DELIVERED BEFORE THE

ae ae :
| Mowcan Stare AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,

AT ITS

Annual Meeting, at Lansing, January 17, 1865.

BYR

oe BETHUNE DUFFIELD, Eso. Dernorr.

The State Agricultural Society; Its Means and Ends,

BY

oc ee WE CO EE,

_ Principal of the State Normal School.

THE SOILS AND SUBSOILS OF MICHIGAN,
aie BY

Pror. A. WINCHELL,

Of the State University ef Michigan.

Sy

~——

i ataeaa

‘ LANSING:
muiatiy A KERR &- CO., PRINTERS TO THE STATE.
| 1865.

)
|
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE.

is
meee

| -/ THREE LECTURES,

Micmigan Strate Acricunturan Sociery,

AT ITS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

Annual Meeting, at Lansing, January 17, 1865.

The Undeveloped Regions and Resources of the State of Michigan,

BY

D. BETHUNE DUFFIELD, Eso., Derrorr.

The State Agricultural Society; {ts Aims and its Means,

BY
AUS. WHEL EE.

' Principal Of the State Normal School.

THE SOILS AND SUBSOILS OF MICHIGAN,

BY

Pror. A. WINCHELL,

Of the State University of Michigan.

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE,

LANSING:
JOHN A. KERR & CO., PRINTERS TO THE STATE.
1865. kal
ike

0 Dag ss Bes =

Unpevetorep-. Regions and Resources

OF THE

STATE OF MICHIGAN,

With some Practical Suggestions in Reference to their Early
Occupancy and Development.

Ae ECT we Ei,

Prepared for the Michigan State Agricultural Society, and delivered
at Lansing, January 17, A. D. 1865, by

D. BETHUNE DUFFIELD.

SSS SSS

The object of the following address is to submit in outline
sketch, an exhibition of the undeveloped regions and resources
of the State of Michigan—accompanying it with such few prac-
tical suggestions, as may contribute somewhat to their early oc-
cupancy and development.

A theme so broad, and withal so attractive, exacts on the
part of him who would treat it with any degree of forbearance
towards his hearers, a very large sacrifice, both of material and
suggestion. a

However indifferent to all matters of State development we
may have suffered ourselves to remain through the palmy days of
the past, when “ our peace flowed like a river,” and all was happi-
ness and harmony along our borders, it will be conceded, that
in a time like that through which as a people we are now passing,
this indifference mnust of necessity cease. When the wild
echoes of destructive war are rolling through a nation, they not
only summon her brave men to the field, but they at the
same time command her wise men into council; requiring of

4

them a careful reconnoissance of the future, and a prompt in—
auguration of such policies as are suited to the exigencies of.
her imperiled condition.

These unhappy voices are to-day still ringing in our ears,
and while as we hops, they breathe the herald notes of a vie
torious and regenerating peace, they yet uiter their words
of warning, admonishing each State to repair all her waste
places, to throw open to the fruitful influences of the sun all her
silent forests, to excavate from sunken vein and mountain wall,
her stores of undisturbed mineral wealth, and as rapidly as pos-
sible, to concentrate upon her soil, a busy and industrious
population.

The debt of the United States, from an amount, which four
years ago, was scarcely more than nominal, has suddenly, un—
der the terrible necessities of a rebellion, involving the national
existence, been swelled to figures and proportions almost be-
youd the capacity of mortal management, and this debt can.
only be borne, and honorably discharged through the increased
wealth of the several States composing the great Federal
Unien; for as the ageregate wealth of communities composes:
that of the State, so the aggregate wealth of the several
States, makes up the grand total of resources for the United.
States. Nor is this public debt all that rests upon the citizen.
The debts of the several States, all more or less increased by
the exigencies of the war; the debts of the various counties;
the township debts; and the yet further indebtedness of the
individual citizen, must with its interest, all be added to the
great national debt, before we can fully realize our financial.
condition and its claims upon us. Were I able in reliable sta.
tistics here ‘to place before you, the towering pile of figures
thus composing the debit side of the nation, I should certainly
win a ready assent to the statement just made, that something
besides existing wealth, must cancel these vast obligations of
our day. It cannot be drawn from the fabulous resources of
Wall Street, nor from the green boxes of retired millionaires,
Ti cannot by any stroke of financial -wisdom .be evoked from.

/

%

5

the great reservoirs of Kuropean capital; nor called into exist-
ence by rubbing the modern Aladdin lamp in the form of a
Bank Engraver’s steel plate; but it must and can only proceed
from wealth newly created; from that which is to-day locked
fast in the mine, hid in the forest, or slumbering still in the un-
tilled acres of our virgin soil. Immigration must be encour-
aged, settlements promoted by judicious public improvements,
communities built up in regions now awaiting their approach;
and the strong arm of man universally quickened into active
and productive industry.

The giant growth of the United States sprang originally—

_and ina very few years as we measure the life of a great

nation—from a few scattered settlements on its bleak and for-
bidding coasts. These settlers came not in crowded fleets,
flanked by the iron clads of thodern times, and sustained with
all the resources of later days; but crowded in frail barks, like
those which two centuries ago wrestled with the perilous ocean 7
were compelled on making land to kindle their fires, and build
their huts in the presence of a savage race, who threatened ~
them with early expulsion, or extermination.

