
twenty inspectors be employed, distributed as fol-
lows : butter interests, six ; cheese interest, one ; con-
densed and powdered milk interests, one; ice-cream
interests, two; market milk and production, ten.
The dairy association suggested, it was stated, that
$100,000 be appropriated to the maintenance of this
division.^

Canning on the farms began before factory pro-
duction and has continued alongside of it, with a
steady increase in the output of factory goods. The
special United States census on canning and pre-
serving in Michigan reported products of a value of
$8,194,000, in 1914. This came from ninety-one
establishments, employing an average number of
2,507 wage earners, and the cost of materials used
aggregated $4,893,000. Michigan's rank among the
several states was then eleventh.

Before the interposition of the Government com-
pelled the packers to relinquish enterprises of this
character. Armour & Company at their Frankfort
plant packed red raspberries and red sour cherries;
while at Mattawan, the company's grape-juice fac-
tory pressed an average of 2,500 tons annually. At

' JMicliipan State Farm Bur., News Service, Lansing, April
23, 1921, 2.

300 RURAL MICIIJGAN

Traverse City a cooperative canning factory con-
ducted by local farmers utilizes low-grade as well as
superior grade fruit, particularly cherries.

In 1921;, the Michigan Canned Food Company
erected a cannery at Owosso for the purpose of can-
ning corn and peas; while another plant at Yale
handled peas, and one at Greenville was under con-
struction. It was purposed that this company should
have seven factories in operation in ]\Iichigan in
1922.

In May, 1921, The National Canners Association
reported, through its director of inspection, eighty-
two canning factories in Michigan, whose total pack
in 1920 was over 50,000,000 cans, valued at approxi-
mately $10,000,000. Upwards of 40,000 acres were
then devoted to canning crops. Seventy per cent of
the canning factories in the State were said to be
located on the line of the Pere Marquette Eailroad
between Benton Harbor and Petoskey.

The National Canners Association maintains an
inspection service in Michigan. Members must main-
tain their plants in accordance with the rules of the
national association, involving a sanitary condition,
and the use of sound wholesome materials. It is the
expressed object of this service, which cooperates with
the j\Iichigan Food and Drug Department and the
Michigan Canners Association, ''to produce a full
can of clean wholesome food, thereby protecting the
consumer and ultimately helping the canner and the
agricultural interest by creating a greater demand

RURAL MAXUFACTURE.^ 301

for can goods." The legislature of 1921 enacted what
is described as a "model canning law."

In the pioneer period, when cider vinegar might
be out of the question, a domestic supply of beer and
vinegar was obtained from maple sap derived from
the flow at the close of the season, and which was
slightly boiled to establish the desired consistency.
With the apple orchard came the cider press and cus-
tom cider mills, where apple cider for beverage
purposes and for vinegar was produced to an extent
which, if undetermined, was, and still is, manifestly
very large.

The Indians were the first sugar-makers in Michi-
gan. The source of supply was in both peninsulas,
and the product of the aborigines' unaccustomed in-
dustry, if not attractive to the white man's palate as
it came from the red-man's kettle, was not infre-
quently the only provision against starvation. It
featured rural manufacturing among the whites, as
among the Indians, everywhere in the State, and it
remains a considerable item in the agricultural out-
put even today. When the sap begins to rise in the
tree late in February or early in March, the farmer
relieves the tree of a portion of its supply by the
process of "tapping," whereby an incision is made
in the trunk bark not far above the ground, into
which a "spile" is inserted as a conduit to the bucket
beside the tree. In the pioneer period, the spile and
all accessories were of wood. A trough hollowed from
a log of ash or pine received the sap, conveyed

o02 AT AM/- MICH 1(1 AN

thither in a pair of wooden pails borne suspended
from a sort of neck-yoke surmounting the stalwart
shoulders of the workers. Boiling in kettles of iron
or brass reduced the watery sap of a delicate sweet-
ness to the delicious amber liquid sirup and, ulti-
mately if sufficiently prolonged, to the equally deli-
cious maple sugar, suited to the taste of the most
exacting epicure. Primitive methods have yielded
to more elaborate processes, in which implements of
metal have replaced those of wood. Sugar-making
time, coming at a season when other labors of the
farmer are less exacting than usual, remains one
of the few high spots in the rural calendar. The
Thirteenth United States Census listed fifteen coun-
ties as contributing to Michigan's output of maple
sirup, or 209.093 gallons in 1909, the lead being held
by the counties of Eaton (2(;,r)96 gallons), Hills-
dale (23,041 gallons). Ionia (12,005 gallons),
Genesee (10,625 gallons), and Ingham (10,428
gallons). Eeturns were entered from northern coun-
ties, such as Grand Traverse and Crawford in the
Lower Peninsida, and from Delta, Iron and Dickin-
son in the Upper Peninsula. Of maple sugar, the
-output stood at 293,301 pounds. The same number
of counties gave this total, with Eaton again in the
leading position with 90,511 pounds.^ Ten years
later the Michigan Cooperative Crop Pcporting Serv-
ice found the production of maple sirup to be 190,200
gallons, the output of 848,000 trees, and the produc-

^ Thirteenth Census of the U. S., "Abstract with Sup-
plement for Mich.," 660.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 303

tion of maple sugar amounted to 47,100 pounds.
That year's product Avas rated as 96 per cent of a
high-grade medium.^ A generation ago Eugene
Davenport of Woodland, Barry County, urged the
growing of sugar maples as a profitable investment,
and he set forth detailed calculations of outlay and
income to the conclusion that his one thousand maple
trees yielded a product of $240 net, or 24 cents a
tree, in a season. Trees of twenty years' growth were
in the producing class and were annually, without
fail, making an income for their owner with a rela-
tively small outlay of labor and capital. The demands
for maple wood for flooring, furniture, and wood
carbonization furnace requirements have undoubtedly
greatly depleted stands of sugar maples, yet the
business still has its place in Michigan agriculture.
]\Iichigan's output in 1009 was less than that of
Vermont, Xew York, Pennsylvania, iSTew Hampshire,
Maryland, and Ohio. It was estimated in 1920 that
there were some 1,800 maple sirup producers in the
State furnishing 150,000 gallons of sirup. -

With a view to rehal)ilitating the once flourishing
maple sirup industry of Michigan there was organ-
ized in 1917 the Michigan Maple Syrup Producers
Association, for the purpose of establishing standard
grades for the product of its members, providing a
label indicative of the soi;rce and quality of the
sirup, and to discipline members violating the rules
of the organization. Four years later, this associa-

»"Mich. Crop Kept.," May, 1920, 4.
'Michigan Farmer, March 5, 1921, 296.

304 RURAL MICHIGAN

tion effected an arrangement with the Michigan
State Farm Bureau for the marketing of its sirup
through the Bureau's forestry department. It was
further contemplated to establish a central cannery
and blending plant to handle the output of members.
The association emphasized the unusually excellent
flavor of maple sirup produced in Michigan in rela-
tion to the marketing of the State's product^ and of
the necessity of reopening and maintaining unim-
paired groves of sugar maple trees as a means of per-
petuating the industry. In March, 1921, there were
some fifty active members of this association under
agreement to furnish the selling agency with two
thousand gallons of their product. It is required
of members that one-third of their product of aver-
age grade must be sold through the association. The
association recognizes three grades of sirup as mar-
ketable through its organization. The membership
is largely in the south central counties with the sec-
retaryship at Charlotte, Eaton County, in the heart
of the commercial sirup-producing district. As the
governing body of the ]\Iichigan Maple Syrup Pro-
ducers Association, the membership elects a board of
seven directors, who select the executive officials.

It has been many years since the pioneer women of
Michigan of necessity spun and wove the material
for their own cloth, and the spinning-wheel is now
preserved in museums as a relic. Nevertheless, even
now among certain elements in the State, this primi-
tive method of obtaining socks and mittens from

o
bo

RURAL MANUFACTURES 305

wool of unquestioned virginity still persists. The
practice appears to be common among the Finns and
obtains somewhat also among the French inhabitants.
Until recently one large Chicago mail-order house
supplied spinning-wheels to the trade of the north
country, and there is at least one Finnish resident of
the .copper country who, in 1920, reported a total
output of some fifty such machines, mainly dis-
tributed in Michigan, but to some extent sold else-
where, as far east as Massachusetts and as far west
as Wisconsin and Xorth Dakota. It is said to be the
practice among the Finnish farmers, when requiring
mittens or socks, to deprive a member of the small
domestic flock of slieep of its woolly coat, and to
convert it step by step into these articles of clothing,
which do not require a "truth in fabric law" as an
insurance of quality.

The production of cloth by the factory process is
not an important industry of Michigan. There are
several small woolen mills in both peninsulas. The
Clinton Woolen Manufacturing Company of Le-
nawee County has been in operation since 1866, and
is engaged chiefly in the manufacture of cloth for
uniforms. It reports a consumption of some 1,000,000
pounds of greased wool annually, but imports its
raw material largely from western wool centers,
since it does not find readily available within the
State wool of a grade suitable to its requirements. At
Eaton Rapids another concern consumes approxi-
mately 2,000,000 pounds of raw wool annually,

OG RURAL 3IICHIGAN

mostly home grown. Both concerns have produced
virgin woolen fabrics to meet such specific demand
as may arise.

The unfavorable wool market of 1920-1921 led
the Michigan State Farm Bureau to dispose of a
portion of its warehouse stock that had accumulated
through the wool pool, by arranging for the con-
version of certain grades into blankets and cloth.
Thus residents of the State acquired material made
from undoubted virgin wool, became accustomed to
look to a home market for raw wool, and in so much
relieved the local wool market situation.

Even the native Indians had their primitive grist-
mill. One of these is described by W. J. Beal. "A
long pole or sapling was pinned to a tree, like a well-
sweep; a small pole was suspended from the elevated
end of the sweep, the lower part of which v.-as pestle-
shaped ; the top of a stump was hollowed out, to hold
the corn. The sweep was then worked up and down
by one of the squaws, while another steadied and di-
rected the pestle, which smashed the corn as it came
down." ^ The white man had an easier way. At
Big Eapids on the Muskegon, at Owosso, at Grand
Eapids, at Elsie, at Jonesville, at Lansing, and at
very many other points of vantagi: throughout the
State, especially in the southern peninsula, a mill-
dam impounded the waters which gave power to the
mill. The early mills were of low capacity, Ean-
som grist-mill on Ransom's Creek in Grand Tra-
verse County had "one run of stones and a capacity

^ "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXII, 237.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 307

of grinding five biisliels of grain in an hour." ^ Hun-
dreds of these little grist-mills do a customs service
of great utility to the farmers of the adjacent country-
side.

Similar in motive force and capacity were the saw-
mills, indispensable for getting out building material
where an effort was made to improve on the axe,
cross-cut saw and their accessories as a producer of
lumber. There was also a saw-mill on Eansom's
Creek aforesaid, operated "by one muley saw whose
running capacity would cut one thousand feet of
lumber in a day." ^ The father of Edward W. Bar-
ber of Eaton County built his mill-dam on the Scipio
Creek at first only of earth, which the flood waters
soon carried away. Then a mixture of brush pro-
duced a substantial barrage which two generations
left still intact. Here was erected the mill, "equipped
with an old-fashioned wooden water wheel with an
upright sash for the saw." ^ The rural population
not only relied on these little home-made saw-mills
for the local lumber supply, but they succeeded often
in producing a surplus for export down stream to
markets both within and without the State. Steam
replaced water as motive power in most of the saw-
mills, but numerous water-driven grist-mills remain
in the southern peninsula, while "midget mills," fre-
quently gasoline-driven, serve the farming commu-
nities in both peninsulas of the State today. In
1904 the flour and grist-mills of ]\Iiehigan produced

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections;' XXXII, 305.
'loia., WXl, 197.

308 RURAL MJVllJGAN

3,901,219 barrels of wheat flour, and the census re-
turns for the years 1909 and 1914 did not vary
greatly from this quantity, the output for 191-1 being
3,050,744 barrels. In 1914, 74,662 barrels of rye
flour were manufactured, 15,773,491 pounds of buck-
wheat flour; 221,600 pounds of barley, meal; 131,646
barrels of corn-meal and corn-flour;- 466,510 pounds
of hominy and grits; 149,893 tons of bran middlings;
216,760 tons of feed, offal; and 12,755 pounds of
breakfast foods. ^

There has been progressive advancement in Michi-
gan in the kind and quality of the farm implements
used. At one time all grain was threshed by the
flail or trodden out by horses on the barn floor. There
were no reapers, mowers, drills and cultivators.
"Grain was separated from tlie chaff by holding a
shovelful in a stifi: breeze and sifting it off by shak-
ing the shovel. Wheat was cut with the cradle, which
was a great advance upon the sickle that preceded
it ; and the hand-scythe that had been the only means
of reducing the grass. All grain was sown broad-
cast; and those who were boys fifty years ago and
retain a vivid recollection of the horrors of riding
' a horse to plow corn, will appreciate the advantages
of the cultivator." ^ "A hand-mill, such a mill as
the slaves used to grind their corn for iioe-cake and
hominy," reduced corn to edible proportions — a half

* Census of Manufactures, 1914 — Michigan: 29.
='S. B. IVTfCrarkon in "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Col-
lections," XIV, 610.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 309

bushel in an evening.^ In preparing the virgin soil
for its first crop, '"The big A harrow with inch-square
teeth, drawn by two yoke of oxen, pulled out the
loose grubs and partially leveled the ground." - "The
land was broken up by the use of a very stout plow
and three or four — sometimes as many as seven —
yoke of oxen hitched one team ahead of another.
This stout plow was almost always a home-made
affair constructed of wood, excepting the coulter and
the share. ... I remember to have seen a plow with
a wooden mould-board and only one handle," writes
W. J. Beal, "Wood's patent was the first plow with
a cast-iron mould-board that I remember to have
seen or used. I have read of a prejudice among farm-
ers against using an iron plow on the ground that it
poisoned the laud for crops, but I never heard of this
among the farmers of southern Michigan." ^ The
forest was searched for a tree whose divided trunk
yielded the frame for the farmer's home-made drag.
"The selected tree was cut down," says Edward Bar-
ber, "the crotch severed from the trunk and the re-
mainder of the top. The oxen hauled it to the house.
The limbs were hewed on four sides with an ordi-
nary axe, holes bored through them for the teeth,
which were driven by lifting a heavy stone and throw-
ing it with all the force possible upon the square end
of the teeth. A clevis was attached to the forward

Uhid., 622.
^IhicL, XVIII. 420.
Ubid., XXXII, 242, 243.

310 RURAL MICHIGAN

end of the improvised drag, the knotty part serving
to hohl it firmly in place; and with this home-made
harrow, the work of getting in wheat went on." ^

The garnered grain was threshed with a flail, like
a heavy pole ten feet long, broken in two in the mid-
dle and fastened together again with a leather string
hinge."' The grain was winnowed first "with a hand
fan" shaped like the half of a round table "with a
box-like side eight inches high running around the
rounding edge. The fan was of tightly woven splints
for lightness, and it had two handles on the rim.
I put on about a peck of wheat at a time, took hold
of the handles, put the rounding side against me,
then tossed it up and down with a sort of flapping
motion, and the wheat falling quicker than the chaff,
would lie on the fan and the chaff float on the floor." ^
In due time appeared mechanical fanning-mills for
cleaning the grain, factories for the manufacture of
which sprang up at several points in the southern
part of the State. Mechanical contrivances for
threshing grain and horse-power for operating. them
appeared prior to the Civil War. One John Lee-
.land of St. Joseph County is said to have (1835)
"made for his own use a threshing-machine which
was worked by a crank turned by hand-power (two
men), and it would thresh about thirty bushels in
a day." ^ A little later a "harvester" was invented
by a Kalamazoo farmer. "Phifer's wheel gang-plow

1 Ibid., XXXI, 199.
^Ibid., XIV, 623.
^Ibid., XVIII, 515.

RURAL MANUFACTURES 311

and cultivator," "Allen's \veeding-hoe/' and "the
New Yorker self-raking reaping machine" appeared
soon after the Civil War.^ Forty years ago the
necessary implement equipment for a Michigan farm
was given by H. Marhoff as follows : One wagon at
$60; one sleigh at $25; two plows at $1-1 each; two
harrows at $12 each; one wheel cultivator at $30; one
gang plow at $25; one grain-drill at $80; one mower
at $75 ; one harvester and binder at $350 ; one wheel-
rake at $25; one fanning-mill at $25; shovels, hoes,
forks, and so forth, at $13.^ A further auxiliary
equipment was recommended, including a horse hay-
fork and carrier, hay-tedder, mounted spring-toothed
harrow and a land roller. This list is interesting as
revealing the stage of development attained by the
mechanical aids to agriculture at this period.

There was early manifested a tendency in Michi-
gan for the manufacture of agricultural machinery
in small cities. Detroit confines its attention in this
direction to the construction of farm tractors, while
Grand Eapids possesses only an assembling plant of
the International Harvester Company. Nor does
this industry feature the wood-using activities of the
Upper Peninsula. At Saginaw are a group of fac-
tories which produce sugar-beet pullers, serviceable
in the surrounding territory ; bean-threshers, gasoline
engines for farm use, and pump-jacks, Avhile several
large machinery firms from without the State dis-
tribute from this center. At Jackson, one concern

'"Kept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1868, 285, 273, 286.
^Ibid., 1881-1882, 311.

312 RURAL MICHIGAN

makes hand agricultural implements, such as forks,
lioes and rakes, of which the annual output is re-
ported to run from 150,000 to 160,000 dozen. An-
other company produces potato-cutters, hand auto-
matic potato-planters, a potato-planter with ferti-
lizer attachment, a fertilizer mixer, a double-cylinder
high-pressure sprayer, an elevator potato-digger, a
potato-sorter, and short ton truck. Battle Creek has
long been known as a manufacturing point for grain
threshers. The Nichols and Shepard Company re-
ports an output of 2,000 separators and 400 traction
engines annually. The Advance, Bumely Company
reports its annual product at 3,000 (oil-pull) tractors,
300 engines, and 750 separators. Port Huron also
has an important place in this department of farm
machinery construction. The Port Huron Engine
and Thresher Company had its beginning at Battle
Creek, removing to Port Huron in 1884. Formerly
producing a wide variety of machines, in 1920 it re-
ports a more restricted activity, including 188 en-
gines and tractors, and 1,125 grain-threshers and
attachments with corn-shellers, portable saw-mills
and some types of road-making machinery. The
'Bryant Engineeiring Company manufactures ma-
chinery for flour-mills, grain elevators, and feed-
grinding plants. Two types of machines are turned
out ; one of these is for the fine grinding of all kinds
of grain, while the other is used to prepare ear corn
for further grinding. The concern reports the con-
struction of approximately 200 grinders and 50

RURAL MANUFACTURES 313

crushers yearly. The Anker Holth Manufacturing
Company manufactures cream-separators. Cadillac
makes a smut-removing machine. At Calumet in
the Upper Peninsula^ there was inaugurated, in 1920,
the construction of an "all-service" truck-body, whose
"adjustable hinge" permits the transformation of the
wagon-box into a platform wagon-bed, or the adjust-
ment of the sides of the body at angles required in
various types of farm work.

Before the advent of the automobile, Michigan was
a large producer of wagons and carriages. The
United States census of manufactures (1914) shows
that in 1904 Michigan produced 174,889 carriages,
valued at $7,784,444 and 52,273 wagons, valued at
$2,352,958. Five years later there was a decline
of 83,331 in the number of carriages, and of 23,553
in the number of wagons manufactured in the State.
By 1914, carriage production had dropped to 25,265
and wagon output to 11,454.

Since the pioneer era, flour and grist-mills have
existed at many points, particularly where water-
power was available. The university city of Ann
Arbor has for more than forty years operated a plant
which manufactures agricultural machinery, for-
merly of many sorts but now exclusively hay-presses.
These hay-presses, which enjoy an established repu-
tation, are of several types, adapted to various serv-
ices, from the baling of alfalfa to. sorghum and
cane. For some years an annual average of some 650
presses has been turned out by the Ann Arbor Ma-

31-i RURAL MICHIGAN

chine Company, and there is a considerable export
business, amounting, in 1919, to about 100 tons,
valued at $75,000.^

The manufacture of woven wire fence is in a re-
markable degree concentrated in Adrian. This is
attributed to the circumstance that J. Wallace Page,
founder of the Page Steel and Wire Company, lo-
cated in Adrian. As has happened in many similar
instances, as with the manufacture of paper at Mon-
roe, employees of this concern, having received train-
ing and experience through their connection there-
with, eventually established themselves in business
on their own account. In 1921, there were five com-
panies manufacturing Avire fencing in this city, whose
aggregate output was estimated at 87,500 tons. Of
this amount the Peerless Wire Fence Company pro-
duced nearly one-half." Adrian is credited with being
the principal manufacturer of woven-wire fencing in
the world, and its exports of this commodity in 1919
were 2,149 tons, valued at $254,336. Exports of
wire fencing are sent to South America, north
Europe, and Cuba.^

Farm machinery is not manufactured in the Upper
Peninsula, but the availability of suitable material
has led to the manufacture of large quantities of
goods closely related to rural requirements. At Es-
canaba a factory is engaged in the making of butter

' Statement by S. C. Case, Ann Arbor Machine Co., and
Detroit and World Trade, 83.

^Statement by The Adrian Wire Fence Co., Inc., April,
1021.

"Detroit and World Trade, Detroit, 1920, 84,

RURAL MANUFACTURES 315

dishes, of which 391,053,000 are reported to have
been produced in 1919. In that year this establish-
ment also turned out 171,262 cases of clothespins,
1,791,000 pie-plates, and 28,832 cases of tooth-picks.

CHArTEE IX

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS

The first care of the pioneer farmer of Michigan
was his home, at least some sort of shelter for the
family against the inclemencies of the weather. This
he was not left to erect unaided. Willing neighbors
and even Indians gathered for the raising. Ample
material was at hand in the forest. Skillfully the
four corners were carried up, even and perpendicular,
and when the roof-trees were in place, a bottle of
whiskey and a loud hurrah dedicated this new wilder-
ness abode. "Shakes," or shingles riven from the
oak, or a covering of bark of elm or basswood kept
out the storm as well as might be, while puncheon
floors, also hewn from the logs, shut out the earth
beneath. Doors swung on wooden or leathern hinges,
while the wooden latch responded to the tug of the
latch-string, which seldom was drawn within, for the
days of tramps and thieves had not yet arrived. One
glazed window was considered very liberal. "At one
end of the house was a hugh fire-place five to six
feet across, the back consisting of flat stone, the
sides or jambs, of curved beams, above which rested
a square stick-chimney, the slender sticks piled up

316

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 317

cob-house fashiou often on the outside of the house.
. . . Stones, or rough and-irons kept large sticks of
wood three and four feet long up out of the ashes.
Over the fire-place swung a great iron crane, or bar,
on which were hung half a dozen, more or less, of
S-shaped pot-hooks and short pieces of chain. These
hooks the house-wife used supporting kettles, pots,
tea-pots and griddles. The crane was swung out,
the kettles hung on the hooks, and back again went
the crane with pots over the fire." ^ Here roasted
pigs, chickens and spare-ribs suspended before the
fire. Baking was done in the brick oven. Johnny-
cake baked well on a small board tipped towards the
fire, while potatoes roasted in hot ashes. Then came
into use baking-tins and tin heat-reflectors. Lastly
arrived crude cook-stoves, "costly, clumsy,, heavy and
inefficient." From the cross-beams supporting the
upper floors hung gun and powder-horn, together
with seed-corn, onions and rings cut from the pump-
kin and destined for service in delicious pumpkin
pies, if the art of the house-wife, under trying cir-
cumstances, was equal to the occasion. The house
was built without nails and with ample ventilation
through the interstices of the logs until these were
closed with mud or moss. The Michigan "one-post"
bedstead puzzled the eastern correspondent of the
settler, according to L. D. Watkins, until they learned
that it was built into the corner of the room with
only its outer corner supported on the upright post
that occasioned its name. A ladder led to the loft
^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," V, 32, 238.

318 RURAL MIC in a AN

above and perhaps another to the unwalled pit that
served as cellar below.

Equally crude was the hand-wrought furniture of
the house. First arose the one-post bedstead. "When
that was finished," Henry Eawland of Clinton County
relates, "my next work was chairs; I split a short
log in two, bored four holes in the round side with a
two-inch augur, and put in four stout sticks for legs,
and set it up, and 1 had a chair for two people; and
then I made another and had enough." For a table
they had a chest, while a broom was produced from
a pole. "A half a yard from the large end of the
pole we sawed into the wood for an inch or so all
around; took the bark off and shaved down long
slender shavings, or splints, till near the end ; lapped
them over and tied them down ; and we had a broom."
The family table was constructed from packing-box
boards.^ Light from within the dwelling came from
the open fire or from candles, made by a process of
dipping candle-wicking into melted tallow with a
sufficient repetition to gain the required diameter.
Eeal progress was achieved with the advent of candle-
molds; just before the Civil War kerosene lamps
appeared. "About 1858," writes R. C. Kedzie, "I
bought my first gallon of kerosene for $1.50, paying
$3 for a glass lamp and chimney for burning the
kerosene. The oil was of an inferior quality as com-
pared with the kerosene of to-day; contained much
naptha ; and gave a disagreeable odor in burning." ^

^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XIX, 621.
^lUd., XXIX, 533.

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 319

It was the terrible accidents arising from the highly
inflammable quality of this early kerosene that con-
strained the legislature to provide for the inspection
of oil.

The Xew Englander or Xew Yorker who brought
his family to the Michigan wilds in the era of pio-
neering, not only gave them a life of primitive sim-
plicity, hardness and toil, but he inflicted on them
the unspeakable loneliness of the wilderness home-
builder. "Our nearest neighbors were on the west,
seven miles," L. D. Watkins writes; "north, four
miles; east, four miles; and south, six miles. Thus
we were nearly in the center of a wilderness about
ten miles in diameter, on which no white man had
ever made a mark since the Government survey."
"No human tongue can tell the hours of loneliness
men and women endured," says the Scotchman, Eob-
ert Malcom, pioneer of Oakland County. "It was
no unusual sight to see the family — old and young —
strike out through the woods to a neighbor's cabin,
a distance of two or three miles, simply to find com-
panionship." "AYe could appreciate, in its full ex-
tent, the solitude, the boundlessness, the sublimity
of this earliest of earth's offspring — the grand, old,
untutored forest," writes Bela Hubbard. "He who
has only traversed woodlands where at every few miles
he meets a road leading to civilized belongings, knows
little of the sense of awe inspired by a forest soli-
tude that has never echoed to the woodman's axe and
where every footstep conducts only into regions more
mysterious and uid^nown." To E. C. Kedzie "it was

320 UlRAL MICHIGAN

woods, woods everywiiere, trackless, savage, terrify-
ing. They seemed to smother ns and we gasped to
drink in the open sky. Go out from onr house in
any direction, it was unbroken forest for long dis-
tances; take the trail eastward, and it was five miles
to the first house. ... Go west and it was six miles
to the home of Harvey Bliss. . . . Strike out north
or south through the lonely woods, and it was twenty
or more miles to a white man." This was the com-
mon situation to the early settlers as related by them-
selves, and they were repeated decade after decade
from Lenawee to Gogebic County, from the shore of
Lake Erie to the shore of Lake Superior.

Nevertheless, life had also its pleasant side for the
wilderness farmers of the olden time. A raising, a
husking or a logging-bee must have its accompani-
ment of conviviality, song and story-telling. There
were "quilting frolics," hurly-burly and kissing
games, with dancing to the fiddled tune of "Zip
Coon" and "Money Musk." Apple-parings and
corn-huskings gave opportunity for contests of speed,
and spelling-matches and debates displayed rustic
_ intellectual prowess. If axmen had their chopping
matches, miners had their drill-running contests,
lieligious meetings, especially revivals and camp-
meetings, which last figure less in the early than in
the later period of settlement, contributed to the
interest in existence, and even funerals were of value
in breaking the monotony of a life not so redundant
with entertainment as the present age. Such enter-
tainments as had place in early rural life were do-

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 321

mestic, for halls and auditoriums belong to a more
prosperous period. Just when the "bowery dance''
appeared is not in the record, but it afforded a quasi-
natural pavilion that had cheapness if not other
qualities to commend it.

Intellectual stimulation was derived through the
debating society. In a rude structure of logs oc-
curred the weekly meetings of "the Atlas Debating
Society/' in primitive Oakland County just as Michi-
gan was entering on statehood. Hither came the
young men from the farms far and near for those
jousts of wit and wisdom that would prepare them
for their destined career at the bar, on the bench
and in the halls of legislation. Hung from the beams
overhead or standing in the corners of the room were
the rifles, whose serviceableness was suggested by the
bowlings of the hungry wolves outside that accom-
panied the voices of the debaters within. The great
fire-place in the foreground gave illumination. It
was useless to speculate whether the farmer's Satur-
day night in town, now spent at the movies and the
ice-cream parlor, is as productive of human qualities
equally as noble and creative. Circumstances are
the masters of men now as then.^

Sparse as was the population in its pioneer epoch,
it was at intervals decimated by malignant pan-
demics, that brought dread and pitiful suffering to
communities only too inadequately provided with
facilities for dealing with these fearful visitations.

'Account of Eno9 Goodrich: "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc.
Collections," XI, 263.

322 RURAL MICHIGAN

It was the cholera in 1832, and the nameless pesti-
lence that struck down men, women and children
in Shiawassee County in 1848, and that afflicted
Oceana County in 1865. The rank vegetation that
moldered on the moist earth was popularly pre-
sumed to yield a fever-laden miasma, when disturbed
by the plow, and even the sap that exuded from the
green logs that formed the walls of the house and
which soured and stank in the heat of summer, was
considered to have a similar capacity for a baneful
influence on the health of the dwellers therein. Even
the waters of the streams were deemed poison-bearing
and productive of a deadly affluvia on occasion. Two
maladies were endemic: the "Michigan rash," which
caused merriment as well as annoyance and lacked
malignity ; and the "shakes," or ague, which was as
characteristic a feature of Michigan pioneer exist-
ence as candles and stick-chimneys. "We could
always tell when tlie ague was coming on," says
A. D. P. Van Buren, "by the premonitory symp-
toms— the yawnings and stretchings; and if the per-
son understood the complaint, he would look at his
finger-nails to see if they were turning blue. No
disease foretold its coming by such unerring signs
as the 'fever 'n ager.' ... At first the yawns and
the stretchings stole upon you so naturally, that for
a time you felt good in giving way to them; but they
were soon followed by cold sensations, that crept
over your system in streaks, faster and faster, and
grew colder and colder as in successful undulations

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 323

they coursed down your back, until you felt like
'a, harp of a thousand strings/ played on by the icy
fingers of old Hiems, who increased the cold chills
until his victim shook like an aspen-leaf, and his
teeth chattered in his jaws. There you laid shaking
in the frigid ague region for an hour or so until you
gradually stole back to a temperate zone. Then com-
menced the warm flashes over your system, which
increased with heat as the former did with cold,
until you reached the torrid region, where you lay
in burning heat, racked with pain in your head and
along your back, for an hour or so, when you began
by degrees to feel less heat and pain, until your
hands grew moist, and you were relieved by a copious
perspiration all over your body, and you got to your
natural feeling again. Getting back to your normal
condition, you felt relieved and happy, and as you
went out doors everything about you was pleasant
and smiling, and you seemed to be walking in a
brighter and happier world. . . . The first question
asked a settler, after he had been here a short time,
was: 'Have you had the ague yet?' If answered in
the negative, the reply would be, 'Well, you will have
It; everybody has it before they have been here long.'
... No one was ever supposed to die with the ague.
It was not considered a sickness. 'He ain't sick;
he's only got the ager,' was a common expression
among the settlers.^ It was many years before the
relation between the mosquito-propagating swamps
* "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," V, 300.

324 RURAL MICHIGAN

and marshes and this pandemic was ascertained and
that not in Michigan but far away in the tropics of
Cuba and Panama.

Public provision in relation to health was not
organized for many years. Physicians were few and
miles apart. The "beat" of Thomas Phillips of
Oceana County extended for fifty miles along the
Lake Michigan shore, and was covered on foot, when
need was. Patients received much more time for
less fee than now. In 1873, under the impetus of
the State medical society, came the establishment
of the State Board of Health, Avith an initial appro-
priation of $4,000. Coincidentally, the State in-
spectorship of oils was designed to protect the pub-
lic against the highly inflammable brands of kerosene
then on the market. Shortly the State Board of
Health was familiarizing the general public with
sanitary principles through the medium of sanitary
conventions. No one claims that health and sanita-
tion in rural communities are adequately provided
for. On September 15, 1920, the Michigan Depart-
ment of Health initiated the organization of a bureau
of child hygiene and public health nursing, which
•contemplated carrying out chiefly a rural program,
since the cities were conceived to be well equipped
to care for their own needs. As planned, work was
to start with the schools, through which access to
the homes would be secured. District conferences to
consider the problems of the rural public health nurse
were scheduled.

By 1920 projects for the improvement of rural

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 325

health conditions under various auspices were under
way in Michigan. The State Department of Health
was conducting a traveling clinic, which combined
a tuberculosis clinic and one for children. It was
the purpose of the latter to discover remediable de-
fects in children and to afford an opportunity for
examination for tuberculosis. As a result of these
clinics, several county nurses reported that physical
defects, siTch as defective vision, adenoids and en-
larged tonsils, have been corrected. The Michigan
Anti-Tuberculosis Association, in 1920, conducted a
series of clinics in rural districts, in cooperation with
the farm bureaus. The report of such a clinic held
in Manistee County runs thus : Number of thorough
chest examinations, 28; positive tuberculosis, 7; sus-
picious tuberculosis, 7 ; negative tuberculosis, 14 ; ex-
amination of school children, including mouth, nose
and throat examinations, 82 ; enlarged glands, 73 ;
decaying teeth, 57 ; goiters, 36 ; enlarged tonsils, 58 ;
adenoids, 33 ; defective hearing, 5 ; temperature ex-
ceeding 99 degrees, 34.

During the first six months of 1920, tuberculosis
clinics by the Michigan Anti-Tuberculosis Association
were held in eleven counties, when this work was
assumed by the State Department of Health. Num-
bers of counties, including Ingham, Kent, Muske-
gon, Berrien, Bay and Saginaw, have established their
own clinics, and the attendance is said greatly to
exceed the facilities. The present plan of work for
the local anti-tuberculosis societies which have been
organized in various sections involves cooperation

326 RURAL MICHIGAN

with tlic State society, use of the local newspaper
puhlicity, the sale of seals to finance the work, edu-
cation through health talks, clinics, health plays,
pageants and movies, distribution of literature, es-
tablishment of hot school lunches and the promotion
of a constant health crusade. In April, 1921, there
were twenty-nine local anti-tuberculosis societies in
Michigan, in addition to forty-two tuberculosis com-
mittees of clubs and other organizations.

As evidence of the increasing interest in the health
of the people, urban and rural, public health nurses
are now maintained in many localities throughout
the two peninsulas. In April, 1921, they were re-
ported from fifty of the eighty-three counties of the
State. The State Department of Health then had
listed 266 public health nurses, under various desig-
nations, such as county nurse, visiting nurse, indus-
trial nurse, Eed Cross public health nurse and school
nurse. Of some the field work was country wide; of
others, local.

The director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene and
Public Health Nursing of the Michigan Department
of Health summarizes the work of the bureau as
follows : "Sanilac County is planning to have the
services of a dentist for two months during the
summer months to do work among the rural school
children. St. Clair County is equipping a Health
Truck for this purpose which goes about over the
county during the entire summer. On this truck
the local merchants are buying space for their ad-
vertisements, which help materially in making the

RURAL LiriXG COXDITIO^S 327

truck almost self-supporting. Lapeer County lias
organized a special piece of work in infant welfare,
where regular well-baby conferences are held, dis-
tributed geographically throughout the county so
that all the rural districts of the county are cov-
ered. This is being carried on satisfactorily. Ee-
quests for our prenatal letters are increasing and dur-
ing the past two months the Bureau of Child Hy-
giene has reached, through talks and demonstrations,
from eight to ten thousand people, mostly children,
because it is in our school children we have hopes
for Public Health work."

Eural nursing in Kent County (the second most
populous county of the State) was organized in 1915.
Dental hygiene was featured and a portable equip-
ment adapted for use in the rural schools was ac-
quired with the financial aid of the Anti-Tuberculosis
Society. Eventually (1919) the county board of
supervisors assumed responsibility for the dental
clinics. A dentist was employed and the county
nurse made local arrangements for the clinic. There
is a preliminary home visitation to establish a good
understanding with the parents.^

During the World War, the Michigan Division of
the Women's Committee of the Council of National
Defense operated an inter-urban car equipped as
a traveling child welfare exhibit and a weighing and
measuring center. It was transported without charge
by the three principal inter-urban companies of the
State. This "Children's Year Special'' carried a

^Public Hcallh, Lansing, Feb., 1921, 64.

328 RURAL MICHIGAN

staff of three to five persons, including the executive
secretary of the child welfare department, a physi-
cian, two trained nurses and a chart-maker. This
project is credited with the warm cooperation of
the ]\Iichigan Department of Health. Thousands
are reported to have visited the car, bringing babies
and young children for examination, at the fifty-two
places where the "Special" stopped for periods in
duration from two to forty-eight hours.^ "By visit-
ing Special," runs the report, "numbers of people re-
ceived their first insight into child welfare work.
Some towns where little or no child welfare work
was in progress decided to immediately undertake
something in that line." All committees are re-
ported to have stated that the visiting "Special"
greatly stimulated interest in child welfare. The
equipment of the car included an exhibit of posters
and other publicity material, a display of good and
bad toys, a model layette, and a "Don't" table. Here
were visible sermons against the use of pacifiers, long-
necked nursing bottles, pickles, doughnuts, tea, cof-
fee and sausage as applied to children. Literature of
child hygiene was freely distributed.
- Numbers of Michigan counties now maintain pub-
lic health nurses whose ministrations are primarily
to the inhabitants of the villages and the country,
since the cities are likely to provide for their own
needs. The University of Michigan, in the fall term
of 1920, inaugurated a course in the training of pub-

'Rept. of Caroline Bartlett Crane: Childrens Bureau,
Washington.

RURAL LIVING CONDITIONS 329

lie health nurses, of which the first semester's work
is theoretical and is carried on at the University,
while the second semester provides field work in
Detroit. The problem of providing health officials
possessed of medical knowledge and experience for
the rural sections has long concerned the State De-
partment of Health, which has sought to persuade
the legislature to abolish the present system, which
allows local officials, chiefly the township supervisors,
wholly devoid of medical science, to serve as the
health officer, in favor of a system of full-time phy-
sicians in every county of the State.

The question is sometimes raised regarding the
relative prevalence of insanity and other mental dis-
orders in rural as compared with urban communities.
It is recognized that the greater loneliness and mo-
notony attending rural life may intensify a ten-
dency toward psychopathic conditions in certain indi-
viduals. As a countervailing influence, the greater
prevalence of psychoses arising from alcoholism,
syphilis and drug addiction among city dwellers is
noted by the superintendents of the State hospitals
of Michigan. There is a general agreement among
these superintendents that, when proper allowances
have been considered, there is no definite evidence
of a preponderating amount of insanity in rural,
as against urban, districts.

In 1914 a special State commission investigated
feeble-mindedness, epilepsy and insanity in Michi-
gan. The investigation brought out that the district
with the largest number of admissions of persons to

;33U RURAL MICHIGAN

institutions for this class had a population ranging
from 2,000 to 5,000. The lowest number was from
strictly rural populations. Of admissions to the
State hospitals, cities of 10,000 or over contributed
G8.5 per cent of the cases of insanity due to syphilis,
and 66.6 per cent of those resulting from alcoholism
or drugs. On the other hand, among the cases of
mental disorder arising from personal peculiarities
rather than environment, 55.4 per cent of epilepsy
and feeble-mindedness, and 58.6 per cent of all cases
of manic depressive insanity admitted to Michigan
State hospitals come from districts having a popu-
lation of less than 10,000, according to the investi-
gators ; while 43.5 per cent of the cases of manic de-
pressive insanity, and 42.17 per cent of cases of
epilepsy and feeble-mindedness come from districts
of .2,000 or less. It was found that dementia prgecox
was slightly more prevalent from these smaller dis-
tricts. Likewi^iC, senile dementia had 41.9 per cent
of admissions from districts with less than 2,000
population.^

Followino- the War, the Eed Cross undertook work
in line with its particular objects, a phase of which
"is related to rural connnunitics of the State. Thus
in Oakland County, work in five departments was
planned: public health, social welfare. Junior Red
Cross, first aid, and home service. The plan con-
templated the division of the county into eight zones
composed of groups of school districts. In each zone
a health center was designed, with a Red Cross nurse

'Feeblemindedness, etc., in Mich., Lansing, 1915, p. 21.

RURAL LIYIXG CONDITIONS 331

in residence and where an office would be maintained.
A Ford automobile was to be provided each nurse.
Traveling clinics were to visit each health center regu-
larly. Under the direction of the American Eed
Cross, each zone was financed for one year, after
the expiration of which period it was hoped that
each zone would provide its own funds through a
school tax. There was to be a public health nurse
and a social welfare worker with county-wide juris-
diction. It M^as purposed that the home service work
should be continued for a considerable period in
order to care for the former service men. The Junior
Eed Cross feature of the plan was not carried out,
and it is as yet too early to write definitely regard-
ing the other features of the program. Eed Cross
work of this general character is reported from
Muskegon and other counties.

CHAPTER X

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

If the rural debating society is a thing of the past,
it is not thus with the agricultural fair, which also
dates back to the early days of Michigan agriculture.
The promotion of fairs was an object of the Michigan
State Agricultural Society organized under an act
of the State legislature of 1849, "for the purpose
of promoting the improvement of agriculture and its
kindred arts.'' ^ The society's constitution made pro-
vision for a president, for a vice-president in each
organized county and for a corresponding secretary in
each such county to be affiliated with the State society
as well as the local county agricultural society. The
State society was to hold an annual fair, and its
executive committee was to provide premiums "on
such articles, productions and improvements as they
may deem best calculated to promote the agricultural
and household manufacturing interests of the state,
having special reference to the most economical or
popular mode of competition in raising the crops
or stock or in the fabrication of the articles offered."
The county agricultural societies were deemed "auxil-
iaries" of the State society. The right to establish

>"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1859.

332

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 333

county, township or district agricultural societies
was specifically recognized by the statutes, which
should have the power to possess real estate for the
furtherance of their objects, and to issue bonds for
the purchase of land and the erection of buildings;
and a tax levy in aid of such societies was authorized,
whose proceeds were to be apportioned by the county
boards of supervisors.

These early statutes for the promotion of Michi-
gan agriculture are in effect today, and the county
fairs, which were a principal activity of these socie-
ties, are still very popular throughout both penin-
sulas both for the urban and the rural population.
At the ninth annual fair of the Berrien County
Agricultural Society, held at Xiles during three
September days of 1859, there were 648 entries, in-
cluding 72 horses of class A, and 50 horses of class
B ; 7 of trotting horses ; 4 entries of Durham cattle ;

15 of Devon cattle; 32 of "natives and grades"; 17
of sheep ; 7 of swine ; 14 of poultry ; 24 of field crops ;
72 of vegetables; 32 of fruit; 4 of cooperage; 23 of
farming implements; 3 of manufactures of grain;
14 of manufactures of leather ; 12 of horseshoes and
shoeing; 4 of domestic manufactures; 46 of domestic
manufactures — ladies; 17 of needle and shell work;

16 of painting and drawing; 67 of bread, preserves;
5 of flowers and house-plants; 16 of dairy products;
45 of miscellaneous articles.^ "The third day," says
the secretary's report, "the fair opened with a grand
exhibition of horses, followed by an exhibition of

»"Rcpt. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1859, 323.

33-i RURAL MICHIGAN

cattle arranged in classes. At 2 o'clock P. M, an
able address was delivered by Hon, Francis W. Shear-
man of Marshall. Then followed a trial of trotting
horses and female equestrianism. . . . The pre-
miums awarded amounted to over $500 which were
all paid in cash." The society owned seven acres
of ground within the city limits of j^iles "enclosed
with a substantial fence," and "handsomely fitted
up." In the same year there were 870 entries at the
Hillsdale County fair, 952 at the St. Clair County
agricultural fair, and the Washtenaw County fair
numbered l,fi52 entries in that year. Among the
exhibits at this fair in 1859 was a pair of oxen weigh-
ing 4,000 pounds and a cow "said to give sixty-five
pounds of milk a day."' The Ann Arbor Local News
of October 18 notes that "the general interest in
wool-growing was manifest in the large and choice
assortment of sheep exhibition." The sheep were
chiefly of the Spanish Merino, Silesian and South-
down breeds, the paper reports. Then there was a
floral and a fine art display, in the latter depart-
ment appearing "E. H. Crane's revolving, self-setting
game and rat-trap." The paper observes that rat-
catching is surely a "fine art," as pursued by this
device which when set would "catch a rat, kill him,
throw him away in a box and set itself for another,
and so continue to do until it has caught fourteen."
In the implement exhibit at this fair, there caught
the attention of the assembled farmers "Rirdsall and
Brokaw's combined Clover-thresher, Huller and
Cleaner," which "threshes, hulls and cleans from

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIEli 335

four to six bushels per hour, and wastes not a kernel."
The agent for the thresher also had on exhibition
"Hallock's Combined Cross-cut and Circular Saw-
mill, . . . made simple and strong, easy to operate
and not liable to get out of order.'' U. B. Daley of
Salem exhibited "a one-horse clover-picker," while
Messrs. Dow and Covert were on hand with their
"eight-horse power threshing machine,"" of light
draft and run "first by two span, then by a single
span, and finally by a single horse." Forsbee's Pat-
ent, Cast Iron Cultivator, constructed on the jointed
parallelogram principle, costing only ten dollars,
had five teeth and a coulter and could be set at va-
rious widths. A. D. Hoffman of Belleville had on
exhibition "a model of his late patent hand-power
cider mill, a new thing," and "one of those ingenious
improvements which are objects of interest to every
farmer." The machine was built in two sizes, whereby
with one "a man can make a barrel of cider in two
arid a half hours, with the other two barrels in the
same time," and a ten-year-old boy could operate
either. "The celebrated Buckeye ]\Iower that carried
off the first premium of the TJ. S. Agricultural So-
ciety at their trial in Syracuse in 1857, was on ex-
hibition." "Cook's Sugar Evaporator" was another
"success" of the fair, which "produced the nicest
sirup from the cane in al)out thirty minutes."

Equally notable was the vegetable exhibit. It
contained a specimen of the "California pie-melon,"
which weighed, it was understood, thirty or forty
pounds on occasion, "keeps two years without diffi-

336 RURAL MICHIGAN

culty and makes a pie difficult to distinguish from
apple." There were speeches and band-music, and
"it was a goodly sight to see the sturdy yeomanry
thus gathered together, and happily nothing occurred
to mar the pleasure or dim the splendor of the day,"
for the eight thousand or more who were in at-
tendance.^

This was not the first fair held in Ann Arbor.
Twenty years before a "state fair" had been called
there for the autumn of 1839, and thither appeared,
it is said, only two exhibitors on the grounds which
lacked everything but space that a fair requires.
After issuing the announcement of the event, the
president of the agricultural society had forgotten
the appointed date and hence omitted the necessary
preparations. About 1870 the State Pomological
Society held its first fair on the grounds of the Kent
County Agricultural Society.^

Today the West IMichigan State Fair, held at
Grand Eapids, shares interest with the Michigan
State Fair at Detroit as the dominant event of the
year in Michigan agriculture. Much of the descrip-
.tion of either fair today, as well as the local fairs,
might be taken from the accounts of similar events
seventy years ago. with such modifications and addi-
tions as the passage of the years would suggest.
Electricity, farm motors, talking machines, social
work, governmental activities are represented now
as contrasted with the earlier epoch. The Grand

^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1859, 585.
''Ibid., 1870, 349.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 337

Eapids fair of 1920 "was a regular fair — the big
West Michigan show hekl in Grand Rapids, Sep-
tember 20-24, judged by any standards, crowds,
noise, midways, hot-dogs, big pumpkins, fine stock,
patchwork quilts, commercial exhibits, small boys
under foot and daring aviatress overhead." ^ Time
has seen the elimination of many village fairs, which
a generation or more ago had place in rural com-
munities of the State. Even these miniature events
had keen interest for the people of the country-side,
as some middle-aged folks can still plainly recall.
All the family went. The children's shoes must be
neatly blackened in a row, the evening before, against
the early hour that all must rise and go wagon-wise
to the great event in town. There. Taffy, Punch and
Judy, and the antics of a clown vied in popular in-
terest with the products of domestic skill and the
field and pasture. Counties still have their annual
autumnal fairs, even those by the Lake Superior
shore, and the agricultural displays at the Houghton
or Escanaba fairs in the Upper Peninsula show a
remarkable variety and quality of the products of
the northern farmsteads.

For the purpose of extending State aid to agri-
cultural fairs in Michigan, the legislature of 1915
established the Michigan Agricultural Fair Com-
mission, on which the State Board of Agriculture,
the Michigan State Agricultural Society, the Michi-
gan State Grange, the Ancient Order of Gleaners,
the Michigan State Association of Farmers Clubs,

^ Michigan Farmer, Oct. 9, 1920, 440.

338 RURAL MICHIGAN

and the West Michigan State Fair Association were
to have representation. This commission was to de-
termine the financial assistance to be rendered fairs
thioughout the State and an initial appropriation
of $50,000 was provided to this end, a sum raised to
$75,000 in 1919.

The ]\Iichigan State Grange of the Order of Pa-
trons of Husbandry was incorporated by an act of the
legislature in 1875. At the same time provision was
made for the incorporation of county and subordinate
granges, which incorporation is enjoined among local
granges by the constitution and by-laws of the order.
The State Grange is affiliated with the National
Grange, and is in turn affiliated with county and
subordinate granges. The work of each grange is
ritualistic in accordance with the ritual appropriate
for the grade of each in the order. For the granges
of each class a corps of officials is provided consist-
ing of a master, overseer, lecturer, secretary, steward
and other officers, some of whom receive compensa-
tion in accordance with the declared preference of
the organic law for low salaries, interest and profits.
The declared object of the order as expressed in
file preamble of its constitution is "for mutual in-
struction and protection, to lighten labor by dif-
fusing a knowledge of its aims and purposes, expand
the mind by tracing the beautiful laws the Great
Creator has established in the Universe, and to en-
large our views of creative wisdom and power." The
order takes its position on the principle that "the
soil is the source from whence we derive all that

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 339

constitutes wealth. . . . The art of agriculture is
the parent and precursor of arts, and its products
the foundation of all wealth." The Grange exists to
promote knowledge of these natural laws that under-
lie production and to strengthen and encourage its
membership through their mutual association. Aside
from the social and educational aspect o'f its work,
the Grange in Michigan has promoted cooperative
marketing through its local and central organizations,
and has also seen established under its a?gis several
farmers' mutual fire insurance companies, and has
directly fostered the organization of a life insurance
company, whose insurance in force, December 31,
19-20, amounted to $11,382,405.56. One-half the
number of policy holders are farmers. Its annual
meetings afford the State Grange an opportunity
for formulating and espousing policies with reference
to taxation, marketing, education and production in
which the farmers of the State are presumed to be
especially interested. The State Grange has thus
taken favorable action in relation to a State income
tax and a tonnage tax for mines, favored acts in aid
of agricultural education both locally and at the
Michigan Agricultural College, promoted prohibi-
tion and women's suffrage and, at one time, a State
warehouse for marketing farm products.

By no means all the farmers or all farming com-
munities of the State are affiliated with the Grange.
The 638 subordinate granges of Michigan in 1920
had 41,567 members, enrolled as reported by the
secretary. Nor is membership uniformly distributed

3-10 RURAL MICHIGAN

throughout tlic two peninsulas. Of the aggregate
number, ninety-one granges are located in the Upper
reninsula,with the counties of Delta, Chippewa and
Marquette in the lead. The largest Grange member-
ships are in the counties of Allegan, Branch, Eaton,
Kent, Lenawee and Muskegon, each of which has
more than one thousand members, Lenawee leading
with 3,019 in 1920.

The Grange Mutual Fire Insurance Company of
Michigan, Limited, whose secretarial office is at Ros-
common, employs the executive committee of the
State Grange as the final court of appeal in case
of disputes concerning the adjustment of losses. This
company was organized in 1913 and reports (April,
1921) nearly six million dollars of insurance in force.
The company writes what is designated the "rodded''
and the "unrodded" classes of insurance. In 1920
it reported losses of $13,376.62. Officers are elected
and amendments to the by-laws are made by members
voting by mail from their own granges. The com-
pany operates on the "advance assessment" plan, and
in case of loss pays three-fourths of the value, except
with live-stock killed by lightning, when full value
is allowed.

The Patrons Mutual Fire Insurance Company,
whose office is at Lansing, is also closely associated
with the Grange, although the latter is not finan-
cially responsible for it. The company writes three
classes of business : the "roddcd" and the "unrodded"
on the annual assessment plan, each policy being
assessed on the anniversary date; and in the third

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 341

class, a policy is written for a term of one, three or
five years and the premium is paid in advance. In
this class are received all types of property permis-
sible under the Act of 1919, the company confining
its membership to the Grange; and, in order that
insurance might be continued, it was required that
members' dues be paid in the subordinate Grange.
The same requirement now obtains for classes 1 and
2. Only members of the company have a vote in its
affairs, although formed imder the auspices of the
Michigan State Grange. In April, 1921, this com-
pany reported some $24,000,000 of insurance in
force, and losses were running at the rate of about
$50,000 annually. On December 31, 1920, 8,130
policies were in force.

The Ancient Order of Gleaners has been operat-
ing in Michigan for upwards of thirty years, and in
1921 it had eighty thousand members in Michigan,
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The organization's life
insurance department has paid out some seven million
dollars in benefits and reported assets in April, 1921,
of $1,347,680. Its Cooperative Mutual Fire Insur-
ance Company, conducted as are other mutual in-
surance companies, carried risks of twenty-four mil-
lion dollars. In April, 1921, there were reported 990
local "arbors" in Michigan. The counties having the
largest number of members were then Tuscola, Sani-
lac, Huron, Lapeer, St. Clair, Genesee, Saginaw,
Isabella, Montcalm, Gratiot, Oakland, Midland, Liv-
ingston, Shiawassee and Mecosta.

The Gleaner Clearing House Association is or-

342 nuRAL MICH in Ay

ganized nntler the "Cooperative Law" of 1917, for
the enactment of which the Order claims the credit.
This statute provides that "any number of persons,
not less than five, desiring to become incorporated
for the purpose of conducting any agricultural,
dairy, mercantile, manufacturing or mechanical
business in the State of Michigan upon a cooperative
plan or in accordance with the principles of co-
operation, may associate themselves as a cooperative
corporation, company, association, society or ex-
change, and by complying with the provisions of
this act, they and their successors and assigns may
become a body politic and incorporate." Section 10
states that "the stock, property, aifairs and business
of every corporation organized under the provisions
of this act shall be managed by a board of not less
than five directors, who shall be stockholders, and
shall be chosen annually by the stockholders at such
time and place as shall be provided by the by-laws
of said corporation." The directors choose the presi-
dent, secretary and treasurer and other officers. The
amount of stock held by an individual may be lim-
ited by the by-laws of the corporation. The by-laws
are required to provide for the payment of divi-
dends (not to exceed 7 per cent), accumulation of re-
serve fund, and the division of profits on the co-
operative plan among members doing business with
the corporation ; and they may provide for coopera-
tive dividends to non-members. Distribution of
profits must be annual or at a shorter interval.
Under this act, the Gleaner's iVssociation owns and

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 343

operates twenty-six elevators and buying stations
in Michigan, and also two in Ohio. The business is
managed and financed from the central office at Grand
Eapids. The authorized capital stock is $1,000,000.
On December 31, 1921, the reported value of the
land, buildings and merchandise owned by the asso-
ciation was $467,809.-19. The equipment was valued
at $38,991.76. The total capital assets were given
as $506,801.25 ; and the total current assets as $497,-
720.92. This made an aggregate of assets of $1,004,-
522.17. During the year the association is reported
to have handled about $6,000,000 worth of farm
products. The shares of stock are for ten dollars
each and are all owned by farmers. Even the gen-
eral manager owns only one share. Each stockholder
has but one vote regardless of the quantity of stock
held.^

The Michigan State Association of Farmers
Clubs, "believing that the social, moral, intellectual
and financial condition of the farmer is advanced by
local organization of Farmers' Clubs, and that the
organization of other local clubs will be promoted
by a central or state association of clubs already in
existence," has adopted a constitution which pro-
vides for a president, vice-president, secretary, treas-
urer, and six directors. The annual meeting is held
in Lansing at a date determined by the executive
committee. Each member club is required to pay to
the State Association dues amounting to fifty cents
for the family membership thereof, the aggregate of

* Statement of Grant Slocum, President, April, 1921.

344 RURAL MICHIGAN

which must not fall below five dollars a club. The
membership roll of the State Association in 1920
names sixty-three local clubs chiefly in the east-
central and southeastern counties of the southern
peninsula (Clinton and Shiawassee counties lead-
ing). The aggregate reported membership of the
local clubs amounted to 3,178. It was expected that
the State Association would serve as a clearing-house
for ideas related to agriculture and would enable the
united membership to promote its interests more ef-
fectively. A glimpse of the subjects in which the
federation is concerned is obtained in the resolutions
adopted at its annual meeting of 1920. These in-
clude a recommendation of increased State aid for
rural schools and the consolidation of rural school
districts; approbation of the Michigan State police,
particularly for its activity in enforcing the dog-
license law, control of automobile traffic on the pub-
lic highways and the enforcement of the prohibition
law, and the general protection of property; and a
recommendation that the force be continued and ade-
quately supported; and a similar resolution in re-
gard to the Livestock Sanitary Commission was
adopted. Ample legislative appropriations for the
Michigan Agricultural Coll<?ge were commended,
while the project of a State soil survey was en-
dorsed. Similar action was taken in regard to the
State Department of Health and the Anti-Tubercu-
losis Society. On the other hand, the State's box-
ing law, which legalizes "the disgraceful, demoral-
izing and degrading business of boxing," was as-

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 345

sailed and its repeal requested of the legislature.
In the realm of national affairs, the Great Lakes-St.
Lawrence deep waterway was indorsed, an em-
bargo on wool, woolens, sheep products and beans
was requested, the "full enforcement'' of the national
prohibition law was demanded, a tariff was requested,
"which shall protect the American farmer on cattle,
wheat, beans and milk, in competition with cheap
labor in other countries"; and Congress was asked
to stiffen the requirements for the admission of im-
migrants to the United States. The outlawry of the
"insidious practice" of speculating in farm products
on the board of trade was demanded of Congress.

A statute of 1871 provided that any five or more
persons associated together to promote the interests
of pomology^, horticulture, agriculture and kindred
arts and sciences, may incorporate as a local or state
organization. The Michigan State Horticultural So-
ciety was organized in 1870, whose declared object
is "to encourage among the people a greater love for
choice fruit products; to awaken a larger interest in
Michigan's horticultural possibilities, and to offer
practical suggestions along modern cultural and
marketing methods." The membership reported in
June, 1921, is about 675. Its work is purely educa-
tional and aims at relating science to horticulture
with a view to "bring the grower and his needs and
the scientists with their research work together for
the development of the horticultural interests and
meet the needs of the growers in solving the problems
and raising the standards of the horticultural prod-

34G RURAL MICHIGAN

nets in Michigan." Each year two or three meet-
ings are held in different sections of the State in
order to cast the influence of the society as far as
possible.

Societies for the marketing of agricultural prod-
ucts are discussed in Chapter VII.

CHAPTER XI

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES OF MICHIGAN

The farmer folks who spread over the primeval
Michigan wilderness a century ago had regard for
education and only primitive means of securing it.
The school-house was literallj^ of wood in every par-
ticular, each element in its construction hand-made
and home-made — the walls of logs cobbed up tier
upon tier, the roof of shakes supported on long
transverse poles, the floor of puncheons, the desks
and benches of slabs, the door swung on wooden
hinges and held by a wooden latch that answered
to the leathern latch string, oiled paper often in
lieu of glass in the windows, wooden beams even in
the fire-place and mud-covered sticks in the chim-
ney. There was ample ventilation, if less warmth.
A miscellaneous assortment of text-books, outnum-
bered oftentimes by the users of them, had come
with the settlers from their eastern homes. Web-
ster's Spelling Book and Daboll's Arithmetic were
certain to have place among them. The teacher's
fitness for his task was ascertained by a com-
mittee of school inspectors whose qualifications were
likewise primitive, and, in addition to his instruc-
torial duties;, the master must be competent to

347

348 RURAL EIICIIIGAN

thrash his oldest pupils, male and female, to set a
good copy, to be his own janitor and to mend the
quill pens of his students. The wild life of the ad-
jacent forest, Indians, insects, birds and reptiles,
were likely to call occasionally and trouble the rou-
tine of the pioneer school. The summer term was
less trying to the teacher, since the labor of the
older pupils was required on the farm at home.
Compensation was according to the standards of the
age and circumstances. It often ran as low as eight
dollars a month, but boarding round reduced the
cost of living to the minimum. The cash income
of the school district was derived from the bene-
ficiaries of the school in accordance with a scale of
tuition based on a count of heads and the attend-
ance record. The rate-bill presented the amount due
from each parent until, in 1869, legislation abol-
ished it in favor of free schooling, nineteen years
after the second State constitution had enjoined
provision for free education on the legislature.

Almost at the outset of the State's existence, the
grant of the sixteenth section of every township,
provided by the United States in favor of the State
itself rather than each local school district as else-
where, had established the foundation of the State's
present primary school interest fund, later aug-
mented by the proceeds from the grant of the so-
called swamp lands already adverted to in a previous
chapter. The net cash returns from the sale of these
lands have been invested, partly at the rate of 7 per
cent interest, partly at 5 per cent, which interest re-

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 349

turn alone can be expended, and that only for school
puriDoses, chiefly teachers' salaries. Many rural
schools of Michigan, as well as urban, particularly
those in poor sparsely peopled regions, have been
greatly helped by the State aid arising from this
fund, especially since its augmentation by the addi-
tion thereto of railroad and other similar taxes has
made it amount to several million dollars every year,
distributed through the office of the superintendent
of public instruction to each school district in pro-
portion to its population of children between the ages
of five and nineteen years inclusive.

The early constitution and laws of the State like-
wise made provision for libraries designed to serve
rural as well as urban needs, and financial assistance
for them was contained in the provision for the dis-
tribution of income derived from fines imposed in
the courts for violation of the penal laws. The pro-
vision of reading matter through local rural libraries
still leaves something to be desired, but the exten-
sion of the service of the State Library at Lansing
into all parts of the State desiring it, and, in a very
few instances, of city libraries into outlying por-
tions of the county, has done something to amelio-
rate the rural reading facilities. In 1917 the legis-
lature permitted county boards of supervisors to
establish libraries or to contract with existing li-
braries for county service. In that year the super-
visors of St. Clair County authorized a contract with
the Port Huron Public Library for service to the
county. In 1921 this Port Huron Library was thus

350 RURAL MICHIGAN

receiving two thousand dollars from the county.
Six stations were established outside the city to
handle books for this service. The total county cir-
culation through these branches from October 1,
1919, to October 1, 1920, is reported to have been
10,543 volumes. A similar arrangement exists in
Menominee County between the county and the Spies
Public Library of Menominee. There are thirty
branch libraries (October, 1920), located in drug and
general stores, a cheese factory, a school and ice-
cream parlor and a residence. During the first six
months, with some branches operating for a shorter
period, there was a county circulation of 11,127.
As illustrative of the favor shown locally to this
service, Stephenson, a hamlet in a well-developed
rural neighborhood, received 225 books which gave
a circulation for the first three months of 1170, of
which 633 were juvenile, and 537 adult reading. By
vote of the supervisors, the county undertook to
maintain one-half the expense of maintenance of
the Spies Public Library, provided the county's
share did not exceed $5,000. County service began
in February, 1920. The books are distributed in
containers constructed to serve as book-shelves at
stations.

The first Michigan schools were district, com-
prising fractions of townships a few miles square.
No effort at relating rural school curriculums to the
agricultural environment or requirements was made.
Reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling, sometimes
grammar and geography, were serviceable to every-

EDUCATIOXAL EXTERPRISE.^ 351

body. The select-school, academy, union school or
branch of the State University in town gave oppor-
tunity for additional schooling to such as were am-
bitious for it. As a social center, the pioneer rural
school functioned chiefly in spellings-down and de-
bating. The multiplicity of schools in every town-
ship divided local resources, both tutorial and ma-
terial, and obviously impoverished the whole educa-
tional effort of rural Michigan. In 1891 and 1909
the legislature outlined and made possible township
unit schools, involving the consolidation of existing
one-room district schools into larger plants employ-
ing instructors with higher training and compensa-
tion. The southern rural communities of the State,
however, were extremely slow in adopting this new
and optional system, which made progress more rap-
idly in the Upper Peninsula, particularly in the min-
ing and lumbering sections where local conditions
were more favorable and where leadership was more
definitely in the hands of the most enlightened per-
sons of the community.

There remained lack of proper provision for dis-
tinctly agricultural education for rural children, and
the establishment of a school at Otter Lake, Hough-
ton County, with positive provision for laboratory
and field work for boys and girls below the high-
school grade, seems to have inaugurated in 1912 a
new era in rural education in ]\Iichigan. In 1917 the
State legislature was persuaded to extend financial
aid to such schools wherever established, and, after
the re-enactment of the law in 1919 and 1921 to

352 RURAL MICHIGAN

correct errors in its drafting, a large number of
consolidated rural schools teaching agriculture and
domestic science sprang up even more rapidly in the
southern peninsula than in the northern. (See Plate
VIII.)

The consolidated rural school act in its present
form as it came from the session of 1921, enables
the county commissioner of schools, acting in behalf
of three or more existing school districts or the board
of education in township districts to submit the
question of consolidating such separate districts and
of establishing therein, or in an existing township
district, a rural agricultural school. In the school
which follows the adoption of such a proposal by
the qualified voters, provision is made for instruc-
tion in domestic science, manual training and agri-
culture. Such a school has at least five acres of
land and a corps of teachers, engaged for at least
nine months of the year, and qualified to give in-
struction in agriculture, domestic science and
manual training. The State aid is $1,000 a year,
and also $400 for each vehicle employed in the trans-
portation of pupils.

The original school, at Otter Lake, had done much
to introduce progressive agricultural methods and
to Americanize an isolated rural community of Fin-
nish people. It had demonstrated the value and
method of land clearing, promoted the introduction
of progressive practices in agriculture (tillage and
stock-raising) and served as a community center
for persons otherwise wholly without such facilities.

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 353

While the two acts for the establishment of town-
ship unit districts in the Upper Peninsula and for
the whole State respectively had improved rural edu-
cation through the abandonment of small inade-
quately supported districts, they lacked the essen-
tial and distinctive training in agriculture for the
children of the countryside. Thus the adoption of
the rural agricultural school under the acts of 1917
and 1919, if generally followed everywhere in rural
Michigan, would undoubtedly revolutionize Michigan
agriculture and rural life within a generation. As
yet, only a fair beginning can be said to have been
made.^

It is notorious that the quality of rural school in-
struction is much below that of urban communities.
Until recently, normal training was not a prerequi-
site to the granting of permission to teach in the
schools of Michigan, and, up to 1921, only six weeks
of such training were required. Untrained teachers
were most commonly found in tlie country schools,
where they were extremely young and inexperienced
as well. An educational expert of the department
of public instruction estimates that 21 per cent of
the teachers of the State held third grade (signify-
ing lowest grade) and special certificates in 1920,
and that another 24 per cent were holders of second
grade certificates. Teachers of this class are more
common in the rural than in the village and city
schools. It is estimated, on the other hand, that

'Mich. Dept. Public Instruction: Consolidated Schools,
Lansing, 1919.