Nevertheless, they courageously planted their feeble settle-
ments; and these gradually approaching each other, formed
first communities, then hamlets, towns, counties and colonies,
and ultimately in the progress of their political development,
vast States, out of which in due time sprang that final triumph
of an enlightened civilization, our own Federal Union.

Two important lessons are here put on record for the benefit
of the nation as it still moves resistlessly forward in its wide
circuit of self-expansion, and they may be thus stated, viz.:—
the early and full acquaintance of every new State with its own
resources, and the rapid concentration of men upon the soil
with a view to settlement and development.

Every separate State, therefore, should make haste ee examine
her own home resources, their capacity of increase, and the best
mode of developing those yet lying dormant. By an intelligent
policy of this sort, when fairly and broadly put into operation,

6

each State will be enabled over and above her mere quote of
Federal and State taxation, to make early and easy contribu-
tion towards the payment of that large debt which the people
have resolved to meet rather than suffer the Government to
drift away into floating fragments of State contention and na-
tional imbecility. For when this debt shall have been can-
celed, the nation will have achieved its final and grandest tri-
umph. And this mode of triumphing over difficulties appa-
rently insuperable, is in accordance with the true American
spirit, which halts at no obstacle, and spares no effort in the
accomplishment of its purpose. This it is that inspires her
people to span the unnavigable flood with the airy but massive
railroad bridge, to tunnel the mountain rather than climb it,
and which will yet enable thez to defy the ocean, and encircle
the globe with the vocal wires of the electric telegraph.

It will be our purpose so to apply these monitions of the past
to the present affairs of our own State, as to render apparent
the practical duty not only of the legislator, but of every citizen
. who is interested in the public welfare, or jealous of the national
honor.

The State of Michigan consists of two Peninsulas, known as
the northern and southern, the land area of which is 56,243
square miles, or 35,995,520 acres; being 1.91 per cent. of the
total area of the United States. The population in 1860 was
751,956. The northern Peninsula embraces all that portion
of the north-western territory lying between lakes Michigan
and Superior, and east of the rivers Menominee and Montreal,
which form the boundary between it and the State of Wisconsin.
It is at present divided into eight counties. Its extreme north-
ern situation, prohibiting its use for agricultural purposes,
(except to a very limited extent, in the vicinity of settlements, )
jts population have been hitherto confined to the development
of the minerals peculiar to the region. The undeveloped por-
tion of the mineral region embraces the larger part of the coun-
ties of Ontonagon, Houghton and Marquette. The remaining
portion yet unsettled will be referred to hereafter.

a

The southern half‘of the State is a magnificent Peninsula,
280 miles in length, and, 200 miles broad, in its extremest
width. Surrounded on all sides, except its southern, by the
waters of the great lakes, dashing like vast seas, 1b possesses &
coast line of one thousand miles; and this, with another thou-
sand miles on the Upper Peninsula, gives to the State over
2,000 miles of coast. This estimate does not include the coast
lines of the islands, in either of the three great lakes which wash
the borders of the State. This entire coast line is securely acces-
sible at various points, and by its natural and improved harbors,
together with the St. Mary’s and Welland canals, opens the
mineral, agricultural and other products of both Peninsulas, to
the trade of the world.

The southern or settled part of the Lower Peninsula is al-
most exclusively an agricultural region; possessing such varie-
ties of prairie openings, and timbered lands, as are rarely
found in any other portions of the United States. It is also
beautifully diversified with lakes, abounding in fish; and dis-
plays every variety of timber known to the climate.

The coal and salt basins are found in this Peninsula; and
from developments already made, their products must soon
take rank with the most important of our State.

- The recent incipient establishment of manufactures among
us, involving the use of all the different varieties of hard and
soft timber, (except the pine of commerce,) such as oak, maple,
butternut, basswood, &c., is bringing into active demand all
this heretofore neglected class of our woods, which are reck-
oned as superior to those found in any other State. Massa-
chusetts annually carries away from us immense quantities of
them for the use of her shovel and other manufactures—thus
bringing prominently into market a prolific source of wealth
which has hitherto lain dormant.

But as the unsettled portions of the State constitute the
main subject of our reflection, we proceed at once to a con-
sideration of them. |

The northern or Upper Peninsula, excepting the different.

8

towns and localities dependent on the mines, is wholly an
unsettled region, and comprises upwards’ of nine millions of
acres, or fourteen thousand square miles—a tract larger than
the three States of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode
Island. ;

Aside from its mineral wealth—now only beginning to be
developed—its value may be said to consist chiefly in its tim-
ber, and noi in any agricultural capacities.

This timber is of that class which is absolutely necessary to
the mines, and will be so appropriated and used. Yet there
are districts within the mineral region of the Upper Peninsula
which are covered with valuable hard timber, among which
may be seen some of the finest tracts of birds-eye maple any
where to be found. This has been observed at Grand Island,
the Ance, and at Portage Lake.