354 RURAL MICHIGAN

200,000 children were then being taught in the
7,280 rural schools where such inexpert instruction
was in order. It is estimated that 65 per cent of the
one-room rural schools of Michigan maintain in-
struction during nine months of the year, 21 per
cent for eight months, 10 per cent for seven months,
and -f per cent for less than seven months. Forty-
nine per cent of such schools is estimated to main-
tain ventilating systems. Forty-eight per cent was
below the department's standard of size. Sixty per
cent had two-side cross-lighting, and 25 per cent
three- or four-side cross-lighting. Only 34 per cent of
the schools had the requisite quantity of natural
light — a ratio of window-space to floor-space of one to
five being the approved standard. Even schools with
the standard quantity of natural light frequently had
it improperly distributed. Medical inspection and
school nursing were very largely lacking.^

On the positive side, it may be stated that the
general laws of the State, as related to rural schools,
provide for compulsory attendance; county normal
training schools for the training of rural school
teachers; a uniform and approved course of study;
physical education in all schools, with required in-
struction in districts of more than 3,000 popula-
tion; fire-drills; the approval of the plans of all
school buildings costing over $300, by the depart-
ment of public instruction of the State; for ventila-

* Rural Education in Mich. : Mich. State Teachers' Assoc,
pub. Kalamazoo, Oct., 1920.

EDUCATIOXAL EXTERPRISEt^ 355

tioii in the case of all new and replaced heating sys-
tems ; for the use of school buildings and grounds as
community centers and for entertainment; for the
instruction of school officials by experts of the State
department of public instruction and for the payment
of the tuition of rural school pupils desiring to at-
tend high-schools outside the district and for their
transportation thereto.

The educational leaders of the State recognize that
the fundamental defect in the Michigan rural school
situation is the small district, which involves gross
inequalities in taxable resources as compared with
urban districts^, and hence inadequate provision of
whatever is essential in a progressive effective school
system. There are counties in vdiich the township
valuations run as high as nearly $14,000 for a child
of school age resident therein, and others in which
such valuations fall as low as $600. Obviously such
a situation involves great divergence in the tax rate
and limits the income availal)le for school purposes
so that equality of educational opportunity is im-
possible. The remedy is in a larger school district
and hence enlarged unit of taxation. While town-
ship school districts are permitted, there is no pro-
vision for a county district. Apparently there must
be either compulsory consolidation of present small
school districts, or a general state tax for the support
of schools, in addition to the proceeds of the present
primary school interest fund, the latter being dis-
tributed among the districts in quotas related to re-

356 RURAL MICHIGAN

quirements or the character of the school work therein
provided.^

Under the leadership of the department of public
instruction of the State, the legislature of 1921
enacted a series of laws, some of which directly bear
on the rural schools. A considerable number of
township unit school districts had been organized-
by special acts of the legislature at a time when local
loffislation was common and constitutional. All such
districts were brought under the general law in 1921.
The township unit law was clarified and simplified.
The amended consolidated rural school law increased
State aid to $1,000 a school, thus abolishing the dis-
tinction between Class A and Class B, while $400 a
vehicle were allowed for the transportation of pupils.
School districts were permitted to erect teacherages
for the housing of school teachers, a welcomed inno-
vation, especially in sections in which housing con-
ditions are inadequate and unsatisfactory. Districts
Avhich lack a high-school are required to pay the tui-
tion of school pupils to a neigliboring high-school
up to $60 a year. A minimum term of nine months
-in all schools of the State is now required by law.
School officers are empowered to levy taxes for the
special purpose of putting school-houses in safe and
sanitary condition. By 1925, all persons undertak-
ing to teach in Michigan must have at least one
year of professional training above the four-year
high-school course. Private and parochial schools

^ INIich. State Teachers' Assoc, Quarterly Review, Jan.,
1921, 11.

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 357

are brought under the supervision of the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction.

In 1919 the legislature created the Athletic Board
of Control which was to license and supervise box-
ing contests in the State. The statute provided that
all the earnings of this board should be expended
for the promotion, stimulation and supervision of
physical education and athletics in the public schools
of Michigan. The expenditures were to be distrib-
uted by the chairman of the Athletic Board under
conditions determined by the Superintendent of
Public Instruction. It was purposed that the funds
should accrue primarily for the benefit of the rural
schools which were quite without facilities for ath-
letic recreation. To ascertain just what the condi-
tions really were, a questionnaire was distributed
among the commissioners of schools. From the an-
swers received, it appeared that tlie first need of the
rural schools was for recreational material ; secondly,
for instruction for teachers in the fundamental prin-
ciples of play, recreation and physical education ; and
finally for supervision and leadership in the work.
The first requirement was satisfied in part by the
purchase of athletic material out of the funds pre-
viously referred to. The limited amount of money
available would not permit the uniform distribu-
tion of athletic material to all the schools of the
State, so the board of control wisely determined to
make provision first for the small rural schools, next
for the small towns, and finally for the cities. Under
this plan, balls, bats, and other similar equipment

358 RURAL MICH Id AN

were provided in very large quantities to very many
schools of the two peninsulas, and were greatly ap-
preciated by the beneficiaries. Likewise a few connty
athletic institutes were held for the improvement of
athletic instructions. Up to June, 1921, the De-
partment of Public Instruction, which has charge of
the distribution of this athletic material, reported
the purchase and distribution of 1,000 dozen four-
teen-inch outseam playground balls, 800 dozen regu-
lation indoor bats, 150 dozen regulation basketballs,
500 dozen soccer balls, 75 dozen regular baseballs,
40 to 50 dozen catcher's outfits, 25 dozen tennis
rackets, 1,500 sets of boxing gloves, 50 dozen strik-
ing bags, and, in addition, small amounts of volley-
balls, volley-ball nets, tennis nets, basketball goals,
playground slides, giant strides, regulation footballs
and the like, in quantities dependent on requests
made for these articles by various schools. The policy
of the department is stated to be, "not to send ma-
terial for competitive games, but to send materials
which might be used by the masses of the children
rather than any select group."

. Menominee County has sought to establish the boy
scout organization on a county-wide basis, making
provision for the boys of the small towns and com-
munities as well as of the cities, and has employed a
paid executive to take charge. This work is still in
its incipiency, but much is hoped from it.

In 1917 Congress enacted what is known as the
"Smith-Hughes Law," whereby the United States
cooperates with such states as accept and conform

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 359

to the requirements of this act, iii aid of vocational
education, including agriculture, home economics and
the manual arts. Michigan promptly accepted the
terms of the Smith-Hughes Law. The legislature
of 1919 created the State Board of Control of Voca-
tional Education, which in turn appointed super-
visors and adopted a plan of work and procedure.
The federal aid is extended only to schools uelow
college grade and on condition that an equivalent
expenditure is incurred by State or local administra-
tions. The board alone cooperates with the schools
that operate under the law, and, under the Michigan
plan, shares equally with the local school districts,
the State's moiety of the contribution for such vo-
cational education. In 1920 fifty-nine schools, three
in the Upper Peninsula, received federal aid under
the Smith-Hughes Law in connection with agricul-
tural education. These were all public high-schools,
with the exception of the Menominee County Agri-
cultural School. Pupils are required to be above the
age of fourteen years and to have pursued, or to in-
tend to pursue, agricvdture as a vocation. There
were approximately two thousand such pupils in these
schools in 1920, taking work in agriculture. The
local school districts provide buildings and equip-
ment. There must be suitable laboratory facilities
and outdoor field work, conducted under instructors
of approved qualifications. The course of study, cov-
ering four years, includes such subjects as plant life,
farm carpentry and mechanical drawing, farm crops
and soils, horticulture, animal husbandry, farm man-

3G0 RURAL MWIIKIAN

agcnient and farm machinery, cement construction
and use of the gas engine. The number of schools
conforming to the Smith-Hughes Law as applied in
Michigan increases annually, and was sixty-five in
1921."

To prepare agricultural teachers and leaders, and
to diffuse knowledge of scientific agricultural prin-
ciples and processes among the farmers of the State,
the Michigan Agricultural College was opened in the
summer of 1857. In this departure from the then
accepted ideas of education, Michigan appears to
have taken the lead in this country. The project
had been broached at the inception of statehood, and
and for many years it was conceived proper to con-
nect agricultural education with the University of
Michigan. After its establishment in 1819, the
Michigan Agricultural Society had promoted the
project for a State school of agriculture, and the
State constitution of 1850, in one of its articles,
made provision for it. For a time the University
maintained a department of agriculture, but in 1855,
the legislature by law laid the legal basis for a sepa-
-rate institution and appropriated the State's salt
spriiig lands in aid of the venture. The executive
committee of the State Agricultural Society deter-
mined the site which was selected in the wilderness
three and a half miles east of the capitol at Lansing.
Its location without the agricultural zone of the
State, as it then was, did not give general satisfac-
tion, but all efforts to remove the institution to Ann
Arbor failed. The control of the College at first

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 361

rested with the State Board of Education^ which also
administered the State normal school; but in 1861,
a separate board, that of agriculture, was created to
have charge of the Agricultural College. The fol-
lowing year (1862) the College became the bene-
ficiary of a grant by the United States of 240,000
acres of land in its aid, under the "Morrill Act," and
at the same time had its curriculum somewhat de-
fined, particularly as regards instruction in engineer-
ing as well as agriculture, as a condition of receiv-
ing this contribution to its resources.

In 1875 the College faculty undertook extension
work among the farmers of the State through in-
stitutes in which addresses by experts from the staff
were supplemented by discussions by the attending
farmers themselves. This procedure associated scien-
tific knowledge with practical wisdom, and was de-
signed to promote a good understanding between the
Agricultural College and the farmers.^

In 1885 the legislature made provision for the pub-
lication through bulletins and press notices of in-
formation arising as the result "'of experiments made
in any of the different departments of the agricultu-
ral college, and such other information that they may
deem of sufficient importance to require it to come
to the immediate knowledge of the farmers and hor-
ticulturists of the state." Hundreds of bulletins have
been issued by the College in accordance with this

*0n tho oarlv liisiory of the l\Iich. Afjr. Coll.. soo R. C.
Kedzie in "Alich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXIX,
554 and Pres. T. C. Abbot, Ibid., VI, 115.

362 RURAL MICHIGAN

legislation. In 1889, the legislature accepted the
provision of federal aid for the establishment of an
experiment station, and ten years later provided for
a station in the Upper Peninsula, where conditions
of climate in particular made a distinct experiment
station desirable. In the same year, the. State Board
of Agriculture was authorized to "hold institutes
and to establish and maintain courses of reading and
lectures for the instruction of citizens of this state
in the various branches of agriculture, mechanic
arts, domestic economy, and the sciences related
thereto." Such institutes were required to be held
annually in every county where an "institute so-
ciety" had been organized by residents of the county.
In the stress of the Civil War (1863) military train-
ing was made a required course at the Michigan Ag-
ricultural College, and so remains.

As now organized, the Michigan Agricultural Col-
lege embraces five divisions of work : Agriculture,
including forestry and horticulture, engineering,
home economics, veterinary medicine, and science and
letters. There are also two experiment stations and
"the division of extension work. The income of the
College is derived from the proceeds of the sale of
lands granted by the United States (now approxi-
mately $7U,000 per annum), the income from a tax
of one-fifth of a mill on taxable property within
the State, amounting to about $550,000 per annum,
while the federal government contributes $30,000 per
annum in aid of the experiment stations, which also
receive the income from certain fees. There are still

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 303

other federal and state appropriations, such as that
arising under the Smith-Lever Act accruing to the
College.

EXTENSION WORK

On May 8, 1914, Congress enacted the Smith-
Lever Law, "in order to aid in diffusing among the
people of the United States useful and practical in-
formation on subjects relating to agriculture and
home economics, and to encourage the application
of the same." It was proposed to establish in con-
nection with the land-grant agricultural colleges ex-
tension work for persons not actually in residence at
the colleges, which should consist "of giving of in-
struction in practical demonstrations in agriculture
and home economics," whereby information should
be imparted through "field demonstrations, publica-
tions and otherwise," the work to be carried on by
mutual agreement between the secretary of agricul-
ture and the agricultural colleges. A permanent ap-
propriation by the United States was carried in the
act, the moneys to be apportioned among the states
in proportion to their respective rural populations,
conditioned on a similar appropriation being made
by the states themselves.

In accordance with this act of Congress, extension
work by the Michigan Agricultural College has been
maintained in many counties of the State — a work
in which the counties, as well as the State and the
United States cooperate for financial support. At
the head of this extension work is an Extension Di-

364 JfUfx'AL MICHKIAN

rector, located at the Agricultural College, with a
corps of state and assistant state leaders. This ex-
tension work for the farmers themselves is conducted
by the county agricultural agents; that for the boys
and girls by the county leaders of boys' and girls'
club work. In April, 1921, there were sixty-two
county agents, of whom twelve were located in the
Upper Peninsula. Of the home demonstration
agents there were twelve in as many counties, of
whom seven were in the southern peninsula and five
in the northern. There were twenty-two leaders of
boys' and girls' club work, of whom seven were in
the Upper Peninsula and fifteen in the Lower. Of
the Lower Peninsula counties, Macomb was credited
with two club leaders; while eleven other counties
had what is designated "collaborators," all of whom,
with the exception of two, were in the southern,
peninsula. In this department, there was one state
leader and four assistant state leaders-

Under the allotment of funds by the United States
Department of Agriculture, Michigan was eligible to
receive in 1921, $103,267. The total of funds from
fill sources, state as well as national, for cooperative
agricultural extension work for 1920-1921 was $352,-
265, of which $11,850 was assigned to administra-
tion; $3,000 to the printing and distribution of pub-
lications; $169,721 to county agents.; $38,912 to
home economics; $46,287 to boys' clubs; $8,500 to
animal husbandry; $7,600 to poultry; $18,075 to
agronomy; $13,300 to horticulture; $5,800 to botany
and plant pathology; $4,400 to agricultural engineer-

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 3G5

ing; $5,200 to farm management; $14,800 to mark-
eting; and $1,820 to miscellaneous specialists.^

The work under the Smith-Lever Law is carried
on by the State in cooperation with such counties as
determine, through the action of their board of su-
pervisors, to adopt the scheme as applied to the en-
gagement of a county agent, a home demonstration
agent, or a leader of boys' and girls' club work, or
some combination of these activities. While in many
counties the supervisors have not seen fit to appro-
priate county funds for such undertakings, — nor
would federal and state funds sufficient for such
work in all the counties be available, — in a consid-
erable number there has been a positive demonstra-
tion of their benefits, and it undoubtedly is a very
important cause of rural advancement.

It was demonstrated that the printing and dis-
tribution of bulletins by the Agricultural College
would not make a very strong impression on a great
number of farmers, who suspected, and sometimes
derided, the practical agricultural knowledge that
emanated from such sources. Personal contact
would, it might be presumed, partially remove this
attitude of aloofness, and there are indications that
the county agricultural agents have, where they
have been sufficiently active and tactful, effectively
improved agricultural practice. Where this activity
has taken the form of directly aiding in the purchase
and sale of commodities, it has been resented on the

'U. S. Dept. Agr. : "Statistics of Co-operative Extension
Work," 1920-1921, 10.

3G6 RURAL MlcnWAN

]iart of middlemen as an unwarranted interference
with legitimate business operations, although the
farmers have undoubtedly greatly appreciated the
profits accruing to them through such cooperation.
Primarily, however, the work of the agricultural
agents is to suggest and to instruct; to promote care
in the selection of seed and live-stock, encourage
soil conservation, inform on market conditions,
bring expert assistance to bear on such emergencies
as may arise, such as epidemics and pests, and, in
general, to reinforce experience with knowledge
gained through education and expert investigation.
Results are not capable of mathematical determina-
tion, but without doubt the visible agricultural ad-
vance that has taken place in recent years is par-
tially attributable to the agents of the extension
service of the College. ^Yhether they have put forth
the effort that might be expected of them, may, in
some instances, be questioned. Whether or not the
work and investigations carried on by the College
qualifies its students and graduates to deal with the
great variety of problems confronting the Michigan
farmer in all portions of the State has been ques-
tioned repeatedly. Ultimately, this is a question of
administration belonging to the College itself, and
is susceptible of correction, when necessary, with a
vigorous administration of College affairs.

Usually associated with the county agricultural
agent is the home demonstration agent, also operat-
ing under the Smith-Lever Law. This service, start-
ing in Erie County, New York, in 191-i, has been

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 367

extended to Michigan. The purpose underlying the
appointment of home demonstration agents is de-
scribed as "the buikling up and improvement of
the rural home along lines similar to those which are
being followed in the development of the farm." '
The lines of work undertaken by these workers in-
clude phases of home management, the production
and preservation of food, the planning of meals, the
care of children, home care of the sick, making and
remodeling clothing, improving home surroundings,
while there are many opportunities afforded for com-
munity service. The advantages, construction or in-
stallation of household, particularly kitchen, equip-
ment and conveniences are exemplified, which, with
better arrangements of the room and its furnishings,
materially reduce the labor of the housekeeper.
Household accounts and budgets are installed
through encouragement of the agents. There is in-
struction to groups of women, often at the school,
in new and approved methods of canning fruits and
vegetables. At school, also, children are weighed
and tested and the consumption of milk is encour-
aged with striking benefits to the subject. The hot
lunch at school is introduced, and there are general
nutrition instruction and demonstrations. Home
nursine: features the work of the home demon-
stration agent, and in times of epidemic, especially
in isolated communities, the "F D.A." has become a

>U. S. Dept. Acrr. Bull.. Circ. H., Jan., 1921; Status
and Results of Home Demonstration Work — Nprthern and
Western States, 4, 14.

368 RURAL MICHIGAN

veritable angel of mercy to the distressed and af-
flicted. Prenatal instruction is not omitted. The
salvaging of garments out of castoff clothing and the
utilization of food material is explained. The
women of the rural district and small towns greatly
appreciate the instruction they receive in the art of
millinery and dressmaking, the fashioning of pat-
terns and forms, and the adoption of approved styles.
There is provision for office consultation and home
visitations, involving thousands of miles of travel
by automobile and otherwise.

Particularly promising of permanently valuable
results is the boys' and girls' club work, for habits
and ideas inculcated in youth, at an age when sus-
ceptibilities are keenest, are most likely deeply to
impress the subject. Boys' and girls' clubs con-
template an organization of five or more young
people in a group for the purpose of carrying out
some definite project. Such a club is said to be
"standard" when it has a local club leader in charge
during the year, when it has a local organization
with officers and prescribed duties, when there is a
definite year's program of work, involving at least
six regular meetings, whose record and that of prog-
ress of each member is kept by the club secretary,
when a local annual exhibit is held or a public dem-
onstration is given by the club demonstration team,
when at least 60 per cent of the membership complete
the project and file a final report with the state club
leader, when a judging team is competitively chosen
and an achievement day is held during the year.

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 369

Eecognition of partial or entire achievement of these
conditions is manifested in a club charter and a
"national seal of achievement."

A definite program of work for the clnb, called a
"project," may relate to the growing of a field of
corn or other crop, the care and marketing of live-
stock, such as calves, pigs, poultry, or rabbits, handi-
craft, domestic arts including garment-making, cook-
ing and canning, the provision of school lunches, care
of a garden, and other undertakings simple and defi-
nite in character, carefully planned and fully brought
to completion, with an historical account of the whole
proceeding. Obviously such enterprises closely re-
late themselves to school and farm work jointly, al-
though they may also be undertaken by urban chil-
dren, when extensive areas of land are not required.
The work is new but has progressed rapidly in
Michigan. The statistical exhibit prepared by the
State Department of Public Instruction shows that,
in 1914, there were 1,960 club members enrolled; a
year later, there were 3,460. In 1916, the number
was 5,9-20; 1917, 16,480, showing the influence of the
war appeal; and in 1918, 31,000. The most recent
figures show a membership of 22,260 in 1127 clubs.
The total value of products was $216,025.35. In
1921 this work was being maintained in twenty
counties.

For years the officials of the Michigan State Fair
have provided a free sojourn at this exhibition at
the Fair's expense, with a view to bringing the boys
in contact with this instructive agricultural institu-

OfV

rO RURAL MICHIGAN

tioii and for the purpose of special teaching in agri-
culture. The boys are selected competitively, the
examination covering both eighth grade and agri-
cultural subjects. This service is extended to the
most distant counties of the State, and, although its
cost is high, its benefits are deemed by Fair officials
to warrant the outlay.

The annual event at the Michigan Agricultural
College, known as "Farmers' Week," attracts large
numbers of farmers to the institution to observe ex-
hibits of farm products and processes, and to listen
to addresses and discussions of a wide variety of
topics related to agriculture. For a few weeks each
Avinter, also, short-courses of instruction are given at
th3 College, especially designed to meet the practical
needs of men and women directly from the farm or
desiring brief scientific instruction in relation to
agricultural and rural problems. These winter
short-courses involve studies in agriculture, horti-
culture, dairying, beekeeping, farm mechanics, farm
management and other departments, which should
have the result of reducing agricultural knowledge
to system and the improvement of methods.

Two of the State's normal schools likewise have
undertaken agricultural instruction in somewhat the
same manner. Not only do the normal schools give
courses for the training of teachers for rural schools,
but the Western State Normal School at Kalamazoo
annually gathers together farmers and persons inter-
ested in rural life and rural social work to hear
addresses by some of the country's most distinguished

EDVCATIOXAL ENTERPRISES 371

leaders in agricultural progress, in what is desig-
nated "the rural life conference." In addition to
training rural teachers, the Central Michigan Nor-
mal School at Mt. Pleasant has special meetings of
farmers to discuss topics of common interest, as
spraying and the wool market situation. There is
also a week's course for farmers and, in the summer,
a week's training course for boys' and girls' club
workers. Farmers' week at this school is featured
by exhibits, such as seed testing, soil testing, feeds,
and grains. There is a program of addresses by
agricultural experts of state and national reputation,
with demonstrations and discussions by persons di-
rectly connected with agriculture in Isabella County
and elsewhere.

In 1912 the legislature authorized county boards
of supervisors "to appropriate and raise money by
tax to be used for cooperative work with the Michi-
gan Agricultural College in encouraging improved
methods of farm management and practical demon-
strations and instruction in agriculture." The next
year, the legislature authorized county boards of su-
pervisors to create the oflfice of farm commissioner,
subject to a referendum to the voters, for the pur-
pose of improving agricultural practices within the
county ; but this provision of law was rendered prac-
tically inoperative by the Smith-Lever Act of the
United States. In 1907 legislation had authorized
the establishment of county schools of agriculture,
manual training and home economics, and such a
school has for some years been maintained by Me-

372 RURAn MIC in a AN

110111 iiiec County in the Upper Peninsula. The Me-
nominee County Agricultural School domiciles its
])U])ils and gives instruction in agriculture, includ-
ing botany, farm crops, soils and soil fertility, hor-
ticulture, gardening, insect and orchard practice,
animal husbandry, live-stock types and breeds, stock-
judging, dairying, poultry, farm management,
manual training including farm mechanics, mechani-
cal drawing, carpentry, girls' handicraft, forging, and
farm machinery, drainage, domestic economy, in-
cluding cooking, serving, dietetics, sewing, laundry-
ing, home decoration, household chemistry, home
nursing and millinery, together with academic stud-
ies. During the winter term, short-courses are of-
fered for the benefit of students wlio are unable to
remain throughout the year, while a three-days' ses-
sion, or farmers' institute, in the early spring, pre-
sents a variety of meetings under the leadership of
persons prominent in agricultural practice and in-
struction. This school purposes to be a sort of ag-
ricultural college for the Upper Peninsula. A simi-
lar school for a time existed in Chippewa County
in the Upper Peninsula, but for reasons related to
its location primarily, failed to satisfy its supporters
and in the summer of 1921 was discontinued.

An early statute of the State (1819) had provided
that, where, in any county "the inhabitants thereof
have organized and established or may hereafter or-
ganize and estal)lish a society for the encouragement
and advancement of agriculture, manufactures and
the mechanic arts," and where the society has raised

EDUCATIONAL EXTERPRISES 373

as much as $100 for the promotion of its objects, the
county board of supervisors is permitted to levy a
tax in further aid of the work of such a society, for
the purchase of premiums, "the diffusion of valuable
agricultural, manufacturing and mechanical knowl-
edge," or otherwise to promote the objects of the
society. In many counties of the State, agricultural
societies or farm bureaus have been organized and
have become the recipients of county financial aid
in the promotion of their work. Later (1855), a
State statute made provision for the incorporation
of such county, town or district agricultural and
horticultural societies.

AGRICULTURAL JOURNALS

Most Michigan farmers do not attend schools of
agriculture, but very many obtain knowledge of im-
proved agricultural processes through the columns
of the agricultural papers published within the State
and elsewhere. Of Michigan's agricidtural press, the
oldest periodical is "The Michigan Farmer and Live-
stock Journal," whose history is nearly coincidental
with that of the State. This paper, in 1843, suc-
ceeded "The Western Farmer," founded at Detroit
several years previous. Down to 1893, when the
paper was taken over by M. J. Lawrence and Brother
of Cleveland, Ohio, proprietors of "The Ohio Far-
mer" (whose firm name became the Lawrence Pub-
lishing Company two years later), there were many
changes in the ownership, place of publication, and

374 RURAL MICHIGAN

form of the paper. In its development, also, "The
Michigan Farmer" has absorbed several other pub-
lications in the field of Michigan agriculture. It has
grown in size and influence and now has over 80,000
Michigan farmers as subscribers besides many from
without the State. ^

"The Michigan Business Farmer" was first pub-
lished as a four-page market letter in 1913. The
paper became consolidated with "The Gleaner" and
in 1921, following a period of rapid growth, reported
more than GO, 000 subscribers throughout the State.
Like^^The Michigan Farmer," it is a weekly pub-
lication at the present time. Its place of publication
is Mt. Clemens, near Detroit.^

"The Michigan Patron" was first published at
Adrian, Michigan, in 1901. After various vicissi-
tudes, the paper was taken over by the Michigan
State Grange, in 1917, becoming its official organ.
The dues of members of the Grange include a pay-
ment as subscription to "The Patron," which was
then sent to every Grange family in the State. It
is a monthly periodical with an issue of 24,000 copies
in March, i921.3

In the Upper Peninsula, at Menominee, is pub-
lished "The Cloverland Magazine," whose origin was
in 1903, in the periodical then styled "The Sugar
Beet News and Northwestern Farmer." Its present

* From a statement by Burt Wermuth, associate editor,
April. 1921.

^'^tatement of G. M. Slocnm, publislier. March. 1921.

' Statement of J. W. Helme, managing editor, March,
1921.

ED UCA TIONAL EN TERPltl 8ES 3 7 0

title dates from 1915, after consolidations with other
publications had been effected. It now reports a cir-
culation of nearly a third of a million in the terri-
tory between Sauit Ste. Marie and Minneapolis.^ It
is a monthly magazine, attractively presented, and is
devoted heartily to the progress, chiefly agricultural,
of the cut-over territory in the Great Lakes country.
Its relations with the Upper Peninsula Development
Bureau are close and harmonious.

At Sault Ste. Marie is published a weekly edi-
tion of the "P]vening News" of that city, which,
through a cooperative arrangement with the county
agent and the Chippewa County Farm Bureau, car-
ries much agricultural news and comment, relevant
chiefly to the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula.
There are, in addition, a number of "small town"
weeklies whose designation and contents indicate
the rural appeal of the publication.

THE RURAL CHURCH

Among the pioneer farmers of Michigan, religious
observances had motives not purely derived from
piety, although the isolated situation in the primeval
wilderness undoubtedly intensified the meditations
of the settlers and turned them more definitely in
the direction of things supernal. The camp-meet-
ing brought men and women together, to visit and
to be entertained, to sing and to become informed, as
well as to give vent to sentiments of devotion and

'Statement of R. M. Andrews, editor, May 11, 1921.

376 RURAL MICHIGAN

spirituality. Dcmonstratious of the worshipers
might take forms that, to the undevout, seemed
grotesque and ridiculous, but this did not detract
from their appeal to the country folk whose daily
life was one of drudgery and severest toil. The cir-
cuit-rider, making his round of many miles, on foot,
on horseback or by boat, gathered and disseminated
the news at a time when newspapers were seldom
encountered, and at the same time ministered to
the religious life of his scattered flock for a
meager recompense save of hardship. His worldly
goods were bound up in his saddle-bags and included
his Bible, his hymnal and his church discipline with
a few clothes and personal belongings. His cash
returns might amount to $100 per annum, but en-
tertainment was free, if rough and meager. Services
were held in the homes of the settlers, sometimes in
the school-house, the court-house, or a barn. Epis-
copal visitations were attended with great difficulties
and there are records of amusing, if trying, experi-
ences of reverend gentlemen deposited in muddy
abysses on the "highways" that should have conveyed
.them to their expectant flocks in the interior. Even
yet there are remote communities in which such
pioneer conditions still obtain to a degree. There
are still clergymen who eke out a precarious liveli-
hood by farming, or other pursuits tliat have more
reference to the necessities of this life than of the
next. There is Eev. William Maltas, a former
Methodist circuit-rider, now associated with the
Episcopal Church in ChipiJewa County of the Upper

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPR18Eii 377

Peninsula, who mingles farming with his priestly
functions, moving from station to station, fourteen
in number, early and late and tirelessly, and who is
credited with remarkable success with his rural par-
ishioners. He is not an isolated instance of agri-
cultural clergymen of this diocese. There, too, is
the Eev. Fr. William Gagneur of the Society of
Jesus, whose ministrations, like those of his black-
robed predecessors, are chiefly to the red men of his
large missionary parish north of the Straits, to which
he has given unstinted service for a generation.

From the outset, divers religious communities es-
tablished themselves within the borders of the ter-
ritory. Some of these had characteristics especially
'distinctive. The Moravians, of German origin,
settled on the Clinton River late in the eighteenth
century, having obtained their lands from the Chip-
pewa Indians. They interpreted the Scriptures most
literally, as illustrated by their selection of wife or
husband by lot. Mormon missionaries appeared early
among the farmer folk of the southern counties, and
in the fifth decade of the last century, under the
leadership of "King'' James Strang, established
themselves on Beaver Island of Lake Michigan, where
they mingled agriculture with fights with the hos-
tile fishermen of the lake and from whence they
were at length forcibly dispersed, some of their
descendants still being found on Drunnnond Island
of Lake Huron. More acceptable were the Quakers
who early appeared in Calhoun, Jackson, Lenawee,
Oakland and Cass counties, sober and industrious

378 RURAL MICHIGAN

as belonged to their tradition ; while their Teutonic
congeners, the Mennonites and Dunkards, were also
settled within the State. The Mennonites' eight
organizations in Michigan in 1916 still reported
509 members, while the branch called "Eeformed"
added 108 additional members. At "Holy Corners,"
Kent County, they periodically washed each other's
feet in "the bucket of peace" until a narrow con-
servatism and rural simplicity and piety gave way
before the forces of modernity. The Israelite House
of David, near Benton Harbor, is a communistic
religious society, not restricted to Michigan, which
possesses a fine park and zoological garden, and lives
by agriculture and manufacturing and the income of
their tourist business. A portion of their agricul-
tural supplies is derived from High Island, Lake
Michigan. The observer notes their unshorn tresses,
while their belief in perpetual existence without
death for the sinless is a cardinal element in their
religious life. They are credited with exceptional
thrift and acumen.

It scarcely requires comment that the salaries paid
to the ministers of the gospel in Michigan as well as
elsewhere are meagre. The census returns of 191')
place the average salary of a minister of the ^lethod-
ist Episcopal Church in Michigan at $1,1()0, which
readily suggests that pastors of rural parishes obtain
an income considerably short of this figure. Num-
bers of states make a far worse showing than Michi-
gan and some make a better report. The average
of Baptist salaries stood at $995 in Michigan; while

EDUCATIOXAL EXTERPRI8ES 379

the Congregationalists did better with their average
contribution to the shepherd of the flock of $1,219.
Episcopalian rectors received on an average $1,517,
while Eonian Catholic priests performed their holy
offices for an average stipend of $745. The Presby-
terian average salary was $1,503. Even if the parish
house and other emoluments are added to the pastoral
income, it is evidently quite necessary in the poorly
supported rural parishes that clergymen augment
the family income by resort to agriculture or other
adventitious pursuits. Thus one clergyman in the
Upper Peninsula (Eev. Wm. Poyseor) is credited
with being one of the largest and most successful
producers of maple sirup in the State, as well as
a valiant defender of the faith. His tappings run to
2800 trees per annum, and he ships his product to
fourteen states.

The Young Men's Christian Association has a
county-wide organization in the counties of Gogebic,
Houghton and Iron in the Upper Peninsula, and
Charlevoix, Antrim, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Os-
coda, Alcona, Iosco, Mason, Huron, Tuscola, Sanilac,
Montcalm, Gratiot, Ottawa, Kent, Ionia, Clinton,
Shiawassee, Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Allegan,
Barry, Eaton, Livingston, Oakland, Van Buren, Cal-
houn, Waslitenaw, St. Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale, and
Lenawee in the Lower Peninsula. Usually lacking
the equipment and facilities that pertain to a city
association, the small towns and rural districts cov-
ered by this work carry out projects of study and
recreation under the general direction of a county

380 RURAL MICHIGAN

socretcary associated with a county committee of
twenty to twenty-five residents, and, when practi-
cable, local associations were also estal)lished. As de-
scribed by the state secretary in charge of rural
work, "county Avork of the Young Men's Christian
Association is an effort on the part of an organized
group of Christian men to develop Christian char-
acter in the lives of men and boys in the various
communities of the county. It works with the home,
the school, the church and otlier constructive agen-
cies. ... Its aim is to stimulate boys and young men
to be physically fit, mentally alert, socially straight,
and religiously definite." The "Christian Citizen-
ship Training Program" is employed, being carried
out under local leadership supported by public
opinion.

Undoubtedly, the migration of young people from
the rural to the urban districts has adversely affected
the condition of the rural church. "The loss to the
country church," writes Eev. C. H. Harger, "is as
real, and as great as is the loss to the farms and to
the country towns; for among these young people
Ayere the coming constituents and members of the
small town country churches. It has taken many
of the small town churches twenty years to overcome
the inherited indifPerence of parents, the influence of
early environment, and develop in some of these
young people an interest in religion. Those who took
with them to the cities a Christian experience and
the purpose to live clean and useful lives, it is notice-
able, benefited by the change. Not a few of this

EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES 381

class have been singled ont and advanced from
places of common labor to positions of responsibility
and* large trust.

"It is also noticeable that not a few of those who
have returned, ' have been demoralized by their ex-
periences in the city. They have formed objection-
able habits which they did not have before. Many
have lost their former energy and have become in-
dolent; they have lost the spirit of thrift and have
become spendthrifts; all are dissatisfied with the old
surroundings, and they are all anxious to get back
to the factories and to the places of pleasure and
pastime in the cities. No matter whether these re-
main in the country or return to the city, in their
present state of mind they are mentally, and there-
fore physically, incapacitated for efficient work on
the farm ; they are lost to the country." ^

The writer is by no means hopeless regarding the
rural church. Eural life is favorable to religion.
But it is required that the rural church progress
with the developing mind of the rural population.
"It seems to me an opportune time for the country
church to get a new hearing and to demonstrate again
as during the war that it can serve the people on
week days as truly as on Sunday." Harger points
out that the agencies that are serving country life,
such as the extension workers of the ^lichigan Agri-
cultural College, should not be ignored by the clergy-

*TTar<jpr: "The Coimtry Church in 'Miehi<fan," Michigan
Congregational Conference, pub., I.ansing, 1!>21, 9. See also
The Michigan Farmer, July 23, 1921.

382 RURAL MICHIGAN

man of a rural parish or his church people. The
rural church should promote boys' and girls' club
work and serve the whole community as a social
center. It will thus gain a new and stronger hold
on the countryside which will serve it well in its
religious ministrations.

Each summer the Michigan Agricultural College
holds a conference for the benefit of rural clergymen
and their wives, for discussion and instruction cal-
culated to enrich their rural work. In 1920, the
Michigan Congregational Conference, for example,
paid the transportation and local expenses for a
group of fifteen of its pastors and their wives, to
enable them to attend this conference, and the out-
lay was deemed to be well spent.

CHAPTEE XII
GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE

The legislature of 1921 gathered together into one
department the several governmental agencies of
Michigan which had functions directly related to
agriculture, placing the department under a com-
missioner with a salary of $5,000 a year, empow-
ered, with the approval of the State Administrative
Board, to appoint assistants and employees and de-
termine their compensation. To this new depart-
ment were at once transferred the Department of
Animal Indiistry, the State Food and Drug Commis-
sioner, the State Veterinary Board, the Immigra-
tion Commission, the Commissioner of Immigra-
tion, and the State Director of Markets, The powers
and duties of the State Board of Agriculture in re-
lation to the inspection and regulation of orchards,
vineyards and nurseries, and apiaries, the testing of
agricultural seeds, the analysis of commercial fer-
tilizer, the testing and examination of insecticides,
and the analysis and testing of commercial stock
foods, the investigating and improving of marketing
conditions, were likewise intrusted to the Depart-
ment of Agriculture of the State. The offices of
State Inspector of Orchards and Nurseries, and of

383

84 RURAL MICHIGAN

Apiaries were abolished and their functix)ns be-
stowed on the Department. It also takes over the
duties of the Department of State in the collection
and publication of statistics and other information
relating to agriculture. The control of all lands and
other property vested in the State for the purpose
of holding agricultural fairs devolved on this new
department. x\n annual state fair at Detroit was
authorized, which was placed immediately under
the direction of a Board of Managers of State
Fairs of twenty memliers, appointed by the governor
and senate. The income should constitute a per-
petual revolving fund to defray Fair expenses. The
Michigan Agricultural Fair Commission was at the
same time abolished. (See Fig. 7.)

It M'as made the duty of the State Department of
Agriculture "to foster and promote in every possible
way the agricultural interests of the State of Miclii-
gan; to cooperate with agricultural agencies in the
different counties of the state and of the federal gov-
ernment; to foster direct trading between the pro-
ducer and the consumer; and to prevent, and assist
in preventing, by all available means authot-ized by
law, the sale of unimproved land and lands not suit-
able for agricultural development within the state
by fraud, misrepresentation or deceit and the pub-
lication of false or misleading statements or adver-
tising matter designed to affect such sales."

The creation of this new department is in line
with the suggestion of the United States Secretary
of Agriculture in 1919, who urged the establishment

>^1

III!

■ffii

CHIEF
VETERINARIAN

AS5T.
VETERINARIAN

• r- (

tsi

ci
O

l-H

385

386 RURAL MICHIGAN

of such departments in all states, whereby the coop-
eration of the various bureaus of the federal depart-
ment with state agencies would be much easier and
more effective.^ It was his view that the agricultural
colleges would confine their attention to educational
work and the state departments of agriculture to
regulatory and administrative duties, and with whom
the federal bureaus would be associated in matters
related to quarantines, the control of animal diseases,
orchard and nursery inspection, seed inspection, feed
and fertilizer control, statistical inquiries, the pro-
motion of rural finance, distribution and marketing
along approved lines. ^

^U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull., Jan., 1919: "Need of Strong
Departments of Agriculture in the States," 7.

^ The tentative scheme of organization of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture (July, 1921) provides fur four bu-
reaus: agricultiu'al development, woods and drugs, animal
industry, and dairying, each having a director at its head.
The Bureau of Agricultural Development couiprises the
divisions of immigration, settlement, agricultural fairs,
agricultural statistics, land problems, drainage, orchard
and nursery inspection, apiary inspection. The Bureau of
Foods and Drugs comprises the divisions of food inspec-
tion, drug inspection, weights and measures, fertilizer in-
spection, feeding stuffs, insecticides and fungicides, seed in-
spection; chemical laboratory (State Analyst and Chief
Chemist, for the Department of Agriculture). The Bureau
of Animal Industry comprises all veterinary activities
(Chief Veterinarian and Assistant Veterinarian; Examina-
tion Board of Veterinarians; Stallion Board, Slaughter-
liouses, meat inspection ; cooperation with the United States
Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Animal Industry;
state farms and herds; appraisals). The Bureau of Dairy-
ing comprises inspection of market milk, creamery and
cheese factories, condensed and powdered milk factories;
ice-cream plants. At the head of the Department of Agri-

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 387

Eeplacing the Livestock Sanitary Commission, the
legislature, in 1919, created the Department of Ani-
mal Industry, in charge of a commissioner appointed
for a six-year term, and reassigned to the Depart-
ment of Agriculture in 1921. On the recommenda-
tion of the Commissioner of Animal Industry, the
governor was directed to appoint a state veterinarian,
also for a six-year term. This official must be a
graduate of an institution qualified to confer the
degree of veterinary surgeon and competent to diag-
nose, treat and control diseases of live-stock. Gen-
eral charge of the protection of the health of the
domestic animals of the State from contagious and
infectious diseases was given to this commissioner.
It followed that quarantine was subject to the com-
missioner's direction. The presence of contagious
and infectious disease among animals was required
to be reported to the Commissioner, whose office is in
Lansing. In case the destruction of diseased live-
stock became necessary as a protective measure, the
Commissioner was to appraise its value and on this
basis the owner was entitled to recover from the State
the sum thus determined, with restrictions of amount
as to tuberculous cattle. The observance of quaran-
tine regulations was definitely enjoined on the own-
ers of animals exposed or infected. At the same
time, the importation of such live-stock was pro-
culture is a commissioner, while liis subordinates include
a deputy commissioner, chief clerk (general office work
for the Department of Agriculture, bookkeeper, stenog-
raphers).

388 RURAL MICHIGAN

hibited. The representative of the Department of
Animal Industry in each county was to be the county
agent.

The practice of veterinary surgery, medicine or
the grant of a license by the State Veterinary Board,
which consists of three members with stipulated
dentistry is unlawful in Michigan except following
qualifications. Such a license is grantable only on
an examination following a regular course of in-
struction in an improved veterinary college. There
is provision for the reciprocal licensing of veterina-
rians from other states and provinces on the basis "of
equality of educational standards and mutual recog-
nition/' equal to those determined by the statute.
Practitioners living outside of Michigan but ad-
joining its boundary are permitted to practice in
Michigan after obtaining a license and provided reci-
procity is granted. All Michigan licenses are re-
vocable for cause after a hearing of charges.

In 1913, the legislature ordered that "no person
shall feed to animals or fowls the flesh of an animal
Avhich has become sick, or which has died from such
cause, or offal or flesh that is putrid or unwholesome,"
reckoning such an offense a misdemeanor with an
attached penalty of not to exceed $100 fine or ninety
days in jail or both.

The administrative work of the old Dairy and
Food Department, established by the legislature in
1893, was assigned to the new Food and Drug De-
partment in 1917. The commissioner of this depart-
ment has "charge of the supervision and enforcement

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 389

of all laws of this state relating to the dairy and
food, drug and liquor business, weights and meas-
ures," and other duties proscribed by law. Among
the statutes thus falling to the Food and Drug Com-
missioner to enforce are those prohibiting the adul-
teration and misbranding of foods, with special pro-
visions relating to the adulteration and misbranding
of butter, cheese, lard, fruit, jelly or fruit butter,
buckwheat flour, vinegar, maple sugar and sirup and
sausage, whose purity is protected by law. A series
of statutes, under the administration of this depart-
ment, is designed to protect the purity and sanitary
qualities of milk and milk derivatives, and to es-
tablish standards of fat-content. The percentage of
milk-fat required for butter is 80, of cream 18, and
of milk 3. To put an end to short-weight milk con-
tainers used in the retail trade, it was required that
bottles or jars should have "clearly blown or other-
wise permanently marked in the side of the bottle,
the capacity of the bottle and the word 'sealed,' and
in the side or bottom of the bottle the name, initials
or trademark of the manufacturer and designating
number, which designating number shall be differ-
ent for each manufacturer and may be used in iden-
tifying the bottles." The use of all other containers
is prohibited under penalty and forfeiture of bonds
to the State, while return shipments of milk con-
tainers over a common carrier are required to be
received washed and cleansed. The use of the Bab-
cock test by licensed testers is subject to regulation
designed to secure a fair average sample of the milk

390 RURAL AfW/flOAN

tested. An act of 1917 authorizes the appointment
of local medical milk commissions "for the purpose
of supervising the production, transportation and
delivery of milk which it is intended to use for in-
fant feeding and sick-room clinical purposes, under
whose supervision certified milk may be sold in cities,
villages and townships. The sale of butter under a
State brand or registered trademark which is not
now used is provided for, tlie issuance of the brand
being under the control of a State commission. The
brand is required to carry the words, 'Michigan But-
ter, License iSTumber ', and the words, 'State But-
ter Control.' " Milk by-products, such as skim-milk,
whey and buttermilk, to be used for feeding purposes
for farm animals must be pasteurized before being
returned or delivered to any person.

For the fruit trade, an act of 1917 regulates the
size of baskets. The standard for grapes and other
fruits and vegetables is the two-quart, four-quart and
twelve-quart climax basket, whose dimensions are
definitely prescribed ; while the standard basket or
other containers for small fruit, berries and vege-
tables, is of the capacity of one-half pint, pint, quart
or its multiples, dry measure, also with fixed di-
mensions. An act of the same year determines the
grades for apples. "Michigan standard fancy" ap-
ples consist "of hand-picked, properly packed apples
of one variety, which are well-grown specimens, nor-
mal in shape, uniform in size, of good color for the
variety, and which are free from dirt, insect in-
jury, fungus disease, bruises and other defects, ex-

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 391

cept such as are necessarily caused in the opera-
tion of packing." Inferior grades are designated
"Michigan Standard A," "Michigan Standard B/'
and "Michigan unclassified." Containers of apples
offered for sale must have the name of the packer and
other relevant information displayed on the surface,
while the apples on the inside face of the package
when offered to view must fairly represent the con-
tents throughout. The size of fruit and vegetable
barrels is likewise definitely prescribed.

The State Food and Drug Commissioner is also
State Superintendent of Weights and Measures,
whose standard is required to conform to that
adopted by the United States Bureau of Standards.
In addition, counties, through their boards of super-
visors, and municipalities may employ a sealer of
weights and measures, and sixteen counties and
twenty cities do. An act of 1863 specifies the weight
a bushel of various kinds of grains and other com-
moditieSv unless a different weight is contractually
agreed on, which for wheat is 60 pounds ; rye, 56
pounds; shelled corn, 56 pounds; corn on the cob, 70;
corn-meal, 50 ; oats, 32 ; buckwheat, 48 ; beans and
clover seed, 60 ; timothy seed, 45 ; barley, 48 ; pota-
toes, 60 ; onions, 54 ; peas, 60 ; cranberries, 40 ;
Michigan salt, 56 ; mineral coal, 80 ; and orchard-
grass seed, 14. Definite specifications for the con-
struction of platform and other scales are published
by the Department.

For the purpose of acquiring information regard-
ing the proihu'tion of farm ))ro(lucts in Michigan,

392 RURAL MICHIGAN

a cooperative agreement has been entered into be-
tween the State anc^ the United States Department
of Agriculture, which together bear the necessary
expense. Some 2,600 reporters gather the informa-
tion locally, reporting either to Lansing or Wash-
ington. The county and township reporters mail
their results directly to Washington where they are
tabulated. The field agents report to Lansing, the
tabulation of which is then forwarded to Washing-
ton. The results, as finally ascertained by the Fed-
eral Crop Eeporting Board, are telegraphed to Lan-
sing for publication. About 200 reporters are sta-
tioned in the Upper Peninsula. In addition to the
regular force special agents report particular crops
in which each is interested, as for beans, maple
products, honey bees, potatoes, live-stock, fruit,
prices, mills and elevators. This service for some
years was maintained as a bureau in the Department
of State but the legislature of 1921 transferred it
to the new State Department of Agriculture. Fur-
ther legislation of this session assigned a new, but
greatly desired, function to the township and (out-
side of Detroit) city supervisors, who are required
to collect information regarding farm products at
the time of making their assessment rolls in the
spring of each year. On blank forms prepared by
the Commissioner of Agriculture, the supervisors
henceforth will obtain statistics showing the total
number of acres in each farm, the acreage of each
crop sown or planted, the acres of tillable land used
exclusively for pasture, the acreage of new lands

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 393

brought under cultivation for the first time, the num-
ber of growing fruit-trees and vines of bearing age,
the number and classes of live-stock, and such other
data as may be required. This information is, when
possible, to be secured through a personal interview
with the owner or operator of the farm. Eeturns
are made to the State Commissioner of Agriculture
for publication.

Under the direction of the department of farm
management of the Michigan Agricultural College,
classes in farm accounting have recently been held
for adult farmers in various counties of the State,
and instruction and assisting in the problems of
farm management have been afforded by the staff of
this department by direct visitation and by corre-
spondence. The general aim is to direct farm ac-
tivities along lines that shall be most profitable eco-
nomically. Through questionnaires, the department
seeks to gather information directly from farmers
which will indicate the kind of farm practices now
being employed and out of which may come sug-
gestions for a more economical system of farm op-
erations. There is cooperation in this work between
the College and the Grange, the farm bureaus and
the farmers' clubs. The Michigan State Grange is
reported to have made a considerable appropriation
for the investigation of farm practice and the en-
couragement of farm accounting and improved
methods. A feature of this work has been the dis-
tribution at low cost of farmers' account-books, pre-
pared and sold by the College. Some three thousand

394 RURAL MICHIGAN

copies of these books are stated to have been thus
disposed of to July, 1921. It is hoped thereby to
standardize farm accounting methods.

CONSERVATION POLICIES

As a part of the governor's scheme of reorganiza-
tion of the State government, the legislature of 1931
established the Department of Conservation, directed
by a commission of six members, who should "be
selected with special reference to their training and
experience along the line of one or more of the
principal lines of activities vested in the Department
of Conservation and their ability and fitness to deal
therewith." This commission was to appoint a Di-
rector of Conservation at a salary of $5,000 a year,
and such assistants and employees as might be re-
quired under the act. The State Administrative
Board was to determine the number and compensa-
tion of these additional employees. The powers and
duties hitherto belonging to the Public Domain Com-
mission, the State Board of Fish Commissioners, the
Mackinac Island State Park Commission, the Michi-
gan Cxeological and Biological Survey, the Michigan
State Park Commission, and the State Game, Fish
and Forest Fire Commissioner, were transferred to
the new Department of Conservation. It was made
the duty of this Department "to protect and con-
serve the natural resources of the State of Michigan ;
to prevent the destruction of timber by fire and other-
wise; to promote reforesting of non-agricultural

GOrER\ME\TAL WORK FOR COUXTRY LIFE 395

lands belonging to the state; to guard against the
pollution of lakes and streams within the state; and
to foster and encourage the protecting and propaga-
tion of game and fish. On behalf of the people of
the State, the Connnission of Conservation may ac-
cept gifts and grants of land and other property for
any of the purposes contemplated by this act." The
investigation of the undeveloped natural water-
power of the State was also made the duty of the
Commission of Conservation, as well as to make a
report to the governor and legislature before Janu-
ary 15, 1923.

The first appointments to the Conservation Com-
mission were not wholly reassuring as to the char-
acter of the work that was destined to be accomplished
l)y it; and it is still too soon to pass judgment on
this mooted point. It was hoped that somewhere in
the act provision had by implication been made for
a soil inventory, and, if not here, then in the act
creating the Department of Agriculture. This, too,
remains a matter of doubt. A backward step was
taken by the Conservation Commission when it dis-
continued the work of the topographical and biologi-
cal survey previously conducted bA> the Michigan
Geological Survey. Michigan cannot hope for ef-
fective work in this department until scientific and
administrative ability wholly replaces political con-
siderations in the making of appointments to the
Commission itself and in all departments of its
work. To this new Department of Conservation,
therefore, falls primarily the duty of promoting the

39G RURAL MIVlUdAN

conservation of the State's natural resources.
Whether it will he ahle to accomplish anything of
note remains to be seen. That the legislature failed
specifically to recognize the great importance of a
land inventory and soil classification is disappointing.
It is true that such a soil survey is now under way
under the a-gis of the oMichigan Agricultural Col-
lege cooperating with the United States Bureau of
Soils ; but the plan of the work does not seem to con-
form to advanced conceptions of what such a sur-
vey ought to be; nor in the work as now carried on
is full use being made of all the scientific res(5TH=ces,
personal and otherwise, available in the State,
through cooperation of its expert talent from its in-
stitutions of higher learning, the Geological Survey,
and elsewhere. It is evidently too great and broad
an undertaking for one investigator or department
to have in charge without full cooperation with all
available agencies for obtaining the largest results.
Such forest policy as the State may be said to
have dates from the year 1899 when the legislature
created the Michigan Forestry Commission of three
persons, including the Commissioner of the State
Land Office, whose duty was described "to institute
inquiry into the extent, kind, value and condition of
the timl)er lands of tlie state; the amount of acres
and value of timber that is cut and removed each
year and the purpose for which it is used ; the extent
to which the timber lands are being destroyed by
fires, used by wasteful cutting or consumption, lum-
bering, or for the purpose of clearing the land for

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 397

tillage. It shall also inquire as to the effect of the
diminution of timber and wooded surface of this
state in lessening the rainfall and producing
droughts, and the effects upon the ponds, rivers,
lakes and the water-power and harbors of the state,
and affecting the climate and disturbing and de-
teriorating natural conditions."' It must make a
study of second-growth timber, the protection, condi-
tion and improvement of overflowed and stump lands.
The Commissioner of the State Land Office was
directed to withdraw from entry 200,000 acres of
state tax homestead lands, and the Commission was
authorized to receive conveyances of land from pri-
vate sources. The Commission was to set before the
legislature a forestry policy for the State, and the
act carried an initial appropriation of $2,000 a year
for inaugurating this work. The amount of this
appropriation may be taken as the due measure of
the importance of the work which the Forestry Com-
mission had been set to perform as held by the com-
bined legislative wisdom of the day.

In 1901 the legislature placed lands m Roscommon
and Crawford counties under the Forestry Commis-
sion to be held as a permanent forest reserve. In
1903 the State Land Commissioner was made Forest
Commissioner, whose "orders shall be supreme in all
matters relating to the preservation of the forests of
this state and to the prevention and suppression of
forest fires." By the same act township supervisors,
mayors of cities and presidents of villages were made
local fire wardens. The Forest Commissioner was

398 RURAL MIC II I a AN

directed to appoint a chief fire warden. His sal-
ary, as might be expected, was only $500 a year.
His duty was to enforce the provisions of ''this act
throughout the state." Provision was made for in-
vestigation and inquiry regarding the forests of
the State and their protection from fire through the
chief warden and his deputies, and such additional
assistants as in an emergency might be necessary.
With its usual niggardliness in such matters, the
legislature put the daily wage of fire wardens at $2,
one-third chargeable to the State and-Jie residue to
the local municipality, but it set forth emphatically
the responsibility and penalties for the careless or
malicious setting of fires in woods and grass lands,
provisions which, if they had ever been enforced,
would have done much to solve the forest fire prob-
lem in Michigan. An act of June 4 of the same
year definitely designated lands in Crawford and
Roscommon counties, described as "delinquent state
tax, homestead, swamp and primary school lands,"
as a forest reserve under the control of the Forestry
Commission, which was to place them in charge of a
Forestry Warden and his deputies, for the purpose of
protection and reforestation. The tract amounted
to some 34,000 acres, and Filbert Roth, later head
of the Department of Forestry of the University of
Michigan, was appointed Forestry Warden. The
reforestation was undertaken in 1904, the running
of fire-lines in 1905. Restraining trespassers and
disposing of dead and down timber was instituted.

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COVXTRY LIFE 399

In his annual report^ Eoth set forth with clearness
and emphasis the forest requirements of the State,
the harm wrought by wasteful methods of manage-
ment. His own policy with reference to the forest
reserves was used, but as this proved unsatisfactory,
a nursery at Higgins Lake was established.

In 1907 the office of State Game, Fish and For-
estry Warden was created out of the former offices
of Chief Warden and Game and Fish Warden, which,
unlike the Forestry Warden, was charged with gen-
eral protective work throughout the State. It was
obligatory on the deputies of the Game, Fish and
Forestry Warden "to familiarize themselves by per-
sonal investigation with the locality and the condi-
tion of the cut-over lands, prairie lands and other
districts in their respective counties where tires are
most likely to start and spread, aiid to take such
precautions as they shall deem reasonable and proper
to prevent the starting or spreading of fires in such
districts, and in doing so, may enter upon lands and
remove or destroy brusli, rubbish and other danger-
ous combustible material, wherever necessary."
This provision of law, if it had remained more
than a dead-letter, would have done much to relieve
Michigan of the perennial losses from forest fires.
The State Game, Fish and Forestry Warden has be-
come the State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Com-
missioner, but the fires burn as frequently and as
fiercely as ever. The Forestry Warden became the
State Forester, but he cannot obtain results without

400 RURAL MICHIGAN

resources. The fatal flaw has been defective person-
nel or defective resources for such personnel as was
capable of achieving anything.

In 1909 the Public Domain Commission was cre-
ated. The Secretary of State, Auditor-General, the
Commissioner of the State Land Office (after 1914
the Superintendent of Public Instruction), and per-
sons appointed by the governor from the Regents of
the University of Michigan, the State Board of Agri-
culture, and the Board of Control of the Michigan
College of Mines on nomination of these bodies them-
selves, composed the 'T. D. C," as common parlance
styled it. The office of Immigration Commissioner
was attached to this new body, which in 1915 also
acquired the appointment of the State Game, Fish
and Forestry Warden, whose designation later be-
came the State Game, Fish and Forest Fire Com-
missioner. There was also to be a State Forester
to have charge of the forests, and a Chief of Field
Division to attend to cases of trespass and in general
look after the real estate operations of the Commis-
sion. The secretaryship of the Public Domain Com-
mission might have become an office of great impor-
tance in the work of conservation which evidently
had been in the minds of the sponsors of these altera-
tions in the organic acts related to this subject. But
scarcely any will claim that the secretaryship was
ever held Ijy any one of aggressive tendencies or
possessed of a well-defined progressive policy, so the
position has continued to be largely clerical.

Since the creation of the Michigan Forestry Com-

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 401

mission in 1899, and its siipplanter, the Public Do-
main Commission, definite areas of land, now aggre-
gating 157,064.74 acres, have been set apart as State
forests in the northern counties of the southern penin-
sula and another on the Lake Superior shore of the
northern peninsula. Fire-lines have been run, steel
watch-towers have been erected, a small fire fighting
force has been organized in relation to both the State
and private forests, a small tree nursery for growing
seedlings has boon established at Higgins Lake in
Crawford County, plantations of several varieties of
evergreen trees (at present white, Norway, Jack and
Scotch pine) have been instituted in various State
forests, amounting in 1920 to 9,124 acres. Exchanges
of State lands with the United States and with pri-
vate owners have been consummated for the purpose
of consolidating present holdings; but the net result
is egregiously inadequate in comparison with the
demands of the existing situation. There are ten
to twelve million acres of cut-over and undeveloped
lands requiring attention, which it seems physically
impossible to re-stock with a new forest-cover by arti-
ficial means. Nature would accomplish very much
unaided, but her efforts are frustrated by the lack
of fire control and the utter inadequacy of the meas-
ures taken. The efforts of the Public Domain Com-
mission up to 1921 have been largely of a routine
character. The laws relating to the burning of
slashings and forest waste that constitute a fire men-
ace, and to the malicious or careless starting of forest
and grass fires, remain unenforced in most instances,

402 RURAL MWinCIAN

nor have the penalties been applied. It would not
be historically correct to say that nothing has been
accomplished, bnt the achievement is pitifully dis-
proportioned to the necessities of the existing situ-
ation.

Undoubtedly :Michigan has lacked a constructive
conservation policy and plan. The various activities
under this head that the legislature has from time
to time sought to create have l)een disorganized and
unrelated. One boardjms dealt with fish propaga-
tion, another with fish protection. The same agency
was charged with game and with forest protection,
although in the opinion of experts the work calls for
differentiation between 'these two functions. The
work assigned to the immigration commissioner was
neglected. There was no organized cooperation be-
tween the Michigan Agricultural College, the Uni-
versity of ]\Iichigan and the IMichigan College of
Mines, the State Geological Survey in the prosecu-
tion of the State soil survey instituted in 1915 by
the Agricultural College and resumed in 1920. There
are drainage projects transcending the boundaries
and resources of local drainage districts which might
better be carried out by a State drainage department,
but there is no such department. There is no com-
plete survey of the inland waters of the State and
their fish and other resources. Inadequate provision
has been made for re-stocking the waters of the
State with fish. There has been no mobilization of
the abundant intelligences in undertaking a compre-
hensive solution of these problems.

GOVERNMEXTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 403

ROADS

The present highway system of Michigan comprises
a network of about 75,000 miles^ constructed by
townships, good roads districts, the counties, and the
State. This is the order in which the adoption of
road construction by the several kinds of districts
was placed on the statute book. It will be observed
that these districts represent an area successively
larger than that covered by the earlier type, answer-
ing to the growth of the State and the expansion of
local interests. As a unit of road work the town-
ship antedates statehood, and its road officials are
the commissioner of highways and the overseer or
overseers of highways. The voting of road taxes
rests directly with the voters in their annual town-
ship meetings or with the to^vnship boards. Two
taxes are levied: the road repair tax is on taxable
property within the township outside of incorporated
villages; the highway improvement tax is on all
property within the township including incorporated
villages. Good roads districts, of which there are
(1920) only three in the State, comprise a union
of township and municipalities for road work.

The act of the legislature of 1909 which estab-
lished the present county road system was revolu-
tionary in its effect, for it created a larger unit of
road construction with an organization competent
to carry out a comprehensive highway policy under
ample financial support. As the law now stands, a
board of county road commissioners, of throe mem-

404 RUIx'AL MICJIIGAN

hers, elected at the autumnal elections in the even-
numbered years, directs the county road system, which
is financed by the county supervisors with State aid
Acting only as an "administrative board/' the county
road commission appoints a superintendent, or engi-
neer, who is in direct charge of the highway work
which the commission has undertaken. The com-
mission adopts as part of the county system such
roads within the county outside of c^ies and vil-
lages as it may determine, and also roads within
municipalities by agreement therewith. The tax for
the county road is voted by the board of supervisors.
The State assists highway construction and main-
tenance through grants in aid to road districts, as
just described, based on the character and dimen-
sions of the road, and itself constructs and main-
tains what are designated "state trunk-line high-
ways," which are main through routes within the
State, charging a portion of the cost to the counties
traversed in accordance with a schedule in the case
of federal aided roads based on the relation between
trunk-line mileage and assessed valuation. This
work is financed through the State's moiety of the
tax on automobiles, the general property tax levied
by the legislature, the sale of bonds, and the State's
quota of the federal grant in aid of highway con-
struction. The State Highway Commissioner and
his corps of experts, with whom are associated an
advisory board, administers the State Highway De-
partment, Avliich prepares plans and specifications,
determines the amount and recipients of State aid,

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 405

lets contracts, and performs a variety of duties. Tlie
act providing for the construction of liigliways by
this department was enacted in 1919 and, up to
June 30, 1920, 592 miles of trunk-line road were
placed under construction by the State which, it
was estimated, would cost nearly $10,000,000. It
should be understood that trunk-line roads are not
necessarily improved, but of the 5,500 miles in Michi-
gan, 2,392 were improved up to the end of the fiscal
year of 1920. At the same time, a total of 335 miles
of federal-aided road had been placed under con-
struction, to cost $5,633,000. The State Highway
Department constructs bridges on State trunk-line
highways, and 154 of these of more than thirty-feet
span had been completed and G2 others had been
placed under construction, to cost some $2,000,000.^
The State also maintains trunk-line highways and
requires similar action on the part of districts re-
ceiving State reward under penalty of a deduction
of the cost of maintenance from any reward moneys
that may accrue to such a delinquent district or of
having the work done directly by the State and
charged against the district. Many districts have
instituted a regular patrol system. From May 1 to
December 31, 1919, the State participated in the
maintenance of 4,878 miles of trunk-line and federal
aided road, at a total cost of $1,263,740, of which
amount the State contributed 62.1 per cent.^

' "Eighth Biennial Rept. of the State Highway Commis-
sionor." T.ansing, 1920, 7, 8.
Ubid., 14.

The "Covert Act" of 1915 provides a method bj-
which the owners of GO per cent of tlie land fronting
on a highway whicli it is desired to improve may
petition for its improvement, whereon the county
road commission or the State Highway Commissioner
cooperates in the drafting of specifications and the
letting of contracts. Such roads serve as feeders to
main highways or links in incomplete systems, and
have been constructed beyond \vhat was anticipated
when the act was first adopted.

Seven classes of roads are recognized by the law,
in accordance with which the reward the State allows
the road district responsible for construction is de-
termined. Lowest in this classification is a road of
class A — a sand-clay road, whose basic width of
metalled surface is nine feet and whose grade does
not exceed G per cent, except where circumstances
warrant a departure from this maximum in accord-
ance with specifications approved by the State High-
way Commissioner. The reward is 25 per cent of
the cost but may not exceed $3,000 a mile. To June
30, 1920, 201 miles of road of this class had been
built.

The six remaining classes have similar require-
ments as to grade, contour, and basic width, but
vary the State reward according to the materials used
and the width of roadway constructed. Thus a road
of class B is composed of gravel or burnt shale. A
class C road is made in two courses; at the bottom,
crushed stone or slag, and a top course of gravel or
blast furnace slag. D class roads have a bottom

GOVERN ME'SITAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 407

course of gravel or slag and a top of crushed stone.
Of the gravel roads in class B, 3,415 miles had been
built to June 30, 1920 ; while the roads in classes
C and D were manifestly less favored, since only 286
miles of class C and 11 miles of class D had been
constructed at the same date. On the other hand,
there had been constructed 783 miles of the class E
type, which is a macadam road with or without a
bituminous binder, and properly bonded. The con-
crete type belongs to classes B, C, D and E, while
classes F and 0 are entitled to an additional $2,500
a mile and trunk lines may receive State reward to
50 per cent of their cost but not to exceed $15,000
a mile.

The surface sands and gravels of Michigan yield
abundant material for the construction and main-
tenance of roads. The United States Geological Sur-
vey reports for 1919 a production of 2,639,483 short
tons of gravel, 539,800 of building sand, 204,045
of paving sand, and 67,916 of railway ballast, in
addition to large quantities of sand used for manu-
facturing and other purposes. There was undoubt-
edly much material produced and used locally that
did not appear in the record. In addition enormous
quantities of waste rock from the iron and copper
mines and from the quarries are available and are
similarly employed. ^luch use also is made of the
stamp-mill sand that is a by-product of stamp-mill
operations along Portage Lake and Lake Superior
in the copper region.

408 RURAL MICHIGAN

DRAINAGE

The preliminary report of the United States Cen-
sus for 1930 rehitive to drainage in Michigan shows
that on December 31, 1919, Hillsdale County had
204,165 acres in organized drainage enterprises.
Similar figures for Jaeksoh County Avere 76,139
acres; for Lenawee, 275,535; Monroe, 251,387; Wash-
tenaw, 193,284; and Wayne 259,667. This indi-
cates that the percentage of each county in drain-
age enterprises was as follows: Hillsdale, 53.4; Jack-
son, 16.8; Lenawee, 58; Monroe, 68.6; Washtenaw,
36.5; and Wayne, 65.4. In Allegan County 58.8
per cent of the area is in drainage enterprises; in
Barry, 40.3 ; in Eaton, 95 ; Ionia, ^79.1 ; Kent, 26.5 ;
Montcalm, 33.1; and Ottawa, 71. In Berrien County
the percentage was 33.7; in Branch, 48.3; Calhoun,
57.8; Cass, 20.3; Kalamazoo, 22.1; St. Joseph, 10.5;
Van Buren, 44.1; Benzie-Charlevoix, .2; Chippewa,
1.8; Emmet, .5; Grand Traverse, .6; Manistee, 3.4;
Missaukee, 8.4

The bulletin on Drainage in ]\Iichigan, a part of
the Fourteenth United States Census, notes that
drainage enterprises are confined largely to the most
southerly forty-seven counties of the Lower Penin-
sula. The total works completed by the drainage
enterprises to December 31, 1919, comprise 16,023.8
miles of open ditches, 2,173.9 miles of tile-drains,
and 33.1 miles of accessory levees. Under con-
struction were 118.4 miles of ditches and 8.4 miles
of tile-drains. These figures do not include drains

GOTERXMEXTAL MORE FOR COUXTRY LIFE 409

or levees installed by individual farm owners,
supplemental to the works of the enterprises, nor
the works of flood protection or levee districts that
had not undertaken the construction of ditches or
tile-drains. There are three pumping districts for
land drainage among the enterprises in Michigan.
The Census found the principal crojis grown upon
the drained lands to be wheat, corn and sugar-beets.
The aggregate area of the farm land that was re-
ported as provided with drainage is 3,156,632 acres.
The area of farm land reported as needing drainage is
given as 2,070,387. The area requiring drainage only
is 579,813 acres, while that requiring both drainage
and clearing is given as 1,490,574 acres. The total
land in operating drainage enterprises, which include
the completion of drainage works authorized or which
had begun actual construction work on or before
January 1, 1920, is 9,729,171 acres, which includes
7,182,352 acres of improved land, and which consti-
tutes 55.6 per cent of all improved land in farms.
The timbered and cut-over land in these enterprises
is estimated at 2,195,562 acres, and of other unim-
proved land, 351,257 acres. The area of land that
is swampy or subject to overflow in these enterprises
is 1,020,207. The area that suffers a loss of crops
from defective drainage is put at 692,224 acres. The
total assessed acreage is 15,766,478. The aggregate
capital invested in or required for the completion of
operating enterprises is $25,048,980.

Michigan's first comprehensive drainage law was
enacted in 1839, but the present county drain sys-

410 RURAL MICHIGAN

tern was established by Act 254 of the legislative
session of 1897. The Miller and Simons report on
drainage of 1918 gave the number of county drain
commissioners in the State as seventy, of whom
sixty-three were serving in the southern peninsula
and seven in the northern. Thirteen counties had
no drain commissioiiers, namely Antrim, Crawford,
Kalkaska, Oscoda and Otsego in the Lower Penin-
sula; and Baraga, Dickinson, Houghton, Gogebic,
Iron, Keweenaw, Mackinac and Schoolcraft in the
Upper Peninsula. The report states that during the
twenty years, 1898-1917, expenditures on county
drains were made in sixty-three of the eighty-three
counties of the State, while Alcona, Antrim, Craw-
ford, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Montmorency, Ogemaw,
Otsego and Oscoda in the Lower Peninsula, and
Alger, Baraga, Delta, Dickinson, Gogebic, Hough+on
Iron, Keweenaw, Luce, Marquette and Schoolciaft
in the Upper Peninsula, had spent nothing for this
purpose.

Miller and Simons criticize the Michigan drain-
age system as "piece-meal"' in design and execution,
. lacking a well-planned outlet with a network of
laterals. "Too often small drains," they observe,
"constructed independently, without following any
general plan have resulted in discharging the water
from the individual drains into existing natural or
artificial water-courses which already may be over-
taxed; resulting in the flooding of the lower lying
lands, thus aggregating the necessity for improve-

aOVERXMEXTAL WORK FOR COUXTRY LIFE 411

ments of the water-courses. . . . The tendency in
the construction of county drains in Michigan has
too often been to limit the size and depth in order
that they might be of a type readily constructed by
teams and scrapers or, as in many cases, by hand."
This necessitates reconstruction with all the legal
performance that must accompany it.^

]\Iiller and Simons compute that, under the pres-
ent Michigan drainage law, al)out 9,300 drains have
been constructed, whose aggregate length is approxi-
mately 20,000 miles and cost approximately $18,-
000,000. The law provides for the payment of costs
by the beneficiaries in not to exceed three install-
ments, and the investigators compute that some 60
per cent of the drains has been paid for in one in-
stallment and the remainder largely in not to ex-
ceed two installments. Miller and Simons point out
that the rights of property owners are amply pro-
tected in the Michigan drain law, and that exces-
sive costs have usually been avoided and litigation
almost wholly so. On the other hand it has fre-
quently, in a proposed drainage project, been impos-
sible to secure the requisite majority of interested
property owners' signatures to the petition request-
ing the establishment of a drain ; and the inability
of the drain commissioner, as against the petitioners,
to determine the route and area of the drainage dis-
trict, has operated to the detriment of a^ project
that would better have been constructed on other
* Miller and Simons: "Drainage in Michigan," 28.

412 RURAL MIL! Ilia AN

lines and specifications than that which was pro-
posed.^ The Michi«j-an draina<,'-e law is also criti-
cized becansc of a lack of provision for adequate and
definite estimates of cost in advance of construction.
There is often a lack of competent engineering ad-
vice before construction is uiylertaken, resulting in
ineffective drains produced at nigh cost. The method
of cleaning out drains is criticized as needlessly
cumbersome; it is suggested that an annual main-
tenance tax for this work should simplify the process
and insure better results. The present law is criti-
cized because it fails to provide for access to an exist-
ing drain by a laud-owner whose land is not tra-
versed by it, save by resort to the detailed pro-
cedure laid down for the original construction of a
project. Projects involving outlets of considerable
extent, draining wet lands that can produce nothing
until such outlets are established, sufi'er from the lack
of provision for the issue of bonds by drainage dis-
tricts whereby the expenditure can be deferred until
production is instituted on the drained lands.

It will appear from the preceding paragraph that
.the county is the unit for drainage and reclamation
operations in Michigan. There are drainage pro-
jects, however, which greatly transcend county boun-
daries and financial resources for their accomplish-
ment. An example is the Saginaw basin and the dis-
trict tributary to the Taquemon River of the Upper
Peninsula. In the case of the Saginaw, evidently the
drain commissioner of no one county is competent to
'lUd., 52.

GOVERNMENTAL WORE FOR COUNTRY LIFE 413

determine the scope and execution of the project as
a whole. Drainage operations on the upper reaches
of the tributaries of this stream will most snrely
affect the interests of the cities adjacent to the lower
river; while if these municipal interests are to de-
termine the whole project, the drainage of the low-
lying overflowed lands above these municipalities is
directly affected. Drainage operations involving the
deepening of the channel of the Manistique or the
Taquemon, which will require extensive channeling
in solid rock, will involve a financial outlay doubt-
less beyond the means of local drainage districts to
provide. To meet the requirements of situations
such as these, and to prepare plans and specifications
for the larger drainage projects, apportion costs, ad-
just differences, and develop a comprehensive drain-
age system for the entire State with reference to the
general good, seems to l^e the proper function of a
state drainage department. Although its establish-
ment has from time to time been broached, as yet the
legislature has not taken the necessary action, unless
it may be considered to have been comprised in the
newly created departments of conservation or of
agriculture.'- 'i

The glacial topography of Michigan, as indicated
in Chapter I, has created large tracts of land which
can only be recovered to agricultural uses through
artificial drainage. It is estimated that there are

' See Miller and Simons : "Drainage in IMichigan," Lan-
sing, 1918, 58ff. This monograph was prepared with spe-
cial view to the information of the legislature (session of
1919) which was expected to consider this subject.

414 RURAL MICHIGAN

4,400,000 such acres. The statute provides that
"drains may be located, established, constructed and
maintained, and drains and water courses may be
cleaned out, straightened, widened, deepened and ex-
tended, whenever the same shall be conducive to the
public health, convenience or welfare.'' The super-
vision of drainage operations is placed under the
county drain commissioners, chosen in every county,
if the requirements of law are observed, at the regu-
lar November elections in alternate years. Before
the act of 1897, drainage was an affair of the town-
ships. The drain commissioner acts only on appli-
cation of at least one-half of the freeholders of the
land traversed thereby. The commissioner tenta-
tively determines the location of the proposed drain,
the right-of-way is secured by release or condemna-
tion proceedings, and, when the required hearings
and official determinations have taken place, a final
order of determination is issued fixing the route of
the drain and the boundaries of the special assess-
ment district which must meet its cost, together with
the apportionment of costs among the beneficiaries.
The work is done on contract with the land-owners
or the lowest responsible bidder, whoever he may be.
When drains traverse more than one county, the
statute provides for the appointment of special com-
missioners to act with the regular county drain com-
missioners in locating the drains and apportioning
costs, and in case of a failure to agree, provision is
made for an appeal to the State Highway Commis-
sioner as arbitrator. Drainage of State swamp lands

GOYERXMEXTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY LIFE 415

is now under the control of the county drain com-
missioners.

As a factor in development, the drainage of the
Avet lands of Michigan is extremely important. Col-
lating the results of studies by Miller and Simons
and by Leverett, it is estimated that in the Lower
Peninsula ll.C) per cent of the area is swamp and
lake. In the northern peninsula 25 per cent of the
area is estimated of the same character, but infor-
mation is less definite here. This works out to 4,146
square miles of lake and swamp in the Upper Pen-
insula. Leverett suggests that one-fourth of this is
capable of drainage. Miller and Simons' estimate is
similar to Leverett's, namely, 2,598,000 acres, which
amounts to 24.6 per cent of the area of the Upper
Peninsula. However, these investigators, in the ab-
sence of sufficient data, did not estimate the reclaim-
able wet lands. Leverett estimates that one-fourth
of the wet lands of the northern peninsula are ca-
pable of drainage.

In the southern peninsula, Leverett estimates the
lake and swamp area at 11.6 per cent, while Miller
and Simons approximate this area, with their in-
clusion of 2,175,000 acres, which works out approxi-
mately 12 per cent of the aggregate southern penin-
sula area. In the northern twenty-one counties of
this peninsula, which is also the area of sandy waste
lands, Miller and Simons estimate that there are
661,000 acres of reclaimablo wet land. During the
five-year period, 1913-1917, fifty-seven counties of
both peninsulas expended on the construction of

416 RURAL MICH 10 AN

drainage projects $5,917,G10.50, and the area as-
sessed for this work amounted to 3,214,500 acres. ^
Among these counties only three, Mackinac, Menomi-
nee and Ontonagon, are in the Upper Peninsula,
where, as yet, little artificial drainage has been under-
taken. In his most recent report on the lands of
the northern twenty-nine ctrftiitics of the Lower
Peninsula, Leverett estimates their area of lake,
swamp and wet lands at 4,3G5 square miles. The
State Geologist calls attention to the fact that some
22 per cent of the soils of the southern peninsula are
clay and thus susceptible of improvement through
drainage ; and he also points out that of the lands
capable of drainage, extensive areas may be unsuited
to agriculture, because of the presence of a saudy bot-
tom or sub-stratum.

* "Drainage in Michigan," facing p. 25.

CHAPTER XIII

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS

At a time when Michigan, as elsewhere, is suffer-
ing from low prices of agricultural products, one
occasionally hears a protest against any agitation
for developing the waste lands^, whereby additional
farm products will be sent to a market already over-
crowded with unsalable commodities or those sal-
able at unremunerative prices. The man of the
north country must take a different view of this
problem. He observes that, in the end, it is de-
sirable to take the broad view of any economic ques-
tion; that the development of national resources,
wherever they are and of whatever sort, is the funda-
mental American doctrine and normal reaction.
Along this line America has grown great. If Michi-
gan agriculture is now suffering, this is primarily
due to defects of distribution rather than to over-
production. The present situation is undoubtedly
temporary and a normal basis of prices will be
reached long before any large portion of the cut-
over lands is brought under cultivation. Develop-
ment is a very slow process, and the products of the
new lands will only very gradually reach the outside
market. Indeed, much of this product will be lo-

417

418 RURAL MICniGxiN

cally consumed. Nor is it proposed to place all or
any large proportion of the ten million idle acres
nnder the plow. Large areas should be planted to
new forests to replace the old ones that once occu-
pied these lands. Other portions will go into ranches
for grazing. Other parts will be employed in horti-
culture, whose products will be locally absorbed with-
out any a])preciable effect on the general market for
farm products.

Those who purchase northern cut-over lands are
either of recent European origin, whose financial re-
sources are too meager to allow them to buy improved
farms; or they are ranchers who desire tracts much
more extensive than could profitably be acquired in
the more developed sections of the State. By all
means the foreign population should be encouraged
to get back to the land. Many cannot afford high-
priced improved lands ; but with labor and sweat they
will improve the rough stump areas, make a home in
what was recently a wilderness, and develop taxable
property where formerly lands went delinquent for
the non-payment of taxes, thereby easing the tax
burden for the entire State.

The progressive improvement of cut-over areas
diminishes the forest-fire and brush-fire danger. The
source of the grasshopper pest is in these same tracts
of wild grass and brush lands. Finally it should
be recognized that the productivity of the farms in
the older sections of the State is declining because
of the too continuous cropping of the land and soil
erosion. It would be better to turn to the virgin

DEVELOPMEXT OF MICHIGAN WA;STE LANDS 419

soils of the north country, giving these over-worked
farms of the south a rest, permitting them to re-
turn to grass or forest for a period.

If it is true that farmers cannot make a fair return
on their investment in the older sections of the
State, that may be attributed to the too high valua-
tion which they place on their holdings. If they
were to capitalize their net return at the current rate
of interest, they would probably find that such is
the case. It would seem to be better, then, that these
farmers should reduce their capital investment in
lands by purchasing greater acreage at less cost far-
ther north. It is not too far north to obtain a high
return of farm products to the acre.

The Michigan Academy of Science held a sympo-
sium on the idle lands of the State at the University
of Michigan, ^ilarch 31 to April 2, 1920. On the
thesis, "Michigan's undeveloped area represents one
of the few great reserves of land suited to agricul-
tural purposes, awaiting development," J. F. Cox
of the Michigan Agricultural College pointed out
that the agricultural progress of the northern cut-
over areas had been liampered by the extreme vari-
ability of the quality of the soil, leading to the selec-
tion by settlers of lands too poor for agriculture, too
remote from developed markets, as well as to
the lack of skill in farm practice on the part of the
settlers.

He points out that, "generally speaking, the better
f^andy loams, loams and clays of the entire cut-over
country are well adapted to cloxer. grasses and

420 RURAL MIVnWAN

other forase crops, wliich can be depended upon to
furnish excellent pastures and meadows. .... The
better types of soils are naturally seeded to June
grass, alsike clover and timothy. The heavier loams,
clay loams and clays, where second-growth is not
too thick, carry good pastures throughout the sum-
mer seasons. On the lighter loams, the pasture
tends to dry up and run short. The light pine and
hardwood soils and jack-pine plains are of little
value for grazing purposes, except for a very brief
period in late spring and early summer, when they
offer light grazing.

"After clearing, the loams, clay loams and clay
can be depended upon to produce excellent crops of
rye, barley, oats, spring wheat, root crops, peas and
oats, and buckwheat. Winter wheat is gaining rap-
idly in acreage, and bids fair to become a dependable
crop on adapted soils.

"Corn can be depended upon on the above-named
soils for silage purposes in the lower part of Meno-
minee and Delta counties, throughout the northern
part of the Lower Peninsula and along the southern
shore on adapted soils of the Upper Peninsula. Early
varieties are dependable for grain, but these regions
cannot be termed 'corn lands' in the sense that corn
can compete with barley or oats as a feed grain.

"The well-drained loams and sandy loams of north-
ern Michigan, in general, are splendidly adapted to
potatoes. It is well within the realm of possibility
that northern Michigan will become one of the great-
est centers of potato production in the United States.

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS 421

"One of the problems of feeders, who have recently
brought stock into upper Michigan, is to provide for
winter feed. Summer pasturage is plentiful. The
clearing of more land for the production of barley,
rye and oats for grain feed, of silage, root crops and
clover and timothy hay, and alfalfa to winter over
stock, will make this business much more secure.

"Certain areas of the Upper Peninsula can pro-
duce all crops necessary to sustain a thriving dairy
and livestock development. The Ontonagon valley,
for instance, a great range of approximately 250,000
acres of strong clays and clay loams of high fertility,
can produce the grass, grains and winter feed such
as roots, peas and oats, or possibly sunflowers and
early corn varieties for silage to maintain a profitable
dairying or beef -cattle industry.

"The same condition exists in Chippewa County,
which has been a profitably farmed timothy and
small grain region for a number of years. Great
diversity of crops and proper drainage in both these
regions is advisable.

"In Menominee, Delta, Dickinson and part of Al-
ger counties are large areas of loams, and less ex-
tensive areas of clay loams, well adapted to farming
which have been taken up to a comparatively small
extent. Loams and better sandy loams of this region
offer excellent conditions for potato growing. The
rotation of rye or spring-seeded small grains with
clover is well adapted.

"In the northern part of the Lower Peninsula and
the Upper Peninsula considerable development has

422 I.' I If A L MK'HKIAN

been accomplished on the better lands, but there still
remain large areas of excellent land awaiting
clearing. ^^

"In briefly stating the situation, the following facts
stand out :

"1. Michigan possesses a vast area of undeveloped
land.

"•2. For the mopt part this land is stump land or
poorly drained land, which will require considerable
time and expense to prepare for cropping.

"3. Long-time loans at a low rate of interest would
be of great help to individual farmers.

"4. The soils are extremely variable. A compara-
tively large acreage is well adapted to farming, and
an even larger acreage can be termed unsuited for
farming under present conditions.

"5. The agricultural possibilities of this area are
frequently misrepresented to the detriment of its
development.

"G. With proper crops, under the right conditions,
a great development of successful farm communi-
ties can be made, much to the benefit of the
state.

"•7. Forest fires cause great damage to incoming
settlers, a great loss to standing timber and the young
growth, and injury to soils through burning out of
organic matter. More adequate forest-fire regula-
tions to remove this menace is necessary.

"8. A state agricultural and soil survey to prop-
erly designate the value of land for farming, graz-

DEVELOrJIEXT OFAIICHIGAX WASTE LAXDl^ 423

ing and forestr}' purposes and adequate fire control
are necessary for the sound and reasonably rapid
development of Michigan idle lands.

"9. Settlers must in all cases be established on
the good lands only and prevented by an interested
state from dissipating their energies on land which
cannot be profitably worked. In no case should they
be permitted to be persuaded by the occasional igno-
rant or unscrupulous land dealer to settle on jack
pine and light blueberry plains and other inferior
areas. . . .

"10. Michigan's northern country has been repre-
sented both as a great desert from an agricultural
standpoint, and as 'cloverland/ a coming Eden.
Somewhere between the two statements lies the truth.
On the whole, Michigan has in her undeveloped
northern country a region of great agricultural po-
tentiality, which, if properly developed as farming
land, grazing land and forestry land, in accordance
with its fitness from a soil and climatic standpoint,
will add materially to the wealth and prosperity of
the state." ^

At this session of the Michigan Academy of Sci-
ence, it was resolved that the proper procedure for
the reclamation of Michigan's non-productive area
should be as follows: "1. That an inventory be made
of the land resources of Michigan by counties. This
inventory should constitute a series of county reports,

^"Michigan Tfllo Land.'" Reprinted from tlie 22d Report,
Mich. Acad, of Science, 1021, 21.

424 RURAL MICHIGAN

accompanied by map? along the following lines : a.
Nature of physical conditions, b. Present economic
conditions, together with the record of present and
past experiences in the use of the area. c. A classi-
fication of the land according to its highest indicated
use.

"3. That in the study of the physical conditions of
the land (a) first and chief attention be given to
soil conditions, with a classification of soils which
will recognize their genesis and which will give maxi-
mum emphasis to their distinguishing qualities.

(b) That climate bo adequately considered as a fac-
tor in utilization; and (c) that topography, drainage,
location, and the size of areas of unit characteristics
be separately recognized and considered as factors
affecting possible use.

"3. That an intensive study of land economics be
made for each area on the manner of present utili-
zation of the land and the history of its use. In con-
nection with this study there should be determined
(a) extent of idleness of the land, (b) the different
types of use to which land is now being put, and

"4. That the land of Michigan shall be classified
into a series of classes on the basis of return, or an-
ticipated return, ranging from land suited to highest
grade and most permanent agriculture through graz-
ing and forest land to permanent waste land.

"5. That the work of this survey be carried out
with the fullest utilization of the scientific personnel

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS 435

in the State and in consultation^ and if feasible in
cooperation, with the proper federal agencies." ^

As compared with such highly developed agricul-
tural states as Iowa and Illinois, Michigan possesses
very large tracts of lands not yielding any products
of economic importance. Such lands have been esti-
mated to amount to ten million acres. To derive
some sort of output of economic value from these
unproductive areas is in part the purpose of three
development bureaus that have been established, two
in the southern peninsula and one in the northern.

The Northeastern Michigan Development Bureau
was incorporated as an association "not for pecuniary
profit," January 31, 1910, and comprised within its
interest the counties of Alpena, Alcona, Arenac, Bay,
Cheboygan, Crawford, Clare, Gladwin, Iosco, Mont-
morency, Midland, Ogemaw, Oscoda, Otsego, Presque
Isle, Eoscommon, and Saginaw. The secretary's of-
fice is at Bay City. The Western Michigan Develop-
ment Bureau operates in a group of twenty counties
in the western and northwestern section of the Lower
Peninsula, as far south as Ottawa and Kent counties,
and as far north as Emmet County, while extension
to the Indiana line in 1921 was planned. Its Articles
of Association, as amended May 1, 1912, set forth
that the bureau is organized for the purpose of "the
encouragement and advancement of agriculture,
manufactures and the mechanic arts" in its territory.
The secretary's office is at Grand Eapids. All the
territory within the Upper Peninsula falls within

^Ibid., 2,

426 RURAL MICnjGAN

the scope of the Upper Peninsula Development Bu-
reau, described in its report for 1919, as "an insti-
tution designed to contribute towards and assist
in every way possible the growth, progress and de-
velopment of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
... by assisting in every way possible individuals,
corporations and organizations within the Peninsula,
and to reach out for greater expansion by attracting
individuals and organizations from without." The
secretary's office is at Marquette.

The secretary of the Northeastern ]\Iichigan De-
velopment Bureau describes the association as "an
agricultural board of trade," and in its literature
are featured the agricultural advantages, including
fruit-culture, live-stock, and summer vacation aspects
of the district. The secretary of the Western Michi-
gan Development Bureau calls attention to the in-
troduction of G51 settlers into this territory in one
year, together with settlers' movables ; the promo-
tion of good roads (claiming the origination of the
West Michigan Pike, and a share in the starting of
the Mackinac Trail) ; while many meetings among
farmers were held, "for the purpose of inculcating
better methods of farming." The three bureaus,
having regard for the great acreage of cut-over grass-
lands in their territory, have promoted grazing, es-
pecially sheep culture, and have sought the intro-
duction of sheep from the western ranges, especially
in seasons of drought. The Upper Peninsula De-
velopment Bureau (organized in 1911) has inter-
ested itself in the settlement of cut-over lands, intro-

DETELOPMEXT OF MICHIGAX WASTE LANDS 427

duction of sheep and cattle from the western ranges,
the tourist business, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence
Waterway project, the destruction of noxious ani-
mals, good roads, introduction of new industries,
and whatever else may appear to promise the indus-
trial and agricultural improvement of the country.

All the development bureaus issue pamphlets re-
plete with descriptive matter pertaining to their ter-
ritory, praising their good qualities, emphasizing
characteristic products and the possibility of pro-
ducing crops as yet not characteristic of the region,
their advantage in relation to fruit-culture, grazing,
general farming, raw material, their scenic attractive-
ness and recreational advantages, and whatever may
appear to have interest for the prospective home-
seeker in these less developed areas of the State.
Eesults are hardly capable of a statistical presenta-
tion, 3?et one gathers the impression that these ef-
forts are not useless from the standpoint of attract-
ing attention to the section and occasionally settlers
also.

The sandy lands of Michigan occupy millions of
acres in all sections but predominant in the northern
peninsula. Their area cannot be stated definitely
until a comprehensive soil survey and classification
lias been carried to completion. These were the old
pine lands referred to in Chapter IT. Here the prob-
lem is to determine what crops, forest or field, can
lie grown profitaldy to such an extent that a liveli-
liood from the land may be secured. Experimental
work has been conducted by private agencies rather

428 RURAL MlCruaAN

than by the Michigan Agricultural College, in the
Upper Peninsula chiefly under the encouragement of
the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau in co-
operation with county agric-uTtural agents and the
land commissioner of the Duluth, South Shore and
Atlantic Eailway. In the Lower Peninsula, Edward
E. Evans of West Branch has specialized in farm
crops for sandy soils, producing and distributing
seeds of many varieties. Sand vetch and, for the
still lighter soils, the wood-pea have been found suit-
able. For sandy soils in northern Michigan sara-
della and sainfoin are also thought to have possibili-
ties of useful culture, while lupines, although con-
sidered as possibly useful, have not been demon-
strated a valuable crop as yet. The yellow and white
annual sweet clover, Swedish "golden rain" oats,
broad bean, soybean, hidalgo-pea, lentil, and other
imported types have been taken account of, but it is
now too early for definite values to be assigned them
for sandy lands in general, although in restricted
areas in some instances good results appear to have
been obtained. The energetic pursuit of this field
of investigation may, in the next few years, determine
positively what sandy soils are capable of accomplish-
ing in the agriculture of Michigan.

Near Grayling, Crawford County, in the sandy
land area of the Lower Peninsula, the Northeastern
Development Bureau, in cooperation with the Michi-
gan Agricultural College, has recently undertaken
experimental investigations of crops adapted to the

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAN WASTE. LANDS 429

light sandy soils of the region. The projects are
described as having to do "with the nse of lime,
potash, acid phosphate, with such crops as vetch,
peas, oats, sweet clover, alfalfa, etc." The demon-
strations are in charge of the extension department
of the College and its soils department. The Grand
Eapids and Indiana Eailway some five years ago
began cooperative work at the demonstration farm
at Howard City and demonstration plats at Cadillac
and Big Eapids. Various clover, vetches, lupines, and
the like, were tried out. This work was interrupted
by the war. This bureau is particularly favorable
to the annual white sweet clover, or "Hubam" which,
with vetch, is regarded as the best soil-builder.

Agriculture in the northern counties of the south-
ern peninsula and the whole of the Upper Peninsula
presents not only problems of soil and markets but
also of climate. It has, therefore, been necessary to
determine, from these points of view, what crops
and methods must be employed if success is to be
the reward of rural industry. Trial and experience
seem to demonstrate that the climate is too cool for
corn to mature over much of the area, except in an
exceptionally favoral)le season and in the southern
counties of the district. Beans likewise are not
adapted, although under exceptional conditions good
crops have been secured. On the sandy loams and
medium loams, such crops as clover, beans, peas, rye,
vetch, buckwheat, corn, potatoes, root-crops and small-
fruit do well; while the heavier soils produce also

430 RURAL MICHIGAN

crops of timothy, wheat, oats and harley.^ While
climate and soil conditions are regarded .as favorable
to the sugar-beet, its culture is confined to the south-
western portion of the (!Tstrict, west of Lake TNIichi-
gan. All root-crops seem to thrive here; while the
almost unfailing rainfall of the growing season is
favorable to forage crops and live-stock. However,
with live-stock there remains the problem of winter
feeding, which is not insoluble and perhaps not more
serious than drought feeding in the southern coun-
ties. Eecent success in the growing of sunflowers for
ensilage may solve this problem, although expert
opinion is not unanimous in regard to the value of
the crop. On the heavy clays, principally in Chip-
pewa County, hay does exceptionally well, and has
been largely exported from the region. There being
no large cities in the district, the absence of large
local markets must be considered. Expert opinion
seems to favor the region as a dairy section, and there
is now a considerable traffic in milk and cream both
local and by railway to urban markets within and
without the district.

In estimating the dairy possibilities of the region,
the human factor must also be considered. The large
foreign population, particularly Scandinavian and
Finnish, is attracted naturally to dairying. Sheep-
raising on the large cut-over ranges has been pro-
moted in both peninsulas, but the consensus of expert
local opinion seems to favor the industry in the hands

'Walker & McDowell: "Farming on Cut-over Lands of
Mich.," U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull., 425, p. 4.

_bjD

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o

f-i

-t->

I-'

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DEVELOPMEXT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS 431

of persons familiar witli the country rather than
by incoming ranchers from the western ranges.
Sheep-raising on a moderate scale by local farmers
has made good many times. In weighing the agri-
cultural possibilities of the region, it must be recog-
nized that the proximity of the Great Lakes is a
factor of great importance, causing climatic condi-
tions to vary markedly within a few miles back from
the shore line. This is to be considered in relation
to fruit husbandry, which in areas adjacent to the
lakes on suitable land has been remarkably success-
ful. However, care must be taken in selecting the
varieties of fruit. From the list of apples, the as-
sistant state leader of county agents in the Upper
Peninsula has selected the Wealthy and Northwest-
ern Greening as, on the whole, the types to be favored
here. The Secretary of the State Horticultural So-
ciety favors the Macintosh Red. Berries, including
currants, gooseberries, blackberries, red raspberries,
and strawberries are universally, both in the wild and
domesticated state, grown in the district. Plums and
cherries produce on occasion in a very remarkable
abundance, while pears yield not so well. Garden
vegetables in wide variety do very well.

In the opinion of the special investigators of the
United States Department of Agriculture, who
studied agricultural conditions and described them
in a bulletin published in 191fi, "mixed farming
rather than a highly specialized type is apparently
well adapted to the majority of farms in this dis-
trict." The study embraced 801 farms in the cut-

432 RVRAL EIWIIIGAN

over divstrict of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota,
where the average investment for each farm was
$(j,85G, and the family income $559. In addition,
if free of deht, the family had what the farm could
furnish for its living. If income is small, so are ex-
penses among persons whose standard of living is
not so highly developed as among the old American
stock. Grouping the farms by size and family in-
come, the investigation brought out the fact that,
of the farms investigated, those having an area of
20 tillable acres or less, the family income was $213.
Farms of 20 to 40 acres gave a family income of
$339; of 40 to GO acres, $533; of 60 to 80 acres,
$G22 ; 80 to 100 acres, $939 ; 100 to 140 acres, $1,179 ;
over 140 acres, $1,586.^ This shows the steadily
increased income with the addition of tillable area.
The investigators observe that "the little farm well
tilled may succeed, and frequently does succeed in
this area, but the prospects are brighter for the
larger farm if that larger farm has sufficient area
under cultivation. Among the records there are
those of quite a number of farms, having satisfac-
tory labor incomes on less than forty acres of cleared
land, but these farms have rich soil, exceptionally
good livestock, and, as a rule, a considerable acreage
of woods pasture. A family engaged in general farm-
ing may make a fair living on a farm with forty
acres under cultivation and should be able to make
money with 80 to IGO acres under cultivation. The

^ "Farming on the Cut-over Lands of Michigan," etc.,
supra, 9, 10.

DEVELOPAIEXr OF MICIIlGAy WASTE LANDS 433

rapid enlargement of the cultivated area on each
farm, when it can be done economically, is the first
and most important agricultural problem in this
district and the one that has the widest and most
general application." ^

It has been shown statistically that there is no
labor income on farms with a large area unimproved.
To operate such a farm involves a disproportionate
outlay for taxes and interest on lands yielding small
or no return. Thus in the 801 farms under investi-
gation as above noted, whose average acreage was
108, it was ascertained that farms with less than
forty tillable acres had a minus labor income, while
only those farms possessing a tillable area of eighty
acres or more had a labor income above $100. Mani-
festly, then, it is uneconomic to hold large areas of
unimproved lands, except where new and favorable
developments can be anticipated. This is the ra-
tionale of the vigorous campaigns for stump re-
moval that has characterized some of the cut-over
districts of the State since the war period. In the
summer of 19"^ 1, it was planned actively to promote
land clearing in the Upper Peninsula under expert
guidance through the extension department of the
Michigan Agricultural College.

The Department of Agriculture investigators re-
ported a lack of crop rotation on the newer cut-over
farms under review, while the more successful of the
older farms had developed it definitely. The rota-

* "Farming on the Cut-over Lands of Michigan," etc.,
supra, !), 10.

434 RURAL MICHIGAN

tion most successful was that of grains, legumes
and inter-tilled crops. These were grown in a three-
or four-year rotation. In the latter grain was the
crop for the first year, for the second year, hay; the
third year, hay or pasture ; and the fourth year, inter-
tilled crops. The three-year rotation was in general
use where pasture on undeveloped land was abundant.

The clearing of cut-over lands obviously calls for
much heavy labor, and this seems favorable to cer-
tain sturdy European stocks inured and willing to
labor under rough conditions and with low initial
returns. During the early years of farm-making,
there is opportunity for work in the woods during the
winter and always for additional land-clearing opera-
tions. Indeed, most farmers of the northern cut-
over country are only part-time agriculturists, de-
voting a fair proportion of their time to lumbering
or other pursuits to augment the family income.

In the farm economy, care must be taken not to
grow more vegetables and small-fruits than can be
taken care of at home, except where urban markets
are available. On the other hand, the farm will pro-
duce ample supplies of fuel from its timber and
slashings, with fence-posts and stakes, not only for
home use but also for shipment to outside markets.
Lumber, stone, sand and gravel are usually locally
accessible.

At Escanaba, in the heart of the cut-over country,
exists the factory of the A. J. Kirstin Company,
manufacturers of stump-pullers. Some of these
operate by man-power and some by horse-power, on

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS 435

the clutch and drum principle. Selling at a price
ranging from $100 to $400, these pullers are sold to
a reported amount of about $1,000,000 annually.
Three-fourths of this business is domestic and direct
from factory to customer. About 10,000 machines
are produced annually, the company reports; and
the hand-power clutch and drum type predominate.
These hand-power machines are chiefly used on small
acreages. Experience has shown that usually the
best combination is of explosives and stump-pullers,
whereby the stumps are first riven to pieces and then
removed by the puller.

In addition to explosives obtained through com-
mercial channels, the farmers of the cut-over area
have obtained large quantities of ^'TNT" relin-
quished by the United States Department of Agri-
culture to the State Highway Department, and by
the Highway Departments to the local farm bureaus
for land-clearing operations. The reported contri-
butions thus furnished 750,000 pounds. The price
was very much less than that normally paid for ex-
plosives, since, as salvaged war material, it was not
distributed on a commercial basis. It proved a great
boon to the stump country, but aroused some oppo-
sition on the part of private concerns handling ex-
plosives, and for this or other reasons, this source of
supply was largely cut off in the spring of 1921.
There remained large quantities of "government"
picric acid, which it was planned to dispose of simi-
larly when a safe method of handling had been se-
cured. It is evident that land-clearing operations in

436 RURAL MICHIGAN

Michigan, even with these facilities available, have a
long future before them.

It is recognized that the agricultural progress of
Michigan, particularly in the undeveloped sections,
is closely connected with adequate financial assist-
ance. Outside the regular channels of banking, there
is no agency specifically created for the purpose of
affording financial aid to farmers or to rural develop-
ment. There are at the present time no colonization
companies, such as obtain in Wisconsin, for extend-
ing financial assistance to settlers. A purpose to
establish such enterprises has from time to time
been expressed, but as yet without definite results.
Up to March, 1920, the Federal Land Bank of St.
Paul, which embraces in its operations the State
of Michigan, had placed loans in this State aggre-
gating $4,150,500, of which $1,366,600 was allocated
to the Upper Peninsula. On December 31, 1920,
there had been chartered in Michigan 121 farm loan
associations, 3,440 loans had been made, involving
the total loans of $6,475,000. This gave an average
loan of $1,882.^ This was a year marked by a ces-
sation of business on the part of the Federal Farm
Loan Board, caused by the pendency in the Supreme
Court of the United States of a suit involving the
constitutionality of the Federal Farm Loan Law and
the consequent discontinuance of the operations of
the Federal Farm Loan Board. With the final de-
cision of the court favorable to the act, it may be
expected that the benefits of the law will manifest

»Rept. of Federal Farm Loan Bd., Feb. 9, 1921, 5.

DEVELOPMENT OF MICHIGAy WASTE LANDS 437

themselves in Michigan on a much larger scale than
hitherto.

Even cursory observation of the cut-over districts
of Michigan makes clear the impossibility of develop-
ing some of them agriculturally. The area of these
lands in arrears for taxes in 1920 was stated to be
three million. During five years the acreage re-
verting to the State because of the nonpayment of
taxes is given as 2,300,000.^ There are on the tax
rolls 5,000,000 acres with an average value of $5
an acre. This is nearly one-seventh of the State.
Of the lands which revert to the State as delinquent
for taxes, some are re-sold, some are exchanged with
private or public holders in order to consolidate the
State's holdings; and some are transferred to the
Public Domain (now Conservation) Commission to
be held as public lands, some of them to be organized
as State forests. The fact that these lands reverted
because they were unable to produce returns equal
to the tax requirements assessed against them, indi-
cates that they will permanently remain public prop-
erty, and the State intends to hold them as such.
Of the lands which are re-sold at the annual tax sale,
many acres revert, and revert again and again to
the State, after this or that purchaser has discovered
their worthlessness for agriculture, mining or other
industry.

The problem of the economic utilization of the cut-
over non-productive lands within the State is peren-

'Janette: "Michigan'3 Millions of Idle Acres," Detroit,
1920, 12.

438 RURAL MICHIGAN

nially discussed and remains obviously unsolved. At
the outset, it must be understood that the character
of these lands, except where experimentally ascer-
tained, is not determined, and in few cases is a mat-
ter of public record. Obviously then, the first atten-
tion must be given to their classification after investi-
gation by competent authorities, who have in view
all the elements that enter into the determination
of their economic importance. The cut-over areas
contain some excellent arable land, capable of pro-
ducing field and forage crops equal to the best sec-
tions of the State; other tracts may provide range
for live-stock through nati\e and cultivated grasses;
while another portion will produce forest products
more advantageously than field crops or pasture. It
has been proposed that the State should resort to
condemnation proceedings on the initiative of town-
ships, counties or municipalities, to disengage the
idle lands of the north country from the dead hand
of their present possessors who are failing to make
any economic use of them, while, fire-swept season
after season, they constitute a general fire hazard
and are steadily being impoverished by the same
destructive agency. Thereon, the State should carry
out a policy of reforestation for that portion of the
area which offers itself as best adapted to this use,
while other areas can be set aside for grazing pur-
poses to all who may wish this accommodation. Co-
incidentally, provision would be made by State or
local administration for fire control through an ade-

DEVELOPMEXT OF MICHIGAN WASTE LANDS 439

quate system of wardens, fire-fighting equipment, and
removal of slashings.^

C. 0. Sauer has sketched a plan for a soil survey,
which includes such data as would normally interest
the homeseeker and purchaser of a farm. Of pri-
mary interest, he points out, is the location of the
markets accessible to the farmer, which should be
plainly indicated on a sketch map of the region. The
map also shows significant topographical and drain-
age features. Geographical features should be de-
scribed in terms of their origin. Local names of soils
should be retained wherever possible. Soils should
be related to slopes in the description of them. There
should be a brief interpretation of the climate, in-
cluding "the average length of growing season, fre-
quency of unseasonable frosts, depth of frost action,
amount and duration of snow-cover, distribution of
rain during growing season, frequency of droughts
and rainy 'spells' at critical periods, intensity of
precipitation, occurrence of hail and violent wind-
storms." Farmers' experiences of local weather
conditions should not be ignored. Typical farm prac-
tices should be described. There should be abun-
dant photographic illustration. A map showing the
actual use to which the land is being put should be
included. Present or past forest cover should lie
noted. Such a map is very significant to the stu-
dent and inquirer. The history of the use of the land
should be stated.

' "Michigan's Millions of Idle Acres," 44.

CHAPTEE XIV

STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN MICHIGAN RURAL

LIFE

A SUMMARY statement of census findings will
afford us a measure of the State's resources and
will show how near we have yet come to reaping the
capabilities of the land. Between these results and
a fair optimism lie the possibilities of the produc-
tion of the State; and the figures of different periods
show the tendencies.

The aggregate population of Michigan in 1920
was 3,668,412, a decided increase from the returns
for the previous decade which showed 2,810,173.
Of the total, the one city of Detroit had 993,678, an
increase of 113.3 per cent over the 1910 figure of
465,766. On the other hand, the population of
Michigan in 1920 dwelling in the rural sections, rep-
resented by places of less than 2,500 inhabitants, was
1,426,852, which was 38.9 per cent of the total popu-
lation. Evidently Michigan had ceased to be pre-
dominantly a rural commonwealth after the manner
of its pioneer period. Only twenty years before, the
rural inhabitants had numbered 60.7 per cent of the
whole. Thus in a score of years the rural had yielded
to the urban element in its composition. Of the

440

STATUS AXD TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 441

eighty-three counties of the State in 1920, thirty-
three, Allegan, Berrien, Branch, Cass, Charlevoix,
Cheboygan, Chippewa, Clinton, Eaton, Emmet, Gra-
tiot, Hillsdale, Houghton, Ionia, Iron, Isabella, La-
peer, Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Manistee,
Mason, Mecosta, Menominee, Midland, IMonroe,
Montcalm, Ottawa, Presque Isle, St. Joseph, Shia-
wassee, Tuscola and Van Buren, showed a larger
rural than urban population, as the census employs
the term.

The most striking feature of the census returns,
but one for which observers of rural conditions were
prepared, was the drift from the rural to the urban
communities. Between 1910 and 1920 Alpena, Alle-
gan, Barry, Bay, Berrien, Branch, Cass, Cheboygan,
Clinton, Eaton, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Gratiot,
Hillsdale, Houghton, Ionia, Isabella, Kent, Lapeer,
Lenawee, Livingston, Manistee, Mason, Mecosta,
]\Ienominee, IMonroe, j\Iontcalm, Muskegon, Ottawa,
Saginaw, St. Clair, St. Joseph, Schoolcraft, Shia-
wassee, Tuscola, Van Buren, Washtenaw and Wex-
ford showed a definite loss of rural population. Of
the counties which had a positive increase of rural
population, Gogebic, in the extreme northwestern
portion of the State, led with its rural growth of
32.5 per cent, while Iron had 26.6 per cent of in-
crease. These northern counties are in the formerly
undeveloped l)ut now developing section of the State.
The effect of the adjacent automobile industry on the
rural sections of the counties containing them is not
manifested in Genesee County, whose rural popula-

443 RURAL MICHIGAN

tion increased 21.4 per cent in the decade; in Ingham,
whose rural increase was 9.7 per cent; and Oakland,
with a rural increase of lfi.7 per cent of population.

The census of 1930 enumerates 196,647 farms in
Michigan, of which the fifteen counties of the Upper
Peninsula had 12,317. In the well-developed agri-
cultural counties of the south are the largest number
of farms. Kent County had 5,605; Lenawee, 5,083;
Berrien, 5,444; Saginaw, 5,143; Allegan with 5,734
stood at the top of the column ; while Menominee led
in the Upper Peninsula with its 2,106, followed by
Houghton with 1,741. Many of these counties hav-
ing a large number of farms are of relatively small
area. Allegan's area is 833 square miles; Lenawee's
743 ; and Berrien's 569. This contrasts with the
situation in ' Marquette County, the largest in the
State, whose area of 1,870 square miles contained
only 846 farms, and Mackinac's area of 1,044 square
miles had 479 farms. Counties in the northern por-
tion of the southern peninsula also show relatively
few farms. Thus Eoscommon, in 1920, had 267
farms; Ogemaw, 1,281; Montmorency, 421; Oscoda,
278; and Crawford, 212.

The Fourteenth Census (1920) ascertained that
there were in Michigan in 1920 an aggregate of
196,447 farms out of 6,448,366 farms in the entire
United States, which placed Michigan in the fif-
teenth place under this head. The number of acres
in Michigan farms wfrs 19,034,204, the rank being
twenty-third. The number of acres of improved
land was 12,926,241, while 3,217,100 acres were in

STATU i^ A\D TEXDEXCIES IN RURAL LIFE 443

woodlands. Of other unimproved land, the acreage
was 2,890,803. The average number of acres to a
farm in Michigan was 96.9; the average number of
improved acres 65.8. The value of farm lands and
buildings is $1,437,862,310, the State's rank being
fourteenth. The average value of land and build-
ings to a farm is estimated as $7,313, at $75.58 an
acre. The rank of the State in value for each farm
was twenty-ninth, and in value an acre, sixteenth.

Classified with reference to their size, there are
in Michigan 12,744 farms under 20 acres. The farms
ranging in size from 20 to 49 acres numbered 40,765 ;
from 50 to 99 acres, 71,391 ; from 100 to 174 acres,
52,645; from 175 to 499 acres, 18,075; of 500 acres
and over, 827. These figures clearly bring out the
fact that Michigan farms average of only moderate
size, a good acreage in the minds of the farming
population appearing to be 80.

Of the total number of farms, 34,722 were oper-
ated by tenants, in which respect Michigan ranked
twenty-fourth. There were 23,280 share tenants;
422 share-cash tenants; and 9,312 cash tenants. Of
farms operated by their owners, Michigan ranked
sixth, having 159,406. There were 72,866 owned
farms free from mortgage (the rank of the State
being here eleventh). Of the owned farms, 78,761
were mortgaged, in which respect the State ranked
second. Thus it appears that 51.9 per cent of the
owned farms were mortgaged. The farm mortgage
debt in Michigan was $144,103,067 for 67,119 farms
reporting this item. In the amount of its farm mort-

444 RURAL MICHIGAN

gage debts only Wisconsin and Missouri exceeded
Michigan. The average interest rate for farm mort-
gages was six per cent. The average mortgage debt
to a farm was $2,147.

The vahio of all farm property in Michigan was
reported at $1,703,334,740, of which land alone rep-
resented $959,186,538, and the buildings $477,499,-
672. The implements and machinery were rated at
$122,389,927 and the live-stock at $204,258,603. The
value of all farm property for a farm worked out at
$8,976, in which item the State ranked thirteenth.
In value of all farm property Michigan ranked four-
teenth, of land alone sixteenth, of buildings seventh,
of implements and machinery fourteenth, of live-
stock sixteenth."

The total farm expenditures for labor were given
as $31,944,861 for the year 1919, the State ranking
eighteenth under this head. Out of this total,
$24,875,549 were paid in cash, the balance going
imder the heading of rent and board. The reported
expenditures for fertilizers were $4,887,253, and
$22,104,883 for feed.

The number of foreign-born white farmers in
Michigan in 1920 was 48,264, of which 2,034 were
born in Austria; 13,393 in Canada; 1,142 in Den-
mark; 2,203 in England; 3,947 in Finland; 264
in France; 9,745 in Germany; 3,280 in Holland;
933 in Hungary; 819 in Ireland; 298 in Italy; 654
in Norway; 2,479 in Poland; 1,538 in Eussia; 436
in Scotland; 3,088 in Sweden; and 371 in Switzer-
land.

STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 445

Male persons operated 190,G71 farms; and fe-
males, 5,776 farms. Of the owners, 153,872 were
males and 5,534 females. Of the managers, 2,300
were males and 19 females. Of the tenants 34,499
were males and 223 females. Females operated 440,-
426 acres.

The total area of organized drainage enterprises
in Michigan was 9,778,269 acres. Improved farm
land amounted to 7,754,161 acres, while timbered
and cnt-over land comprised 1,663,345 acres. Other
unimproved land was 360,763 acres. The total land
area of the State was 36,787,200 acres. The area in
drainage enterprises was 26.6 per cent. Swampy or
wet lands or those subject to overflow in organized
drainage enterprises was given as 1,037,361 acres.
The cost of organized drainage enterprises was re-
ported at $25,480,099.

The census returns show the total value of all
farm crops in Michigan in 1919 to have been $404,-
014,810, distributed as follows: cereals, $170,897,-
885; hay and forage, $105,280,992; vegetables in-
cluding potatoes $65,096,550; all other crops, $62,-
739,383. The total value of live-stock products in
1919 was $111,076,235, as compared with $48,380,-
551 in 1909. Of dairy products the value was
$71,074,727 in 1919, and $26,727,538 in 1909.
Chickens and eggs returned a value of $34,960,771
in 1919 and $17,926,239 in 1909. Wool and mohair
were valued at $4,623,778, as against $3,430,032 a
decade earlier. Honey and wax had a value of
$416,959 in 1919 and $296,742 ten years before.

446 RURAL MICHIGAN

These valuations obviously should be considered in
connection Math the high prices prevailing at the
later date.

The State ranked sixteenth as a producer of corn
in 1919; fifteenth in wheat; twelfth in oats; eighth
in barley; second in rye; fifth in buckwheat; and
ninth in hay. In sugar-beets Michigan ranked sec-
ond; sixth in maple sugar; fifth in maple sirup;
fifteenth in honey. Michigan ranked tv/enty-first in
swine; sixteenth in number of all cattle; thirtieth
in beef cattle ; ninth in dairy cows ; fifteenth in num-
ber of horses; thirty-seventh in number of mules;
and twelfth in number of sheep.

A comparison of the yields to the acre of im-
portant farm crops, based on the reports of the
Bureau of Crop Estimates of the United States
Department of Agriculture, shows that Michigan pro-
duced corn in 1920 at the rate of 40 bushels to the
acre, while the yield in Wisconsin was 43.9 bushels,
Illinois 34, Iowa 46, and New Hampshire 45. Michi-
gan's yield of wheat ran 15.5 bushels to the acre as
compared with Minnesota's 19.6, Ohio's 12,7, Kan-
sas' 15.4, and New York's 23.3 bushels. The yield
of oats was 39.6 bushels to the acre, as against 41
bushels in Indiana, 34 in South Dakota, and 39 in
Pennsylvania. Of barley the acre yield in Michigan
was 26 bushels, 31.7 in Wisconsin, 18 in North Da-
kota, and 27.7 in Ohio. Similarly the State pro-
duced rye at 14.7 bushels, as compared with a yield
in Wisconsin of 16 bushels, 17 in Minnesota, and
17.5 in New York. Buckwheat yielded 14.5 bushels

STATUS AND TENDEyCIES IX RURAL LIFE 447

to the acre, as compared with Ohio's output of 20.9
bushels, and Indiana's yield of 20 bushels.

Potatoes yielded 105 bushels to the acre, while
New York produced 125 bushels, Ohio 100, and
Minnesota 95. The production of hay ran at 1.21
tons to the acre in Michigan, 1.70 tons in Wiscon-
sin, 1.44 in Iowa, and 2.60 in Nebraska. Beans
yielded 13 bushels to the acre in Michigan, 14 in
New York, 8 in Colorado, and 10 in California. Of
sugar-beets, Michigan's acre product was 8.67 tons,
as against 10.70 for Colorado, 9.64 tons in Ohio,
8.66 in Wisconsin, and 11.57 in Utah. Other crops,
like flax-seed, hops and tobacco, which are impor-
tant in other noffthern states, are negligible in
Michigan.

As might be surmised from what has already been
stated regarding the relative productivity of the sev-
eral sections of the State, the southern tier of coun-
ties make the largest aggregate showing of agricul-
tural products. The Annual Summary of the Michi-
gan Cooperative Crop Eeporting Service indicates
that the counties producing more than 500,000
bushels of wheat include Gratiot, Allegan, Berrien,
Cass, Kalamazoo, Kent, Ottawa, Barry, Calhoun,
Clinton, Eaton, Hillsdale, Ionia, Genesee, Lenawee,
Monroe, St. Clair, and Washtenaw, all southern coun-
ties of the southern peninsula. The counties pro-
ducing more than 1,000,000 bushels of corn in-
clude Gratiot, Mecosta, Montcalm, Huron, Saginaw,
Sanilac, Tuscola, Allegan, Berrien, Cass, Kalamazoo,
Kent, Barry, Branch, Calhoun, Clinton, Eaton,

448 RURAL MICHIGAN

Hillsdale, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, St. Joseph, Shia-
wassee, Genesee, Lenawee, Livingston, Monroe, Oak-
land and Washtenaw, also southern, but with a more
northerly trend than appear in the list of wheat-
producing counties. Eight southern counties pro-
duced more than 1,000,000 bushels of oats: Gratiot,
Huron, Saginaw, Sanilac, Tuscola, Clinton, Genesee
and St. Clair. The large yields of rye and barley
are also in this territory. While the only counties
producing over 1,000,000 bushels of potatoes are also
southern, large yields are reported for the northern
counties. It should be understood, however, that,
while the northern counties are usually larger in
total area than those in the southern portion, their
farm areas are much smaller. It is interesting to
observe that, where northern counties make any
showing iu the production of a croja, the acre yield
runs higher frequently than for the most southerly
counties, as, for example, in the case of potatoes,
whose yield in 1920 was reported at 134 bushels to
tlie acre in Houghton County and GO bushels in
Branch County (taking the extremes of the State).
The yield of oats in ]\Ienominee County was 27.3
bushels to the acre, and Hillsdale County 23.4 bush-
els. The hay output in Chippewa County was 1.57
tons to the acre and 1.3G in Lenawee County. Corn
yielded 39 bushels to the acre in Delta County and
36 in Clinton, but it should not be supposed that the
aggregate corn crop is large in northern Michigan.
Since the beginning of the State's history, agri-
culture has received its greatest development in the

STATUS A^D TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 449

southern counties. The Fourteenth United States
Census, however, reveals that it is liardly holding its
own in this section. Quite uniformly in these coun-
ties appears a diminution of the total acreage in
farms and the acreage of improved farm lands.
Thus in the decade, Oakland County showed a de-
crease of total farm area of 14.8 per cent, while the
area of improved farm lands decreased 16.5. Simi-
larly the improved farm lands of Macomb County
fell off 4.4 per cent; of St. Clair, 1.9; of Calhoun,
3 ; of Washtenaw, 3.9 ; Monroe, 3 ; of Lenawee,
2.5; of Wayne, 18.3; of Hillsdale, 3.4; of Living-
ston, 6.5; of Berrien, 2.3; of Cass, 2.1; of Allegan,
7.5; of Barry, 2.5; of St. Joseph, 3.6; of Kala-
mazoo, 7.2 ; of Branch, 3 ; and of Van Buren, 5.7
per cent. These are the oldest agricultural counties
of the State, in part of which farming has continued
for about a century. Even the central counties of
the southern peninsula have a similar trend. Dur-
ing the same period the area of improved farm land
in Oceana County decreased 1.1 per cent; of Clin-
ton, 2.3; of Shiawassee, 2.4; of Ionia, 4; of St.
Clair, 1.9; of Sanilac, 4.5; of Bay, 17.8; of Eaton,
1.8; of Jackson 2.8; of Genesee, 6.8; of Ingham,
3.9; of Lapeer, 1.7; of Kent, 3.5; of Ottawa, 3.6.
Undoubtedly in counties like Wayne, Oakland,
Ingham and Genesee, there has been a tendency for
the city to encroac-h on the country; but such an ex-
planation does not apply to such predominantly rural
coimties as Clinton, Branch or Eaton. Taken in con-
nection that a similar decrease in the total farm

450 RURAL MICHIGAN

area in these counties has occurred, it must be as-
sumed that there is a retrograde agricultural move-
ment in this section of the State.

On the other hand, the counties in the northern
portion of the southern peninsula and throughout the
northern peninsula have displayed an agricultural
advance in the decade. Thus Arenac County showed
an increase of 31.1 per cent in improved farm lands;
Clare County an increase of 22 per cent; Gladwin,
of 34.9 per cent; Mason, 7.2; Manistee, 13.7; Lake,
7.3 ; Newaygo, 0.9 ; Montmorency, 30.2, and Ogemaw,
21. These counties are without large cities but with
a much smaller proportion of their land in farms,
because of the poverty of the soil or the presence of
forest lands, public or private. Thus Arenac County
has only 135,334 acres in farms, while Van Buren
has 341,089 acres, and Branch County 308,805.
Manistee County has 147,569 acres in farms, as
against 308,805 acres in Branch County, although
Manistee exceeds Branch County in area by 65 square
miles. Although the farm area in these northern
counties is proportionally less, the census returns
indicate that it is materially increasing.

An even more striking situation appears for the
counties of the Upper Peninsula, where soil condi-
tions on the whole are believed to be much more
favorable than in the northern counties of the south-
ern peninsula. Thus Gogebic County in the decade
showed a total farm area increasing by 109.2 per
cent, and an improved farm land area increasing by
107.3 per cent; but the acreages themselves were

STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 451

relatively small, 27,442 and 9,829 respectively.
Similarly Houghton County in the copper country
increased its farm area by 43.6 per cent, and its im-
proved farm lands 58.1 per cent, the acreage of
improved lands being 56,798. Chippewa County,
relatively well developed agriculturally, had in 1920,
185,202 acres in farms and increased in the decade
5.1 per cent; while its 105,870 improved acres showed
an increase of 33.4 per cent. Marquette Covmty,
with 88,450 acres in farms, increased 30.4 per cent;
and Menominee County, Avith 222,353 acres in farms,
increased 32.8 per cent. Delta County's 142,137
acres in farms increased 26 per cent, while its 53,021
acres of improved farm land had increased 23.5 per
cent. These figures confirm the opinion that the
cut-over lands of the northern counties are witnessing
the most definite agricultural advance; for here are
good as well as poor soils at moderate prices avail-
able to the farmer, often of foreign parentage, lack-
ing capital but willing to labor and sustain the pri-
vations of pioneering in a new country.

If one compares representative counties in the
three sections of the State having distinctive agri-
cultural features, one perceives to what extent the
northern counties lag behind the southern in agri-
cultural development. Thus in the Upper Peninsula,
Marquette County with an aggregate area, as
reported by the census, of 1.196,800 acres, has only
88,450 acres in farms; Menominee Coimty, with
675,840 acres, has less than one-third of this area
in farms; Delta County, with 748,160 acres, has less

453 RURAL EHCHIGAN

than one-fifth in farms. In the northern counties
of the southern peninsula, Arenac, with a total area
of 239,360 acres, has 135,334 in farms; Gladwin,
Avith 332,160 acres, has 154,633 in farms; and Clare,
with 372,480 acres, has 186,581 in farms. Finally,
selecting representative counties from the three
southernmost tiers in the Lower Peninsula, Hillsdale
County, with an aggregate area of 381,680 acres, has
362,815 in farms; Calhoun wiLh 443,420 total acres,
has 407,958 in farms; and Eaton, with 365,440 acres,
has 342,500 in farms. In the northern counties there
are sections not included in the present farm acre-
age that cannot reasonably be expected to serve any
agricultural purpose. One large owner in this terri-
tory is reported recently to have turned back to the
State 22,000 acres rather than pay taxes on these
unproductive lands; very much of the State's pres-
ent holdings under the control of the Conservation
Commission were acquired in this manner. On the
other hand, there is a large but undetermined acre-
age whose situation as regards soil, climate and
drainage warrant high hopes of important agricul-
tural productivity.

Isle Eoyale in Lake Superior, at one time prized
for its copper deposits but which in this respect
proved disappointing, is now largely abandoned and
unoccupied save by a few fisher folk. The United
States still holds large acreage on the island, which
is of itself good evidence of its non-availability for
economic uses. Drummond Island, at the head of
Lake Huron, is chiefly important for its timber re-

STATUS AXD TEXDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 453

sources. The best farming area is in the eastern
section of the island. Its agricultural development
is, however, backward. Beaver Island, in northern
Lake Michigan, has had a more distinctive agricul-
tural history. In the fifth decade of the last century
it was the site of a IMormon colony, come hither
from Wisconsin, which during the regime .of "King"
James Jesse Strang, had established a flourishing
agriculture there. Eventually the Mormons got into
difficulties with their neighbors, chiefly the fisher-
men of that part of the lake, and were dispersed
after the assassination of their quondam "king."
Some of their descendants are said to be residing
still on Drummond Island but without any religious
affiliation with Mormonism. Agriculture on Beaver
Island today is reported to be in a degenerate state.
Soil conditions on Beaver Island are variable, light
sands and clays occupying its surface, with good
arable land in the interior. The surface is quite level
with a tendency to undulation. Some of the eleva-
tions once bore such Biblical designations as "Mount
Pisgah," in IMormon days, while the island had its
"Sea of Galilee" and "Eiver Jordan." There is con-
siderable swamp land on the island and artificial
drainage is necessary.

Agricultural conditions on the Manitou Island of
Lake Michigan are reported to be above the average.
One observer states that the farmers are up-to-date
and that the yield of potatoes and other crops was,
in 1919, above the average on the mainland. Here
the Michigan Agricultural College has had a plan-

454 RURAL MICHIGAN

tation of Eosen rye for the purpose of securing seed
free from cross fertilization. Some of this rye has
been offered for sale by the Michigan State Farm
Bureau. High Island, near by, is largely in the pos-
session of the religious society known as "The
Israelite House of David/' situated near Benton
Harbor, which reports the ownership of some 2,980
acres out of the 3,200 of the island. The island
yields saw-timber, and the House of David has under
cultivation some 200 acres, part of which is devoted
to fruit and the remainder to the growth of vege-
tables, which yield abundantly, it is stated, and are
of fine quality.

In Michigan agriculture, it must have become clear
that no crop or feature predominates. Thus, the
Crop Reporting Service of the United States De-
partment of Agriculture shows that, in 1920, the
State ranked first as a producer of rye, third as a
producer of potatoes, fourth in buckwheat, third in
apples, and fourth in pears.

The growth of cooperation among Michigan
farmers is one of the most striking features of recent
agricultural history. The American farmer is nor-
mally individualistic, but the force of circumstances
has directed him along this new path. There were
reported in May, 1921, 123 cooperative associations,
memljers of the Michigan Potato Growers Exchange.
At the same date, the number of cooperative cream-
eries was at least 74. The membership of the Michi-
gan Livestock Exchange similarly comprised 104
cooperative associations. The list of associated ex-

STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 455

changes includes 21 local associations, chiefly fruit.^
It was believed that there were about 100 live-stock
shipping associations and cooperative elevators in
the State.-

The ■ "Directory of American Agricultural Or-
ganizations," published by the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture in 1920, lists some forty-nine
associations and societies among farmers, designed
to promote their economic or social interests; but
the list is far from complete, since there arc known
to be a large number of cooperative associations, of
a very local range, not included in this directory.
As a business man, the Yankee farmer, who is still
an element of great importance in Michigan agri-
culture, especially in the southern peninsula, does
not take kindly to cooperation, and it is apparently
chiefly among the more alien elements that coopera-
tion flourishes best. Habits of cooperation acquired
in the old country persist on American soil. Thus,
in Finland, in 1920, there were reported 023 coop-
erative associations, which is indicative of a well-
developed practice of cooperation among persons of
Finnish nationality. Recalling that the Finnish
population of the Upper Peninsula is large, in rural
as well as urban areas, it follows that cooperative
business arrangements among them are not infre-
quently encountered. There were, in 1920, thirty-
eight cooperative stores listed in the Upper Penin-

"■ Monthly Crop Reporter, April. 1921, 40, 41.
' From a detailed Hat prepared l)y Hale Tenant, Ajjent
in Marketing, Michigan Agricultural College, May 9, 1921.

456 RURAL MICHIGAN

siila. A survey of twenty-six of these elicited the
fact that the average membership of the associations
reporting was 245, which would indicate a total
membership of 9,310 for the entire number of stores.
The total capitalization is given as $559,500, for
twenty-five stores reporting. The total paid-in
capital was put at $212,418 for these stores. The
aggregate of sales was $3,821,158, for twenty-four
stores. This gives an average annual business of
$125,881. The turn-over of sales amounted to 14.2
times the paid-in capital. The overhead expense
averaged 10.1 per cent, and ranged from 5 to 15
per cent. In all but four stores, only one vote was
allowed to each member regardless of the number of
shares owned. There was a nominal or small rate
of interest on stock (5 to 6 per cent). Profits were
divided on the basis of purchases by members. In
addition to stores, there are cooperative creameries,
insurance societies and grist mills, while the Finnish
and other sections of the population were very
willing to become members of the farm bureaus.
The spirit of cooperation expresses itself socially as
well as economically, mutual relief and help being
freely ofi'ered and received.

In the southern peninsula, cooperative stores are
infrequently encountered, while there is a strong
tendency to establish cooperative shipping associa-
tions, elevators, and threshing outfits. Definite
statistics are lacking.

A distinctive tendency in Michigan agriculture

STATUS AXD TEXDEXCIE8 IX RURAL LIFE 457

is the desire of farmers for the inspection and grad-
ing of their products. Thus, the Michigan State
Farm Bureau has reported great interest in the
process of grading wool gathered into the wool-pool
in its various warehouses throughout the State, and
the fact that there are in reality definite grades of
wool is becoming recognized by the farmers. A
corollary is the recognition that prices should be
adapted to gradations in quality. The inspection
service of the United States Department of Agri-
culture, Bureau of Markets, extends to a few points
in Michigan, the chief inspection office being situ-
ated at Detroit, while service is extended to Bay
City, Flint, Grand Eapids, Jackson, Lansing, Port
Huron, Saginaw, Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo, and
requests for additional points of service are being
pressed. Thus, the farmers of Chippewa County
were desirous, in 1921, of having this inspection
service for their export hay. Through this service,
both shippers and purchasers have reliable and im-
partial information on which to base a judgment in
case of disputes between them, railroads have a fair
basis for an adjustment of claims, and the consum-
ing public is protected against loss and imposition.

There is little tendency to work farms with lalwr
that is transient and not from the farmer's family.
Thus, the United States Department of Agriculture
reports that, in 1920, the percentage of grain har-
vest work done by transient labor drawn from
without the county was 5 in Michigan, while in

458 RURAL MICUIGAN

Kansas it was 31 per cent;, in North Dakota 41, and
Washington 43 per cent.^ There has been, however,
a large influx of country dwellers into the large
cities, especially the centers of automobile manufac-
ture, until the movement was checked by the adverse
industrial conditions of the winter of 1920-1921.
This had the effect of causing the abandonment of
many farms to an extent which, in the summer of
1920, was truly alarming. An estimate of the State
crop reporting service, based on an investigation
conducted in April, 1920, through the public schools,
was to the effect that 18,232 farms would not be
worked that year, and that 11,831 farms were not
operated in 1919. It was estimated that of the
214,565 farm-houses in the State, 30,300 (in 1920)
were vacant, and tlmt some two-thirds of these were
not occupied in 1919. The total number of men and
boys on the farms of Michigan was given as approxi-
mately 230,000, which represented a loss of 20,000
during the year preceding, and a still further drop
from the figure of 276,000 of three years previous.^
Taking the average size of farms as 91.5 acres, there
appeared to be an average of one man or boy to
operate each 82.5 acres. The effectiveness of this
force was still further reduced by the attendance
of boys at school for a part of the time, while most
of the men were above the age of fifty. It was obvi-
ous that the superior attractiveness of urban life had
done its work.

> The U. .V. Monthly Crop Reporter, April, 1921, 45.
""Mioh. Crop Rept'., May, 19.20, 4.

STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 159

A year later the situation was radically altered.
In April, 1921, the percentage of farm labor was,
on the side of supply, 108 per cent of the demand.
The farm labor supply was d-i per cent of normal,
while the demand was 87 per cent of normal. The
supply of farm labor was, in 1921, 123 per cent of
the supply in 1920.^

In 1920, the average wages of farm laborers em-
ployed by the month, as reported by the Michigan
Crop Reporting Service, were $53 with board and
$75 without board. In 1919, these wages were $42
and $60. Day wages for harvest labor were $4.10
with board, in 1920, and $4.95 without board. In
the preceding year, these wages were $3.50 and $4.30.
For other than harvest labor, the wages in 1920 were
$3.30 and $4.15 as against $2.80 and $3.60 in 1919.^

The returns of the Fourteenth United States
Census indicate the amelioration of the conditions of
rural life that have taken place. In 1920, there were
82,437 automobiles on farms in Michigan ; to which
are to be added 78,919 trucks and 5,584 tractors.
There were 15,695 farms reporting gas or electric
light, while 29,729 farms had water pumped into the
house. Obviously there are many farms in Michigan
which lack these conveniences. Half of the 196,000
farms still want telephone service, for example.

The yields will increase with the growth of popu-
lation. New lands will come under the plow. New

'Mich. Crop. Kept., April, 1921, 11. Cf. U. 8. Monthly
Crop Report. April, 1921, 37.
^Ihid., Dec, 1920, 4.

4G0 RURAL MICHIGAN

crops and animals — or at least new varieties and
breeds — will come into prominence. The means of
communication will be bettered and extended. The
vast waterways and the water-powers will be de-
veloped. Educational agencies will multiply in num-
bers and effectiveness. The institutions of rural life
will greatly increase and take on new meanings. The
statistics show a steady development; this progress
will proceed. New agricultural methods will come.
We have every reason to expect that the rural life
of Michigan will keep step with the urban life; the
constructive forces of society in the future will make
this possible.

STATltiTlCAL APPENDICES 461

Statistical Appendices

Appendix A — Farms and Farm Property.

Appendix B — The Number of Farms in Michigan by Coun-
ties, 1900, 1910 and 1920.

Appendix C — Population of Micliigan by Sex, Color, and
Nativity.

Appendix D — Urban and Rural Population of Counties,
1920, 1910, and 1900.

Appendix E— Urban and Rural Populations 1920, 1910 and
1900.

Appendix F — Crops.

Appendix G — Live-Stock and Live-Stock Products.

Appendix H — Pure-Bred Live-Stock.

162

RURAL AlIVIliaAN

APPENDIX A

Fourteenth Census: 1920.— Farms and Farm Property*

FARMS AND
FARM ACREAGE JAN. 1, 1920 APR. 15, 1910

Number of farms. 196,447 206,960

Operated by :

Owners 159,406 172,310

Free from mort-
gage 72,869 88,705

Mortgaged 78,758 82,631

No mortgage re-
port 7,779 974

Managers 2,319 1,961

Tenants 34,722 32,689

Operated by :

White farmers... 195,714

Native 147,4.50

Foreign born... 48,264

Colored farmers. . 733

Land in farms:

Total, acres

Improved, acres. .

Average acreage
per farm :

Total

Improved

19,032,961
12,925,521

96.9
65.8

206,014

147,790

58,224

946

FARM VALUES JAN. 1, 1920

All farm property. $1,763,334,778

Land and build-
ings 1,436,686,210

Implements and

machinery . . . 122,389,936

Live stock 204,258,632

18,940,614
12,832,078

91.5
62.0

APR. 15, 1910

M, 088, 858.379

901,138,299

49,916,285
137,803,795

The number of farms
in Michigan in 1920
was 196,447. These
farms contained 19,-
032,961 acres, of which
12,925,521 acres were
improved land. From
1910 to 1920 the num-
ber of farms decreased
5.1 per cent; the total
acreage increased 0.5
per cent ; and the im-
proved acreage in-
creased 0.7 per cent. In
1920, 51.7 per cent of
the land area of the
5tate was in farms, and
«>5 8 per cent of the
farm land was im-
proved.

The number of white
farmers in 1920 wa.s
195,714, of whom 147,-
450 were native and
48,264'foreign-born. Of
the native white farm-
ers, 115,624 were own-
ers, 1,925 managers,
and 29,901 tenants. Of
the foreign-born white
farmers, 43,219 were
owners, 385 managers,
and 4,660 tenants. The
733 colored farmers
comprised 563 owners,
9 managers, and 161
tenants. The number
of female farmers was
5,776, including 5,534

"„lrl''-'^^ ^fi ^' ^.. "u^'"'' ^^^ P""^^^ summaries, being statements of
Tv.rfir 7 /T'' '"^J''^' *" correction, by the Bureau of the Census,
Department of Commerce.

STATIf^TWAL APPENDICES

463

APPENDIX A— Continued

VALUES JAN. 1, 1920 APR. 15, 1910

Average value per
farm :

All farm property 8,976

Land and build-
ings 7,313

Land alone 4,883

Average value per
acre :

Land and build-
ings 75.48

Land alone .... 50.40

MOnTQAGE DEBT 1920

Farms reporting
amount of
debt:

Number 67,119

Value $420,108,1.')6

Amount of debt . . $144,103,067
Per cent of value 34.3

Average rate of in-
terest paid, per

cent 6.0

Average debt per

farm $2,147

5,261

4,3,54
2,973

47.58
32.48

1910

68,655

$250,874,010

$ 75,997,030

30.3

$1,107

owners, 19 managers,
and 223 tenants.

The value of all farm
property in 1920 was
$1,763,334,778, as
compared with $1,088,-
858,379 in 1910, an i i-
crease of 61.9 per cent
The value of land and
buildings in 1920 was
436,686,210 ; of im-
plements and machin-
ery, $122,389,936 ; and
of" live stock, $204,-
258,632. As compared
with 1910, the value
of land and buildings
in 1920 showed an in-
crease of 59.4 per
cent ; of implements
and machinery, 145.2
per cent ; and of live
stock, 48.2 per cent.
The average value of
land and buildings per
farm was $7,313 in
1920, as compared with
$4,354 in 1910 ; and
1920, as against $32.48 in

that of land alone per acre was $50.40 in
1910.

The value of the 67,119 farms for which complete mortgage reports
were secured in 1920 was $420,108,156, and the amount of the mort-
gage debt was $144,103,067, or 34.3 per cent of the value. The aver-
age rate of interest paid was 6.0 per cent.

In 1920, 51.9 per cent of all farms operated by their owners were
mortgaged, is compared with 48.2 per cent in 1910.

i64

liUliAL MWUIGAN

APPENDIX B

Table Showing the Number of Farms in Michigan, bi"
Counties, 1000, 1910 and 1920: From the Four-
teenth U. S. Census

county

li>20, . .

19J0

1900

state total

"^ 106.t)47

206,960

203,261

Alpona

932

386

5,734

1,275

1,481

1,392

653

3,315

3,216

973

5,444
3,222
3,646
2,572
1,306

1,186
1,569
1,248
3,323
212

1,305

429

3,710

884

278

6.217

1,326

1,641

1,440
412
3,428
3,233
1,245

5,252
3.378
3,761
2,556
1,460

1.499
1,399
1,302
3,497

248

1,128
235

3,902

743

Alwer

124

Allfoan

6,089

Aliieiia

1,187

Antrim

1,283

Arenac

1,186

Baraga

241

Barrv

3,570

Bay

3,193

Benzie

949

Berrien

5,094

Branch

3,475

Calhoun

4,100

Cass

2,609

Charlevoix

Cheboygan

Chippewa

1,295

1,164
1,036

Clare

852

Clinton

3,777

Crawford

228

Delta

868

Dickinson

Eaton

118
4,190

STATISTICAL APPENDICES
APPENDIX B— Continued

465

COUNTY

Enxniet

Genesee

Gladwin

Gogebic

Grand Traverse

Gratiot

Hillsdale

Houghton . . . .

Huron

Ingham

Ionia

Iosco

Iron

Isabella

Jackson

Kalamazoo . ...
Kalkaska . . . .

Kent

Keweenaw . . . .

Lake

Lapeer

Leelanau ....

Lenawee

Livingston . . .

Luce

Mackinac . . . .
Macomb

Manistee ....
Marquette ...

Mason

Mecosta

Menominee . . ,

1D20

1,298
3,639

1,452

528
1,724
3,859
4.025

1.741
4.604
3,424
3.223
929

621
3.333
3,544
3,159

796

5,605

703

3.614

1,347

5,083

2.632

194

479

3,570

1,499

846
2.011
2.676
2.106

1910

1,457
3,896

1,395

257
2,031
4.205
4,298

1,033

4.728

3,508

3,602

958

381
3,456
3,736
3,372

842

6.276

732

3,808

1,444

5, .334

2.775

195

490

3,764

1,648
661
2.124
2,823
1,677

1900

1,134
4,501

769

1,722

4,i"87
4,391

362
4.871
3,815
4,052

743

231

3.436

3,860

3,308

679

6.554

625

4,051

1,395

5,662

3,082

144

394

3,852

1.311
513

1.885
2,970
1,430

4C^Cy

RURAL MICHIGAN
APPENDIX B— Continued

COUNTY

Midland . . .
Missaukee . .
Monroe . . . .
Montcalm . .
Montmorency

Muskegon . .
Newaygo . . .
Oakland . . . .

Oceana

Ogemaw . . , .

Ontonagon .

Osceola

Oscoda

Otsego

Ottawa ....

Presque Isle
Pvoscommon
Saginaw . . .
St. Clair . . .
St. Joseph . .

Sanilac

Schoolcraft .
Shiawassee .
Tuscola

Van Buren .
Washtenaw .

Wayne

Wexford ...

1920

2,163
l,.3,5n
4,108
4,490
421

1910

2,246
1,439
4,321

4,678
466

2,036

2,373

2,836

3,1.30

4,03.1

4,993

2,.3r>7

2,806

1,281

1,283

917

371

2.310

2,574

278

344

573

551

4,296

4,603

1,0.56

1,080

267

249

.5,143

5,370

4,1.59

4,527

2,436

2,623

5,111

5,659

381

441

3,.359

3,577

4,658

5,244

4,662

4,952

3,550

3,837

3,858

4,775

1,583

1,779

1900

2,153
1,0.36
4,458
4,714
336

2,334

2,846

4,977

2,650

811

187

2,287

210

570

4,522

846

1,36

5,818

4,980

2,697

5,820

352

3,763

5,492

4.842
4,151
5,131
1,340

STATISTICAL AFFEyUWES 467

APPENDIX C
Population of Michigan by Sex, Color, and Nativity

Washington, D. C, July 19, 1921.— The Bureau of the
Census, Department of Commerce, to-day issued a prelimi-
nary statement giving the composition of the population
of Michigan according to sex, color, and nativity, as shown
by the census taken as of January 1, 1920.

The total population of the state, 3,668,412, comprised
1.928,436 males and 1,739,976 females. The correspond-
ing figures for 1910 were as follows: Total, 2,810,173;
males, 1,454,534; females, 1,355,639. During the decade
the total population increased by 30.5 per cent, the male
population by 32.6 per cent, and the female population by
28.4 per cent. The ratio of males to females in 1920 was
110.8 to 100, as against 107.3 to 100 in 1910.

The distribution of the population according to color in
1920 was as follows: White, 3,601,627; Negro, 60,082: In-
dian, 5,614; Chinese, 792; Japanese, 184; all other (Fili-
pino, Hindu, Hawaiian, and Korean), 113. The corre-
sponding figures for 1910 were: White, 2.785,247; Negro,
17,115; Indian, 7,519; Chinese, 241; Japanese, 49: all
other (Filipino), 2. During the decade the white popula-
tion increased by 29.3 per cent, while the Negro population
increased by 251 per cent.

The foreign-born white population numbered 726.215 in
1920, as against 595,524 in 1910. Tliis element constituted
19.8 per cent of the total population in 1920, as against
21.2 per cent in 1910.

■168 RURAL MICHIGAN

APPENDIX D
Urban and Rukal Population of Counties: 1920, 1910,

AND 1900
[A minus sign (— ) denotes decrease.]

County

Michigan.

Alger

Allegan

Alpena

Barry

Bay

Berrien

Branch

Calhoun

Cass

Charlevoix

Cheboygan

Chippewa

Clinton

Delta

Dickinson

Eaton

Emmet

Genesee

Gogebic

Grand Traverse. .

Gratiot

Hillsdale

Houghton

Ingham

• Ionia

Iron

Isabella

Jackson

Kalamazoo

Kent

Lapeer

Lenawee

Livingston

Macomb

Manistee

Marquette

Mason

Mecosta

Menominee

Midland

Monroe

Montcalm

Muskegon

Oakland

Ottawa

Presque Isle

Saginaw

St. Clair

St. Joseph

Schoolcraft

Shiawassee

Tuscola

Van Buren

Washtenaw

Wayne

We.xford

All other counties'

Population

1920

Urban

2,241,560 1,426,852

Rural

5.037

6,805

11,101

5,132

47,554

29,982

6.114

48,788

5,440

4,284

5,642

12,096

3.925

18,056

12,784

8,169

5,064

94,106

25,372

10,925

10,578

5,476

18,689

57.327

10,846

7.689

4.819

48.374

48.487

137.634

4.723

11.878

2.951

9.488

9,694

30.637

8.810

4.. 558

8.907

5.483

11,573

4,304

46,084

49,163

19,.388

2,789

61,903

32,879

11,204

6,380

15,247

2,704

3,829

26,929

1,124,010

9,750

4,946
30,735

6,768
16,251
21,994
32,671
17,883
24,130
14.955
11,. 504

8,349
12,722
19,185
12,8.53

6,672
21,208
10,575
31,562

7,8.53

8, .593
23,336
22,685
53,241
24,227
22,241
14,418
17,791
24,165
22,738
45,407
21,059
35,889
14,571
28,615
11,205
15,149
11,021
13,207
14,871
11.754
25.542
26.137
16.278
40.887
28.272

9.342
38,383
25.130
15.614

3.597
20.677
30.616
26.886
22.591
53.635

8.457
265.809

1910

Urban

1,327.044

2.952

6.231

12,706

4,383

45.166

20.277

5,945

35,336

5,088

7,734

6.8,59

12,615

3.1,54

17,405

14,190

7.779

4.778

38.550

17.404

12,115

2.757

5.001

26.842

31.229

9.149

3.775

3.972

31.433

39.437

112, .571

3,946

10,763

7,707

12,381

32.411

9.132

4.519

10.507

2,.527

6.893

4.045

24.062

14.532

16.346

2.702

50.510

25.266

8.707

4,722

9.639

3.577

21,047

485,895

8,375

Rural

1,483,129

4,723
33,588

7,259
18,250
23,072
33,345
19,660
21,302
15,536
11,423
11,013
11,857
19.975
12,703

6,334
22,720
13.783
26,005

5,929
11,669
26,063
24,672
61,256
22,081
24,401
11.389
19.057
21,993
20,990
46,574
22,087
37,144
17,736
24,899
14,307
14.328
12.700
14,947
15,141
11,478
26,024
28,024
16,515
35,044
28,9.55

8.547
38,780
27,075
16.792

3.959
23.607
34.913
29.608
23.667
45.696
12,394
290.140

1900

Urban

952,323

2,667
11,802

3,172
40,747
16,004

6,216
27,452

4,151

6,489
10.538

3,388
12,929
13,412

4,092

5 285
13,103
13,616

9,407

"4'i5i'

20,317

16.485

8.491

3.231

3.662

25,180

24,404

87,565

3,297

9,654

2,518

6.576

14,260

30.248

7.166

4,686

12,818

5,043
3,381

20,818
9,769

12,533

42,345

25,530

3,550

4,126

8,696

4,009

21,887

295,460

5,997

Rural

1,468,659

5,868
36,145

6,452
19,342
21,631
33,161
21,595
21,863
16,725
13,956

9,027
10,800
21,748
10,952

4.478
27.576
10.646
28,701

3,122
11,072
29,889
25,714
45,746
23,333
25,838

5,759
19,122
23,042
19,906
42,149
24,344
38,7.52
17,146
26,668
13,596
10,991
11,719
16,007
14,228
14,439
27,711
29,373
16,218
35,023
27,134

8,821
38,877
29,698
20,339

3,763
25,170
35,890
29,265
25,874
53,333
10,848
268,074

' Comprises all counties in which there were no incorporated places having 2,500.
Benzie, Clare, Crawford, Gladwin, Huron, Iosco. Kalkaska, Keweenaw, Lake
Ontonagon, Osceola, Oscoda, Otsego, Roscommon, and Sanilac,

STATISTICAL APPENDICES

469

APPENDIX Ti— Continued

Per

Cent of

[NCREASE

Per Cent Urban in
Total Population

Rural

Urban

Rural

popu-

population

lation
per

1910

1900

1910

1900

square
mile:
1920

1920

1910

1900

1920

1910

1920

1910

61.1

47.2

39.3

68 9

39.3

-3.8

1.0

24.8

50.5

38.5

70.6

4.7

- 19.5

5 4

18.1

15.6

&'.%

9.2

"1.33:6

-8.5

-7.1

36.9

62.1

63.6

64.7

-12.6

7.7

-6.8

12.5

11.6

24.0

19.4

14.1

17. T

38.2

-11.0

-5.6

29.2

68.4

66.2

65.3

5.3

10.8

-4.7

6.7

49.6

47.9

37.8

32.6

47.9

26.7

-2.0

0.6

57.4

25.5

23.2

22.4

2.8

-4.4

-9.0

36.0

66.9

62.4

55.7

38.1

28.7

13.3

-2.6

34.8

26.7

24.7

19.9

6.9

22.6

-3.7

-7.1

30.3

27.1

40.4
38.4

-44.6

-17.7

0.7
-24.2

-18.1
22.0

28 0

40.3

■■"4i:8'

h'.i'

ll!5

48.7

51.5

49.4

-4.1

19.7

7.3

9.8

8.1

17.0

13.6

13.5

24.4

-6.9

-4.0

-8.2

33.6

58.4

57.8

54.1

3.7

34.6

1.2

16.0

11.0

65.7

69.1

75.0

-9.9

5.8

5.3

41.4

8.6

27.8

25.5

12.9

5.0

90.1

-6.7

-17.6

37.1

32.4

25.7

33.2

6.0

-9.6

- 23 . 3

29.5

21.8

74.9

59.7

31.3

144.1

194.2

21.4

-9.4

48.2

76.4

74.6

81.3

45.8

27.8

32.5

89.9

6.9

56.0

50.9

45.9

-9.8

28.8

-26.4

5.4

18.4

31.2

9.6
16.9

283.7
9.5

-10.5
-8.1

-12.8
-4.1

40 3

19.4

13^9

■ ■■26:5'

38.0

26.0

30.5

30.8

-30.4

32.1

-13.1

33.9

52.2

70.3

58.6

41.4

83.6

89.4

9.7

-5.4

43.8

32.8

27.3

24.7

18.5

7.7

-8.9

-5.6

38.4

36.7

24.9

35.9

103.7

16.8

26.6

97.8

12 0

21.3

17.2

16.1

21.3

8.5

-6.6

-0.3

31.1

66.7

58.8

52.2

53.9

24.8

9.9

-4.6

34.2

68.1

65.3

55.1

22.9

61.6

8.3

5.4

40. 5

75.2

70.7

67.5

22.3

28.6

-2.5

10.5

52.8

18.3

15.2

11.9

19.7

-4.7

-9.3

31.6

24.9

22.5

19.9

10.4

11.5

-3.4

-4.1

48.3

16.8

12.8
19.8

-17.8
14.9

3.4
-6.6

25 7

24.9

'■■■23!6

23 !i

17 2'

60.6

46.4

- 46.4

51.2

-21.7

-13.2

-21.7

5.2

19.9

66.9

69.3

73.3

-5.5

7.2

5.7

30.4

8.1

44.4

41.8

37.9

-3 5

27.4

-13.2

8.4

22.3

25.7

23.2

22.6

0.9

-3.6

-11.6

-6.6

23.1

37.5

41.0

47.4

-15.2

-18.0

-1.8

6.4

14.1

31.8

18.0
20.9

117.0
67.9

2.4
-1.9

-20.5
-6.1

22.2

31.2

""VbA

36'7'

44.6

14.1

12.6

10.3

6.4

19.6

-6.7

-4.6

36.1

73.9

59.3

56.2

91.5

15.6

-1.4

1.8

32.3

54.6

29.3

21.8

238.3

48.8

16.7

0.1

46.1

40.7

36.1

31.6

18.6

30.4

-2.4

6.7

50.0

23.0

24.0
56.6

3.2
22.6

9.3
-1.0

-3.1
-0.2

13.8

61.7

■■"52'.i'

■i9:3

46.4

56.7

48.3

46.2

30.1

-1.0

-7.2

-8.8

35.4

41.8

34.1

14.9

28.7

145.3

-7.0

-17.4

31.0

63.9

54.4

52.3

35.1

14.4

-9.1

5.2

3.0

42.4

29.0

25.7

58.2

10.8

-12.4

-6.2

37.1

8.1

-12.3
-9.2

-2.7
1.2

37.0

12.5

io^s'

i2.6'

i'.o

'-'wk'

43.6

54.4

47.1

45.8

27.9

-3.8

-4.5

-8.5

32.1

95.4

91.4

84.7

131.3

64.5

17.4

-14.3

86.5

53.6

40.3

35.6

16.4

39.7

-31.8

-8.4

14.3

8.2

14.7
15.2

Inhabitants or more in 1920. These counties are Alcona, Antrim. Arenac, Haraga,
Leelanau, Luce, Mackmac, Missaukee. Montmorency, Newaygo, Oceana, Ogemaw,

470

RiR \i. Mirnic! \^:

o
o
o

tfi

-H

rH -^ O

■J

.J
!a a.

K O

o a.

^ 1

O 1

o
o

39.3

11.8
3.6
3.9
f-.8
C.6
4.6

60.7

10.8
49.9

47.2

20.6
1.8
7.5
7.3
5.9
4.1

52.8

10.2
42.6

"^^

Cl.l

27.1

3.8
5.7
10.2
4.9
6.1
3.3

7 8
31.1

c
.S

CO
05

952,323

285,704

95,153

212,890

158,649

112,362

1,468,659

261,539
1,207,120

rH .rHrHCO-*ClO • r-i .
l^ . rH C-1 CO • rH .

CO .

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.2

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t'

r-t

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00

1,327,044

578,337
50,510
211,0 2
203,817
166,749
116,549
1,483,129

285,955
1,197,174

z; o

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co'

2,241,560

993,678
137,634
210,829
372,480
179,991
225,476
121,472
1,426,852

286,645
1,140,207

CO rHrHCOOfClCO • t~
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b
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Urban territory

Cities and villages of:

500,000 inhabitants
or more

100,000 to 500,000
inhabitants

50,000 to 100,000
inhabitants

25,000 to 50,000 in-
habitants

10,000 to 25,000 in-
habitants

5,000 to 10,000 in-
habitants

2,500 to 5,000 in-

Rural territory

Cities and villages of
less than 2,500 in-
habitants

Other rural territory.

in ,/ 0) »- ' uj fl w •

q; ^ O p3

O 3 M

£■ 1=. a. a

go a"

ft'

.2 C — O'

1_ r "•- JH O br rH

t. _ 3 H o t- O..S to

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.— Q, cc "o "I:; '^

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1/3

tf)

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ft

bJD
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etc

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3
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CO

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■yj

STATISTICAL APPENDICES

471

Al'PENDIX F
Crops — Fourteenth Census: 1920

VALUE OF CROPS 1919

All crops $404,014,810

Cereals 170,897,885

Other grains and seeds 23,442,687

Hay and forage 105,280,992

Vegetables 65,096,550

Fruits 26,129,793

Other crops 13,166,903

iCREAGE AND PRODUC-
TION OF PRINCIPAL
CROPS

Com acres

bushels

Wheat acres

bushels

Oats acres

bushels

Rye acres

bushels

Dry beans acres

bushels

Hay and forage. acres

tons

Hay crops acres

tons
acres
Corn cut for forage,

tons
Other forage crops,
including s i 1 age,

acres
tons

Potatoes acres

bushels

Sugar-beets . . . .acres

tons

Apples trees

bushels

1919

1,269,155

45,088,912
1,056,687

20,411,825
1,514,808

36,956,425
912,951

12,168,182
314, ^-73
4,332,317
3,644,952
6,345,510
2,866,726
3,172,012
418,031

566,932

360,195
2,606,566

280,538
23,929,560

106,450
1,025,550
5.615,905
5,843,271

1909

52,102,869
70,544,250
12,069,046
36,049,801
16,201,328
12,599,720
4,638,724

1909

1,589,596

52,906,842

802,137

16.025,791

1,429,076

43,869,502

419,020

5,814,394

403,669

5,282,511

2.715,447

3,634,196

2,625,193

3,247,282

Not
reported

90,254

386,014

365,483

38,243,826

78,711

706,990

7,534,343

12,332,296

The value of all
crops harvested in
Michigan in 1919 was
$404,014,810. Corn
was valued at $67,633,-
385, wheat at $45,-
722,488, oats at $31,-
412,962, rye at $18,-
252,291, and dry beans
at $17,329,268. The
value of hay and for-
^ige was $105,280,992 ;
of potatoes, $49,055,-
600 ; of sugar beets,
$11,793,836; of ap-
ples. $11,686,542 ; of
peaches, $1,232,495 ;
and of grapes, $5,793,-
575. As compared
with 1909, the total
value of crops for 1919
shows an increase of
165.6 per cent ; corn,

128.6 per cent ; wheat,

175.7 per cent ; oats,
69.7 per cent; rye,
362.7 per cent; dry
beans, 78.4 per cent;
potatoes, 394.8 per
cent ; and sugar beets,
194.1 per cent.

The acreage of corn
in 1919 was 1,269,155,
representing a decrease
of 20.2 per cent, as
compared with 1,589,-
96 acres in 1909. The
acreage of wheat was
1,056,687 in 1919, as
against 802,137 acres
in 1909. an increase of

473

RURAL MICHIGAN

APPENDIX F—Contmned

ACREAGE AND PRODUC-
TION OF PRINCIPAL
CROPS

Peaches trees

bushels
Grapes vines

1919

2,010,022

448,177

11.097,734

pounds 115,871,465

1909

2,907,170

l,fi86,5-6

11,913,576

120,695,997

31.7 per cent. That of
oats was 1,514,808
acres in 1919 and
1,429,076 in 1909 ; of
rye, 912,951 acres in
1919 and 419,020 in
1909 ; and of dry
beans, 314,873 acres
in 1919 and 403,669
in 1909. The average yield of corn per acre in 1919 was 35.5 bushels;
of wheat, 19.3 bushels ; and of oats, 24.4 bushels. The corresponding
figures for 1909 are 33.3 bushels of corn, 20.0 bushels of wheat, and
30.7 busliels of oats.

In 1919, 3,644,952 acres were in hay and forage, including 655,784
acres in timothy, 1,852,789 acres in timothy and clover mixed, 120,299
acres in clover, 348,254 acres in silage crops, and 418,031 acres in
corn cut for forage. The total production of hay and forage was 6,345,-
510 tons, of which 2,551,806 tons were silage. The total acreage in
hay and forage in 1909 (not including corn cut for forage) was 2,715,-
447 acres and the total production 3,634,196 tons.

There were 280,53-' acres in potatoes in 1919, as compared with
365.483 acres in 1909, representing a decrease of 23.2 per cent. The
production was 23,929,560 bushels in 1919, as against 38,243,826
bushels in 1909. Tlie average yield per acre was 85.3 bushels in 1919
and 104.6 bushels in 1909.

The acreage of sugar beets in 1919 was 106,450, as compared with
78.711 acres in 1909. an increase of 35.2 per cent. The production in
1919 was 1,025,550 tons, as against 706,990 tons in 1909, an increase
of 45.1 per cent.

The production of apples in 1919 was 5,843,271 bushels ; of peaches,
448,177 bushels; and of grapes, 115,871,465 pounds.

STATISTICAL APPEX DICES

473

APPENDIX G

Live-Stock and Live-Stock Products — Fourteenth
Census: 1920

DOMESTIC ANIMALS ON FARMS

JAN. 1, 1920

Horses 605.509

Colts under 1 year old 17,526

Colts 1 year old and under 2... 24,170

Mares 2 years old and over 284,014

Geldings 2 years old and over... 277,806

Stallions 2 years old and over . . . 1,993

Mules 5,884

Colts under 1 year old 290

Colts 1 year old and under 2 . . . 429

Mules 2 "years old and over 5,165

Asses and burros 145

Cattle 1,586,042

Beef cattle 329,901

Calves under 1 year old 100,592

Heifers 1 year old and under 2.. 3S,660

Cows 2 years old and over 50,617

Steers 1 year old and under 2 91,265

Steers 2 years old and over 43,928

Bulls 1 year old and over 4,839

Dairy cattle 1,256,141

Calves under 1 year old 263,911

Heifers 1 year old and under 2.. 165,364

Cows 2 years old and over 802,095

Bulls 1 "year old and over 24,771

Sheep 1,209,191

Lambs under 1 year old 359,175

Ewes 1 year old and over 809.125

Rams and wethers 40,891

Goats 1,607

Swine 1,106,066

Pigs under 6 months old 687,089

Sows and gilts for breeding 184,556

Boars for breeding 14,199

All other hogs 220,222

C0MPAnATI\T; FIGURES,
LIVE-STOCK OS FAUMS JAN. 1, 1920

APR. 15, 1910

Horses 605,509 *6n2,410

Mules 5,884 *3,638

Cattle 1,586,042 •1,261,773

Sheep 1,209,191 *1, 545, 241

Chickens 10,913,645 9,698,401

Hives of bees 93,348 115,274

* Excluding spring colts, calves, and lambs.

Of the 196,447 farms
m Michigan in 1920,
186,354 reported do-
mestic animals. Horses
were reported by 176,-
259, mules by 2,852,
cattle by 173,417,
sheep by 35,454, and
hogs by 138,170.

Tlie number of horses
on these farms in 1920
was 605,509, which in-
cluded 563,813 horses
2 years old and over,
24,170 colts from 1 to
2 years old. and 17.-
526 colts under 1 year
old. The value re-
ported for horses was
$56,433,765, an aver-
age of $93.20 per head.
The number of horses
on April 15. 1910 (ex-
cluding spring colts, in
order to make a fair
comparison with the
figures for January 1,
1920) was 602,410.

The number of mules
in 1920 was 5,884. in-
cluding 290 colts un-
der 1 year old, 429
colts from 1 to 2 years
old, and 5.165 mules
years old and over.
The total value was
$661,115, an average
of $112.36. The num-
ber of mules in 1910
(excluding spring
colts) was 3,638.

The total number of
cattle in 19 2 0 was
1,586,042, including
329.901 beef cattle and
1,256,141 dairy cattle.
Beef cows numbered

0,617 and dairy cows

474

RURAL MICHIGAN

APPENDIX G — Continued

LIVE-STOCK PRODUCTS

Milk gals. 382,822,631 352,858,180

Wool lbs. 7,835,558 11,965,405

Eggs doz. 55,986,999 59,915,851

Chickens raised 12,441,555 12,877,537

1919 1909 802,095. The value re-

ported for cattle was
$101,717,971. The
number of cattle in
1910 (excluding spring
calves) was 1,261,773.
The 1,209,191 sheep
reported in 1920 included 359,175 lambs under 1 year old, 809,125
ewes, and 40,891 rams and wethers. The sheep were valued at $13,688,-
379, an average of $11.32. The number of sheep in 1910 (excluding
spring lambs) was 1,545,241.

Of the 1,106,066 swine on farms in 1920, 687,089 were pigs under
6 months old, 1 4,556 sows for breeding, 14,199 boars for breeding,
and 220,222 other hogs The value reported for swine was $19,621,714.
The total production of milk in 1919 was 382,822,631 gallons, as
compared with 352,858,180 in 1909. The production of wool in 1919
was 7,835.558 pounds; of honey, 1,321,447 pounds; of eggs, 55,986,999
dozen ; and the number of chickens raised was 12,441,555. The value
of all dairy products, excluding home use of milk and cream, was $71,-
074,727 ; of eggs, $23,514,540 ; and of chickens raised in 1919, .$11,-
446,231.

Domestic animal., kept in village barns, city stables, and elsewhere
not on farms were reported as follows: Horses, 58,474 in 1920, as
compared with 100,238 in 1910 ; mules, 894 in 1920 and 700 in 1910 ;
cattle, 42,061 in 1920 and 47,385 in 1910 ; hogs, 23,970 in 1920 and
13,894 in 1910.

STATISTICAL APPENDICES

475

CD
0^

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French Dr
Hackney .
Percheron

Standard I
Clydesdale
All 0 her
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Aberdeen
Hereford .
Polled Du
Shorthorn
All other
iiiri/ breeds
Ayrshire
Brown S\v
Guernsev
Holstein-F

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470

RURAL MICHIGAN

h- (

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<

INDEX

Accounting, farm, 393
Adrian, situation of, 43

wire-fence made at, 314
Adulteration, 389
Agent, county agricultural, 363

home demonstration. 363
Agriculture, Department of,
383

development of, 417

early, 41

in central counties. 449

in northern counties, 450

in northern Michigan, 427,
429

in southern counties, 449

of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 46

railroads and, 245

rank in, 446

southeastern, 42
Ague. 322

"Alexander" oats, 214
Alfalfa, in Michigan. 217
Americanization, 177, 178
Animal Industry, Bureau of,
383

Department of, 387
Animals, Michigan, statistics
of, 219

predatory, 120. 226

wild, list of, 114, 115
Ann Arbor, fair at, 334, 335,
336

hav-presses manufactured
at, 313

Railroad, 248, 249, 231

settlement of. 43
Anti-trust Act. Michigan, 288

farmers and. 2SS
Apiary inspector, 383
Apples. 202

grades of, 390

Apples, history. 202

varieties, 202, 431
Apricot, 203

Armour and Company, can-
nery, 299. 300
Arscnite of lime, from copper

country. 91
Artesian wells, 57, 58
Asbestos. 108
Ash. 78
Association, anti-trust act

and, 288
Associations, aliens and, 455

cooperative, statistics, 454,
455

farm. 262. 263

in Finland. 455

live-stock. 221

marketing. 264
Athletic Board of Control, 357

material distributed by, 358

schools and, 357
Aura, described, 144
Automobiles, on Michigan
farms, 459

Balicock test, 389
Banking. 436
Barber, E. W., quoted, 60
Barley, 191

black l)arbless, 192

new varieties of, 216

varieties, 102

winter, 191
Barrel, size of, 391
Baskets, size of regulated, 390
Basswood. 78
Battle Creek, settlement of, 43

threshers manufactured at,
312
Bay dc Noc, Upper Peninsula,
50

477

478

INDEX

Boal, J. E., quoted, 251
Beal, W. J., quoted. 115
Boa IIS, 100
. distribution, 100

in Upper Peninsula, 197

laboratory, 197

soy, 217
Beaver Island, 453

Mormons on, 377
Beech, 78
Bee industry, 233
Beekeepers, 233
Bees, 232

association, 233

distribution, 233

plants for, 233
Beet seed, 199, 200

distribution, 200

in Tapper Peninsula, 200
Beet-sugar bounty. 291

factories, 293

history. 292

in Saginaw valley, 293

in Upper Peninsula. 293

on muck lands, 213

production of, 201

statistics. 293
Benton Harbor, fruit market-
ing at, 205
Berries, 201, 202

northern, 431

I'pper Peninsula, 207
Bibbins. A. L., quoted, 214
Biological Survey of Michi-
gan, 394
Birch, 78
Birds and agriculture, 120

migratory law for, 120
Births, recording of, 101
Blois, quoted, 240
Bohemians, in Michigan, 174

Steadman on, 174
Boundary dispute with Wis-
consin, 95
Bounties, 225, 220
Bounty, for sugar production,

290
Bowlders, 102
Boyce, S. S., quoted, 10
Boy scouts, 358
Bran, production of, 308
Breakfast foods, production

of, 308
Bricks. 112. 113
Bridges, 405
Brown, G. L., quoted, 177

Buckeye mower, 335

Buckwheat. 192

Butter-liowls, manufacture of,

315
Butter, distribution, 290

history, 290

production of. 290

state l)rand for, 390

statistics. 290
Butternut, 208, 209

Upper Peninsula, 50

Cadillac, elevation near, 8

smut-removing machine
manufactured at, 313
Calumet, all-service truck

manufactured at, 313
Campau, Louis. 44
Canadian Pacific Railway. 250
Canals, early projects for, 242,
243

Erie, 254

immigration on, 158

St. Mary's Ship, 11, 254
Candles. 318

Canning, Armour and Com-
pany and, 299

distribution, 300

fruit, 299

law, 301

Michigan Canned Food Com-
pany, 300

statistics. 299, 300

vegetables, 300
Carriages, manufacture of, 313
Cattle, 230

breeds, 230, 231

pure-bred, 220

statistics of, 230, 231, 297
Celery, 197

distribution, 198

in Upper Peninsula, 54, 199

marketing of, 199

soil. 199

statistics, 198
Cement, 110

history. 110

production. 110
Cemeteries, township, 161
Central Michigan Normal

School, 370
Cheese, distribution. 290

factories, statistics of, 297

INDEX

479

Cheesp. history. 295
production of, 295
statistics. 295
CheiTv, crop, 207
distribution. 207
on Grand Traverse Bay, 200
varieties of. 203
Chestnut, 209

Chicago and Northwestern
Railroad. 249
fruit market, 2(i0
Milwaukee and St. Paul
Railroad. 250
Children's Year Special. 328
Child welfare work. 32S
Chippewa County. r)unl)ar Ag-
ricultural School of. 372
soil of. 421
Cholera, 322
Church, 375

camp-meetings. 37(^i
circuit-rider, 37(>
condition of rural, 3S0
conference at the Michigan
Agricultural College,

382
Germans and. I(i3
Cider. 301
Circuit-rider, 376
Cities as markets. 25S
Clays, area of. 41()

of Chippewa County. 421
of eastern Upper Peninsula,

49
of Ontonagon County. 49
of Ontonagon Valley. 421
of Saginaw valley, 45
southeastern. 41
used in pottery. 113
Clerk, township, 161
Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Com-
pany, 148
Climate, elevation and, 8, 9
fruit and, 204
topography and, 8. 9
Clinic, dental, Kent County.
327
state, 325
Clinton Woolen Mills, 305
Cloth, production of, Michi-
gan, 305
Clover, annual white sweet, as
soil-buiMer. 429
seed. 193
sweet, 216
Cloverland Magazine, The. 374

Clubs, bovs' and girls" stand-
ard, 368
constitution of, 343
Michigan State Association

of, 343
policies, 344
statistics, 344
Club-work, described, 368
leaders of, 364
statistics, 309
Coal. 99

distribution. 100
history. 99
Coast of Michigan, length of.

20
Coldwater. settlement of. 43
Collal)orators, 364
Colonization. 145
Commissioner of Agriculture,
383
of the State Land Office, 397
Communities, in Michigan, 177
Concord grape. 2(iti
Condemnation, for idle lands,

438
Condensed milk, 297
Conservation. Director of, 394
in Michigan. 402
State Department of, 394
Consolidated Rural School Act,

352
Consumers' Power Company,
126
rural service of, 252
Cookery, early, 317
Cooperation, 273

among the Finns, 172
law for, 342

Michigan farmers and, 454
Cooperative associations, 273
Crop Reporting Service, 392
stores, etc., 455. 456
Copper, 88

by-products. 91
character of, 88
Country, 18, 50
Indian use of, 88
location of, 88
miners, 90
mining of, 89
production of, 90
stamping and smelting of,
89
Corn, 186

distribution. 190
frost and, 188

480

INDEX

Corn, history, 187
Indian. 153, 187
in north country, 420
planting, 188
varieties. 189
yield, 18!)
Counties, nid to ai?riculture,
371, 373
yield of farm crops in, 447,
448
County asent, ropres(>nts State
Veterinarian, 388
agricultural agent, 3(!.'')
drain coniniissloner, 414
government. New York and,

100
road commission, 404
schools of agriculture, 371
Covert road law, 4()(!
Cows, dairy, statistics of, 297
Cox, J. F., quoted, 419,420
Coyotes, 220
Crawford County, forest re-

soTVf in, 397
Creameries. 297
Cream, production of, statis-
tics. 297
Credits, farm, 430
Crops, improvement of, 213
northern, 429
on cut over lands, 420
rank in, Michigan, 440, 454
reports on, 392"
rotation of on northera

farms, 433, 434
statistics of, 471
value of, 181. 445
yield of, 440. 448
Customs, European, in Michi-
gan, 179
Cut-over lands, farming on,
4.34
grazing on, 420, 427

Dairy and Food Department,
389
Association, 298
bureau in Department of

Agriculture, 299
products, value of, 445
Dairying, northern, 430
Dances, 321
Davenport, quoted, 303

David, House of, on High Is-
land, 454

Israelite House of, 378
Davis, C. A., quoted, 05
Deaths, recording of, 101
Deliates, early, 321
Deer, 115

destruction of, 119
Department of Agriculture, bu-
reau of dairying in, 299

Michigan Agricultural Col-
lege and, 3S(i

secures agricultural statis-
tics, 392, 393

State, 383, 380

TI. S. funds from, 304
Detroit, as market, 245, 258

Cadillac on site of, 591

commerce of, 247. 202

Grand Haven and Milwau-
kee Railroad, history
of, 248

industries in, 200

market milk and live-stock,
274. 275

motor truck lines to, 201

Packing Company, 270

railroads to, 201

roads to, 201, 202

steamship lines at, 201

terminals, 201

tractors manufactured at,
311

Transportation Association,
201

transportation to, 200
Development Bureaus, 425

of agriculture, 417
Director of Markets, 383

State, 203
Disease, 321, 322
Dogs, laws for, 225
Dolomite, 111, 112
Drag, early. 309
Drainage, 408

by counties, 408

criticism of, 411

crops and. 409

Michigan law for, 409,
410

Miller and Simons on, 410

state and, 412, 413

statistics, of, 408

U. S. census on. 408
Drains, making of, 414

on state syvamp lands, 414

IXDEX

481

Drummond Island, 452, 453

Mormons on, 377
Duluth, South Shore and At-
lantic Railroad, 249
Dunbar Agricultural School,

372
Dunkards, 378
Duroc-Jersey hog, 230
Dutch, character of, 165

distribution, 165

in Michigan. 164

statistics, 165

Eaton Rapids, woolen mill at,

306
Education, land-grant for, 348
pioneer. 347
vocational, 358
Electric power, furnished by
municipalities, 251, 252
railways, 250
Elevation, climate and, 8, 9
in Upper Peninsula, 50
of Cadillac, 46
of central counties, 44. 45
of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 46
Elevator Exchange, 282
Elk, 119
Elm, 78

Escanaba, butter-bowls made
at, 315
other manufactures at, 315
stump-pullers made at, 434,
435
Essex hog, 230
Eureka, ridge near. 9
European influences, 179
Evans, E. E.. on sandv lands,

428
Explosives, use of, 435
Extension work, 364

Factories, wood-using, 80, 81
Fairs. 332

in Upper Peninsula, 337

of Berrien County described,
333, 334

of other counties, 334

State, 384

state aid for, 337

village, 337

Washtenaw County de-
scrilied, 334, 335

West Michigan State, 336
Fanning-mill, 310
Farm bureau, 263

and forest products, 286

constitution of, 279

departments, 282

incorporation of. 287

membership, 282

membership statistics, 284

Michigan State, and Potato
Growers Exchange, 268,
269

organization of. 278

purchases by, 286

work of, 282
Farmers, nationality of, 444

Week, 370
Farming, northern. 431, 432
Farms, aliaiidonnn'nt of, 458

acreage bv counties, 442,
443, 452

expenditures, 444

mortgages, 443

ownership, 443

rank of, 444

size, 443

statistics of. 442, 461, 463

tenancy, 14(t. 147, 443

valuation, 443
Federal Land Bank of St.

Paul, 436
Feed, in northern Michigan,

421
Fence, manufacture of, 314
Fernow, quoted, (il
Ferries, car. 249
Fertilizer, from peat, 101

from Sturgeon River

Swamp, 54
Finland, Kia. 166
Finnish farmers and land

clearing. 9
Finns, and prohibition. 107

and sheep-raising. 179, 180

and Socialism. 167

and Swedes, 1(!7

as farmer, l(i(>

character of, 106

co'iperation among. 172

habits of. 16S. 1G9

honesty of. 1(>8

in cut-over country, 168

in Finland. 167

in Michigan, 165

482

IXDEX

Finns, music of, 169

progress of, 173

statistics, 172
Fire, forest, law for, .39S

state wardens and, .S9S, 399
Fish, abundance of, 122

liatcheries, 124

industry, 123

liinds of, 123

of Lake Superior, 123

output. 123, 124
Flail, 310
Flint, as market, 258

market at, 258
Flour, production of, 308
Food and Drug Commissioner,
3S3

Department, 389

pioneer, 317
Forester, State, 400
Forestry warden, 398
Forests! and settlement, 73

area, 71

burning of. 47

Commission, Michigan, 39C>

commissioner, state, 397

department. Farm Bureau,
283

depletion, 72

devastation of. 70, 73, 82

effects of removal, 84

fire law, 398

fires, 84, 85

game and, 118

kinds of trees in, 71

Livingston on. 47

Michigan Forest Products
Bureau. 2.S(i

near Manchester. CO

necessity of removal of, 83

of Clinton County. tiO

of Detroit area, (iO

of Eaton County, tiO

of Kent County, Livingston
on, ()7

of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 40, 47

of Saginaw, 01

of Shiawassee Valley, 62

of southern counties, 61

of Upper Peninsula, 49

pioneers and. 69

railroads and devastation
of. 74

reserves, 397

size of, 71

Forests, soil and, 38, 39

southeastern, 41, 42

State, 401

Tax Commissions record of,
72

uses of, 69

Watkins on, 60
Fox farms, 117
Freight, from Detroit, 247
French, and agriculture, 155

and Finns, 158

character of, 157

farms in southeastern
Michigan, 155

immigration, 158

in Michigan, 155

methods of farming, 156

settlements, 155
Frosts, and forests, 9

clearings and, 9

elevation and, 9

near Great Lakes, 17
Fruit, 201

associations, listed, 273

-belt, 19, 204

distribution, 205

exchanges listed, 269

history of, 201, 205

northern. 431

sale of regulated, 390

selling associations, 269

wild, 201

yield of, 204, 205, 206
Furniture, pioneer, 318
Furs. 116

posts. 117

prices for. 118

trade in. 116

Gagneur, Rev. W., 377

Game. 114

and agriculture. 116
extermination of, 117
farm near Mason, 121
forest and, 118
in Upper Peninsula, 116
of Lenawee County, 115
species of, 114

Games, 320

Garden-beds, Indian, 154

Geismar, L. M., and sheep-
raising, 179
Finns and. 179. 180
on effect of northern exten-
sion of State, 20

IXDEX

483

Genesee County, settlement of,

44
Geological Survey, of Michi-
gan. 86. 394
Geology of Michigan, 6
Germans, as farmers, 1G3

distribution of. 162

immigration. 162

in Germany. 163

in Michigan, 161

in Upper Peninsula 164

religion of, 163

statistics, 162
Ginseng, 211
Glacial rivers, 7
Glaciation, effect of on soils,

37
Gleaners. Ancient Order of,
341

Clearing House Association.
341. 342

insurance, 341

law for, 342

statistics, 341, 348
Gold, 98

Ropes Mine, 98
Goldenseal, 211
Government, local. 160, 161
Grain crops, 183, 190

improved, distribution of,
21.5

new varieties, 216

on muck-lands. 212

standardization of, 213

weight of, 391
Grand Haven, temperature at.

19
Grand Rapids, and Indiana
Railroad. sandy land
experiments of, 429

as market, 2.58

population, 258

settlement of, 44
iJraiid Uivcr outlet. 7
Grand Trunk Railway, 248
Grange, farm accounting and,
393

insurance. 339. 340. 341

Michigan State. 338

Mutual Fire Insurance
Company. 340

policies. 339

subordinate. 339

work of. 338
Grape. 201

hisf-ory, 201, 204

(irape, in southeastern Michi-
gan, 201

marketing of, 264, 265
Graphite. IDS
Grazing, northern Michigan

and. 426. 427
Great Lakes and Michigan, 10

area of. 16

commerce on, 247

depth of. It)

effects of. 11. 16, 17. 431

elevation of. 12

frosts and. 17

geological history of, 12

rivers of. 13

shore-lini> of, 20

temperature of. 16
Grinders, manufacture of,

318
Crist-mill, history, 306

Indian. 306

of whites. 306
Grits, production of, 308
Gypsum. 106

distribution, 107

production. 107

uses, 107

Hail-storms. 26

distribution. 26, 27

lakes and. 26
Handles, manufacture of, 79
Hardwoods, (i3

Livingston on. 65

of Walnut Lake. 65
Ilarger. Rev. C. II.. on rural

church, 380
Harvester, early, 310
Hay. 182

alfalfa. 182

crop. 182

harvesting of. 179

in Chippewa County, 183

kinds. 1S3

mint, 210

on ' .uck lands. 212

-press. 'M'A
Health, rural. 324

rural work for. 326. 327,
328

State Board of. 324

township board of, 161
Hemlock. 77

pnxluction of. 77

48-i

INDEX

lliggins T.akc, tree nursery at,

399
High Island, 454

House of David and, 37.S
Highway Department, State,
404. 40.")

improvement tax. 403
Hoar, .Tames, quoted, 1.58
Holmes, J. C, horticulturalist,

203
"Holy Corners," 378
Home demonstration agent,

365, 366
Homestead Law, Michigan,

151
Honey, distribution, 233

plants Yielding. 233

statistics, 232
Horses. 227

history, 227

pure-bred. 220

statistics. 228

varieties, 227, 228
Horticultural Society, Michi-
gan State, 345
Houghton, Douglass, State
Geologist, 86

his work. 87
Houses, pioneer, 316, 318

vacant farm, 458
Hul)am, as soil-liuilder, 429
Hubbard. Bela. quoted. 319
Huller. clover. 334. 335
Humus, destruction of. 47
Huron Mountains, 8
Hygiene, bureau of, 324

Imlay Channel, 7
Immigration Commissioner,

149, 150, 383
Implements, at Washtenaw
County Fair, 335
early, 311
farm. 308
historv of, 308
list of; 311
manufacture of. .311
not manufactured in Upper
Peninsula. 314
Improved lands, southern

counties, 449
Income, on northern farms.
432

Incorporation, act of 1903,

288, 289
Indians. 54

and whites. 153

as farmers. 153

corn of. 153

distribution of, 153

garden-beds of, 154

government and. 154

of Michigan, 152

opinions of, 154

school for, 154

statistics, 152

treaties with, 127

tribes. 152
Insanity, in rural communi-
ties, 329
Inspection, of farm products,
456, 457

of wool, 457
Insurance. Grange, 339
Internal improvements, 242
Interurban railways, 250

farmers and. 251

health work on, 327, 328
Iron, analyses of, 95, 96

bog, 92. 96

charcoal. 93

deposits of. 91

discovery of. 87

furnaces. 92

history of. 91

iron, kinds of, 95

on Gogebic Range, 94

on Marquette Range, 93, 94

on Menominee Range, 94

quality of, 94

reserves, 96

situation of, 96

statistics, 95

transportation. 92
Islands, agriculture on, 452,

453
Isle Royale. 452

moose on. 120
Israelite House of David, 378

Jackson, manufacture of im-
plements at, 312
settlement of, 43
JefEery, J. A., quoted, 40

Kalamazoo, settlement of, 43
Kedzie, R. C, quoted, 290, 320

INDEX

485

Kent County, health work in,

327
Kerosene, 318
inspection, 319
quality of, 318
Keweenaw Peninsula, 8
growing season in, 18
Waterway, 11
Kirstin Company, A. J., man-
ufacturer of stump-
pullers, 434, 435

Labor, farm, 457

statistics of, 458
Lake Algonquin, 12

Chicago, 12
Duluth, 12

Ontonagon, 12

Saginaw, 12

Superior. 12, 19, 123
Lakes, Great, 10
Lamps, kerosene, 318
Land, at Aura, 144, 145

cessions of, 127

classification of, 35, 3G, 143,
151, 424,438

clearing of, 144. 433

colonization, 145

cut-over, 140, 420

delinquent for taxes, 437

description of, 129

economics, 424

grants, 135, 138, 148, 149

grazing, 141

homestead entry of, 135

offices. 134

ownership of, 140, 147

prices, 138, 164, 239

reversion of to State, 142

sale of, 134, 384

sandy, agriculture on, 428

settlement, 144

speculation in, 135

State forest, 398

State tax homestead, with-
drawn from entry, 397

statistics of, 445

survey of, 128

swamp, 138

tenancy, 140

tenure, 14(!

Tiffin on, 30

United States, 135

wet. 141. 142, 415

worthless, 143, 144

Lapeer County, health work

in, 327
Latitude, effect of, 20

extent of, Michigan, 20

Geismar on, 20
Leverett, Frank, 10

soil survey by. 31
Levin, Ezra, quoted, 211, 212
Libraries, 349

county. 349

Menominee County, 350

St. Clair County, 349

State, 349
Life, loneliness of pioneer, 319
Light, gas and electric, on

farms, 459
Limestone, 109, 111

country, Upper Peninsula,
49

distribution. 111

uses. 111, 112
Live-stock, 219

destruction of diseased, 387

Detroit market for, 275

history, 219

marketing of, 275

products, 445, 473

pure-bred, statistics of, 475

Sanitary Commission, 387

standard varieties of, 220

statistics, 275
Livingston, B. E., quoted, 40,

47, 05, GO
Loams, crops on, 420

of Upper Peninsula, 421
Loan-associations. 430
Loneliness, pioneer, 319
Longyear, H. M., quoted, 00
Longyear, J. M.. quoted, 9
Lowe, John, quoted, 123
Lower Peninsula, early agri-
culture in. 41, 42

population and agriculture
of, 40
Lumber, early production of,
307

use of, 79

Machinery, farm, manufac-
ture of. 80
Mail routes, rural, 255
Mails, early, 240
Malcolm, quoted, 319
Maltas. Rev. W., 370
Manitou Islands. 453, 454

48G

INDEX

Manufaotiiros. SO
Maple, 75

sugar and sirup, .SOI. .302
Syrup I'roduccrs Assiieia-

tion of Micliigan, 804
use of, 7.'5
Marhlo, 112
Markets, 2.57, 27S
director of, 20.3
early, 235
niunicipal, 25S
prices, 239
railroads and, 245
U. S. Bureau of. Inspection
service in Michigan,
457
Upper Peninsula and, 239,
240
Marl, 109
Marquette, climate of, 19

peach, 20()
Mason, (ianie Farm near, 121
Meal, production of, 30S
Measure, of grains regulated,

391
Mennonites, 378
Menominee County Agricul-
tural School, 371. 372
Merino sheep at Washtenaw

County Fair, 334
Michigan, Acadeniv of Science,
quoted. 419. 423. 424
Agricultural College, 213,

21(1. 3(iO. 370. 428
Agricultural Fair Commis-
sion. 337. 384
Allied Dairy Association,

297
Business Farmer, The, 374
Canned Food Company, 300
Central Railroad, impor-
tance of, 247
Corn Improvement Associa-
tion. 189
Crop Improvement Associa-
tion. The. 215 \-
Experiment Association, The,
214
Farmer. The. 373
Fish Commission. 394
Forest Commission. 390
Forest Products Bureau. 286
I'>uit (irowers Exchange,

271
Fruit Packci's Federation,
constitution (if. 271.272

Michigan. Geological Survey,
394
Honey Producers Exchange,

2.33
Impioved Livestock Breed-
ers and Feeders Asso-
ciation. 221
Livestock Excliange. 276
Maple Syrup I'roducers As-
sociation. 303
Milk I'roducers Associa-
tions, 273
Patron. The, 374
Potato (Jrowers Exchange,

266, 267. 208. 269
Potato Producers Associa-
tion. 195
State Agricultural Society,

332
State Association of Farm-
ers Clubs. 343
State Horticultural Society,

345
Sugar Beet Growers Asso-
ciation. 294
Midget mills. 307
Midlings, production of, 308
Midsummer Day, 173
Milk-bottles, standards for,
389
commissions, 390
Detroit's consumption of,

274
handling of. 274, 275
market. 273
l)roduction of, 273, 297
|)roducts plants, statistics

of, 297
puritv and standards of,

389
shipment of. 389
statistics. 297
Mills, grist. Indian. 306
saw. 307
woolen. 305
Minerals, 49. 86
Mineral springs. 107
Mining. Upper Peninsula, 87
Mint. 209. 210
Monopolv. law on. 287
Moose. 120
Moravians, 377
Mormons. 377
Motor cars, on Ann Arbor

Railroad. 251
.Mountains. 7

INDEX

487

Mt. Pleasant, Indian school at,
154, 155

Muck, crops on, 211

Muck lands, 53

Agriculture on. 55, 56
in Lower Peninsula, 55

Muskegon, fox-farming at, 118

National Canners Association,
operations in Michigan,
300
Humus and Chemical Com-
pany, 101
Negroes. 175

distribution. 175. 17G
in Cass Count.v, 176
New England and township
government, 160, 161
capital in Michigan. ItJl
immigration from, 15S
influence on Michigan, 159
New York, and county gov-
ernment, 160
Immigration from, 158
Niles, settlement of, 43
Nipissing Great Lakes, 12
Normal schools, agricultural

education at, 370
Northeastern Michigan De-
velopment Bureau, 425
Northern Nut <irowers Asso-
ciation. 209
Nurse, public health, 826, 328,

329
Nurseries, fruit, 202
inspection of, 383
tree. 399
Nuts, 208, 209

Oak, 77

openings, 39
Oats. 192

"Alexander." 214

new varieties. 216

Worth V, 214
Oil. 108

inspection of, 319
Ontonagon Valley, soil of. 421
fircliards. iiispcctinn of. 3S3
(.>xford L>own shrc)). 224

Packing plants, at Detroit,

275
Papers, agricultural, 373
Park Commission, 394
Pasteurization. 390
Patrons Mutual Fire Insur-
ance Companv, 340

of Husbandry, 338
Paynesville, temperature of,

10
Peach, history of. 203, 204

in nortliern ^lichigan, 206

■■Marquette," 206

varieties of. 203
Pear. 202

varieties, 203
Peas. 197
Peat, 54

fertilizer from. 101
Peppermint. 209
Pere Marquette Railroad,
248

history of, 248
Petroleum, 108, 109

at Port Huron, 109
Pheasants. 121
Physicians. 324
Pine, importation of. 76

.lack, 64

r<'d. 64

standing white, 76

use of. 76

white. 4(i, 63
I'low. early. 309
Plums, varieties of, 203
Police, state, 161
I'ollution of streams, 395
Pomological Socictv, State,

336
Pontiac, settlement of, 43
Poplar. 7S
Population. 159.440

automobile industry and,
441. 442

changes in, 441

increase of, 247

market conditions as af-
fected by. 258

nationality of, 444

of cities. 2"5S

of northern Lower Peuin-
sula. 46

rural, 440

sex, 445

488

INDEX

Population, table of. 466
urimn and rural. 468

Porcupino Mountains, 8

Portage Lako, canals of, 11
red stone. 103

Port Huron, macliinorv manu-
factured at, 312

Post office, and rural life, 255

Posts. 81, 82

early trading, 117

Potatoes. 193

on northern soils, 420

Pottery, 113

Poultry, 232

Power, electric, furnished hy
municipalities, 251, 252

Poyseor. Rev. W., as farmer,
379

Prairies. 39. 40

Preachers, in agriculture, 379
salaries of. 378

Precipitation, 25

Prices, early, 239

Primary school interest fund,
348, 349

Products, farm, value of, 445

Project, clul), 369

Pul)lic Domain Commission,
394, 400, 401

Puritanism in ^Michigan, 159
Sunday and, 159

Quakers, 377, 378
Quarantine, 387

Railroads, 241, 242
charters, 242
Chicago and New York

reached by, 244
Detroit, firand TIaven and

Milwaukee. 248
early protects for, 243
effect of. 244
electric. 250
(irand Trunk. 248
history. 242
in Tapper Peninsula. 248,

240
Michigan Central, effect of,

247

Railroads, Pere Marquette, 248

rates. 244

sale of. 244

state and, 244

statistics of, 250

to Detroit, 261
Rainfall, 25, 26
Raspberry, 207
Rate-bill. 348

freight, by Great Lakes,
255

railroad. 244, 245
Rat-trap, 334
Red Cross, rural work of, 330,

331
Reforestation, 438
Reindeer, 120
Religious communities, 377
Reports, local agricultural,

392
Reptiles, 115
Rivers, 13

dams on, 15

drainage basins of, 14

flow of, 15

improvement of, 240

navigable, 235

of Lake Superior, 51

transportation on. 15
Roads, classes of. 406, 407

county system of, 404

early." 235, 238. 239

improvement of, 240

maintenance, 405

material for construction of,
407

of Michigan, 403

private, 180

repair tax, 403

stage routes, 240, 241

state, 405

taxes. 403

territorial and state, 240

to Detroit. 262

trunk-line, 405
Ropes Cold Mine, 98
Roscommon County, forest
reserves in, 397

"Rosen," 190, 214
Rotation, crop, on northern

farms, 433. 434
Roth, Filbert, Forestry War-
den, 398
Rye. 190

Finns and. 191

"Rosen," 190, 214

INDEX

489

Saginaw, manufacture of im-
plements at, 311
Saginaw Valley, U, 7

frosts in, 9

geological history of, 13

soils of, 45

topography of, 7
St. Clair County, health work

in, 326
St. Joseph, fruit marketing at,

265
St. Mary's Ship Canal, 11, 254
Salt, 1U4

by-products, 106

reserves, 106
Sand, agriculture on, 48

experiments on, 428, 429

farming on, 428
Sandstone, 102. 103

in Upper Peninsula, 103

Portage redstone, 103
Sanilac County, health nurse

in, 326
Sauer. C. O., quoted, 439
Sault Ste. Marie News, 375
Saw-mills, 307

output of, 74
Scandinavians, as farmers,
173

character of, 173

distribution, 173

in Michigan, 173

statistics. 183
Schneider. C. F., quoted, 24
Schools, agricultural, 351

comparison of districts, 355

cf)nsolidation of, 355

early. 351

laws for, 354

origin of, 159

pioneer. 347, 348

rural, 353

rural scliool acts of 1921,
35(1

Smith-Hughes Law and, 359,
360

teacherages for, 356

township. 351
Scouts, boj'. 358
Sears, G. W., on game, 115
Seed, handled by Farm Bu-
reau, 282

standard. Farm Bureau and,
217

Seney Swamp, tests on, 54
Settlement, 42, 43, 150

character of in Michigan,

177
New England and, 158
of central counties, 44
of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 46
of Upper Peninsula, 52
"Shakes." 322
Shale, 114

oil-bearing, 109
Sheep, Alsatian practice of
raising, Houghton

County, 179
breeds, 224, 225
distribution, 222
exhibition of at Washtenaw

Countv Fair, 334
history, 219, 224
in Upper Peninsula, 223
on farms, 225
pure-bred varieties, 220. 221
-raising, northern, 430, 431
statistics, 222. 224
Sickness, 321, 322
Silos, manufacture of, 79
Silver, 97

Sirup, maple. 301-304
Slate, 101

Slavs, in Michigan, 175
Smith-Hughes Law, 358

-Lever Act, 363
Snow, distribution of, 28
Societies, agricultural, 332,
333. 373
incorporation of, 373
Soils, 31

character of, 35, 36
classification of, 151, 395
erosion and, 38
glaciation and, 37
moisture of and vegetation,

67, ()8
of central counties. 44
of Copper Range, 50
of Ja<'ks()n County, 43
of northei-n counties, 47
of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 45, 46, 47
of Saginaw Valley, 45
of southeastern counties, 41
of southern counties, 43
surveys of, 31
timber on. 38
vegetation and, 59

490

INDEX

Soo Line Railroad, 250

Sorghum. 20. 291

Soutti Haven Fruit Exchange

described. 2(iy
Spalding, quoted, 04
Spearmint, 209
Spinning, home, 304

wheels, used by Finns, 169
Spragg, F. A., plant-breeder,

216
Springs, 57

mineral. 107
Spruce, 78
Squirrels, 120
Stage routes, 240, 241
State Board of Agriculture,
383
Board of Control of Voca-
tional Education, 359
Board of Education, Michi-
gan Agricultural Col-
lege under, 361
Board of Health. 324
Forester. 400
Forests, 398, 401
Game, Fish and Forest Fire
Commissioner, 394, 399
Highway Commissioner, 404
Statistics, agricultural, 384,

392
Steadman, T. P., quoted, 174,

175
Steamers on Great Lakes, 241
Steamship lines, to Detroit,

261
Stone, for Viuilding, 102
Strang, "King," 377
Strawberry, 200
Streams, length of. 123
StumiJ-pullers. manufactured

at Escanaba, 434, 435
Sturgeon River Swamp, utili-
zation of, 54
Sugar, bouutv for production
of. 290
companies, and settlement,

150
maple, 301-304
Sugar Beet News and North-
western Farmer, The,
374
Sugar-beets in northern lati-
tudes, 21
on muck lands, 56, 213
seed, 199
Sunday, Michigan and, 159

Sunflowers as ensilage, 430
Sunlight at various latitudes,

21
Sunshine, 24

Supervisors, crop reports of,
392

township, 160
Survey, land, 128, 129, 130

soil, 439
Surveyor, life of, 131
Swamp lands, drainage of,
414

milkweed, 10
Swine, 229

breeds of, 221, 229

statistics, 229

Tanks, manufacture of, 79
Taquamenon Swamp, celery

grown on, 54
Taxes, arrears of, 437

for highways, 403
Tax sales. 437
Teacherages, 356
Telephones, Michigan, 256
on farms, 459
rural, 256
statistics, 256
Temperature, Great Lakes
and. 17
of northern and southern
Michigan. _22
Tenancy, 146, 147
"Thimble-berry," 202
Thresiier. Birdsell, 334, 335
Threshers, manufacture of,

312
Threshing, grain, 310
machine, early, 310
Tile. 113
Timber, kinds of, 71

standing. 71 , o.c

Time, of railroad travel, 246
Topography. 5

effects on agriculture, 8
of central counties, 44
Tornadoes. 29, 30
Town-meeting. 160
Township board. 161

government, 161
Tractors, on Michigan farms,

459
Trails, 237

INDEX

491

Transportation, 235. 230
by water, 241. 252, 253
by railroad. 241. 242

Travel, by railroad. 246

Treaties, English and Indian,
127

Tree nursery. 399

Trees. 39, 40
on prairies, 39

Truck, all-service, 313
on Michigan farms, 459

Tuberculosis, clinics, 325

Turkeys, wild, 115
on Game Farm, 121

Twilight of northern latitudes,
21

United States and education,

358
Upper Peninsula, agriculture

in, 422
character of, 50
climate of, 19
climate and agriculture in,

429
crops for, 421
Development Bureau, 425,

426
eastern, soil of, 48, 49
elevation of, 50
farm area of. 450
Finns in, 173
grazing in, 53
importation of food into,

239, 240
land ownership in, 147
manufactures in, 314
mining in, 52
precipitation in, 25
program of settlement for,

423, 424
railroads in, 248, 249
settlement of, 52
sheep in, 223
sunshine in. 25
tillable lands of, 52
tonic atmosphere of, 23
topography of. K
western, character of, 49
winter in. 29
wood-using industries in,

81
yield to the acre of farm

crops in, 448

Vegetables, 193

Vegetation, of Kent County,
07
of northern Lower Penin-
sula, 47
soil and. 59

Vehicles, manufacture of, 79,
313

Veterinarian, State, 387

Veterinary surgeon, licensing
of, 388

Vinegar. 301

Vocational education, 358
State Board of Control of,
359

Wages, farm, 459

Wagons, manufacture of, 313

Walnut Lake, vegetation of,

65
Warden, fire, 398

forestry, 398

State Game, Fish and For-
estry, 399
Washtenaw County, fair at,

334, 335
Water, distribution of, 56

in farm houses, 459

transportation by, 252, 253

underground, 56
Water-power, 125

companies, 126

development of, 395

of the Upper Peninsula, 126

statistics, 125
Watkins, L. D., quoted, 319
Wax, bees, 232
Weights and measures, 389

county sealers of, 391

State Superintendent of,
391
Western Michigan Develop-
ment Bureau, 425
West Michigan State Fair, 330
Wheat, 183

Claw son, 185

Fultz, 185

Gold medal, 183

historv. 185

kinds of, 185

production, 184

492.

INDEX

Wheat, red rock, 186
standardization of, 213
standard varieties of, 213,
21(;
■Ulieeler, C. S., on game, 114,

115
Wild cherry, Upper Peninsula,
50
rice, 42
Williams, .T. L., 295
Wind, 9, 30. 31
-storms, 29
velocity of, 30
Winter, feed for, 421
precipitation in, 27
Wintergreen, 202
Wolves, 220

Women's Committee, Council
of National Defense,
327

Wood, importation of, 79

use of, 7.S

-using industries, 75, 80, 81
Wool, grading of, 457

hoine-si)uu, 109

manufacture of, 300

pool of by Farm Bureau,
2S3

yield, 222, 223, 224
Woolen mills, 305
"Worthy oat," 214

Yankees, 158

Yield, in northern counties,
448
of farm crops, 446, 447
Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation, 379
County organization of, 379

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