The remaining portion of the Upper Peninsula (not the
mineral, ) is valuable principally for its pine timb-r, although in
the region of the two Peninsulas of the Big and Little Bay de
Nocquet, there is to be found a very superior hard timber,
with 2 good soil for agricultural purposes. This is perhaps the
exception as to this sort of land in the Upper Peninsula. Al
of it has recently been taken up by parties interested in the
location there of iron furnaces.

Passing down on to the Lower Peninsula, we find the follow-
ing unsettled portions, viz:

ist. A small region on the lesser Peninsula, between Sagi-
naw Bay and the River St. Clair, comprising portions of
Huron, Tuscola, Sanilac, Lapeer and St. Clair counties.

2d. Nearly the whole of the Southern Peninsula north from
the centre line of Gratiot, Montcalm, Mecosta, Newaygo and
Muskegon counties; or north from a line midway between the
Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad and the Muskegon river, and
the Chippeway river, of Saginaw county.

This whole region, embracing thirty-four counties, possesses
an area of thirteen millions of acres, or over twenty thousand
square miles—equal in extent to the three States of Connecti-

a:
cut, Massachusetts and Vermont, which together, comprise but
twenty thousand square miles. If to this we add the nine
million of acres, or the 14,000 square miles of unsettled lands
in the Upper Peninsula, we have.a total unsettled territory of
twenty-two millions of acres, or thirty-four thousand square
miles.

The great extent of this region will appear by a,comparison
of it with the three principal counties composing the kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. It is two thousand six hundred.
and seventy-six square miles larger than Scotland; one thousand
four hundred and ninety-two square miles larger than Ireland,
and three-fifths the area of England. Thsee are the unsettled
regions, merely, of our State. ,

The unsettled portion of the Lower Peninsula, as above de-
lineated, is almost a wilderness; tne exceptions in the interior
being the very limited settlements induced by the lumber busi-
ness. Nevertheless, there is included in this area numerous
promising points along the coasts of Lakes Huron and Michi-
gan, such as Tawas City, Alpena and Harrisonville, on Lake
Huron; and on Lake Michigan, Stoney Creek, Pentwater,
Pere Marquette, and settlements at Big and Little Sauble
rivers, Manistee, Portage, Aux Bec Scies and Grand Traverse
Bay. It should be here remarked that a very rapid settlement
has been latterly growing up in the region of Traverse Bay, and
on the extreme northwestern portion of the Lower Peninsula,
where, notwithstanding its high latitude, the proximity of the
vast waters of Lake Michigan, and other influences not yet
fully comprehended, seem to render it a peculiarly desirable
region for agricultural purposes, and for the raising of fruit.

Several settlements in the interior should also be noted in
Isabella, Mecosta and Newaygo counties; such as. Big Rapids
on the Muskegon, which is already reached by a State road;
Isabella City, and one or two others. The southern portions of
Newaygo and Oceana counties, and the northern parts of Gra-
tiot and Muskegon counties, ouglit fairly to be reckoned within

the settled regions of the State, although the actual settlements
2

10

are as yet very sparse, all being drawn thither by the lumber
interest of those localities.

The unsettled portion of the lesser Peninsula above de-
scribed, as lying between Saginaw Bay and the River St. Clair,
and by school-boys sometimes denominated “the thumb” of the
State, is now being settled to a considerable extent by Cana-
dians, attracted thither principally by the value of the timber,
and the fact that the lands were for some time offered at the
lowest graduation prices fixed by the United States Govern-
ment. This law, however, was repealed in 1862, on the passage
of the Homestead Law.

This region may be classed with the pine timbered portion
of the State, and possesses great value as a field for lumbering,
the timber consisting principally of pine, hemlock and oak.
Yet it is not unsuited to agricultural purposes, as is indicated
by settlements already referred to. In this region and within
the limits of Huron county, and at Point Aux Barques, are
found quarries of valuable grit or grindstones, and also flag-
stones. Several stones weighing upwards of three tons each
have already been taken out by the proprietors; and the stones
are said to be well adapted not only to flagging, but also for
window caps, sills and water-tables. Its color is pronounced
preferable to that of the Ohio free-stone, and when wrought,
has much the appearance of the Waverly stone. It is said also
to contain Jess iron matter than the Ohio stone, and is conse-
quently less likely to stain under the action of the weather.

I may here remark that the enterprising people of Bay City
have now in contemplation the construction of a line of railroad
southeasterly from that place and about thirty-five miles in ex-
tent, through the counties of Tuscola and Lapeer, to a point on
the line of the Port Huron and Milwaukee road, now being reor-
ganized for construction, and thence through to the River St.
Clair, and by the Grand Trunk and its connections to the va-
rious markets of the East. This road, if built, will unlock the
timber treasures of Tuscola and Lapeer counties especially,

1

and would quickly open to settlement the large tracts of valua-
ble land along this proposed route.

Before proceeding to give the topographical character of the
northern portion of the Lower Peninsula, and not including the
region just described, it may not be inappropriate to remark,
that the reports of the early U. S. surveys of this region,.
which a few years since were discovered to be fraudulent, indi-
cated to a very large extent a district of inaccessible and unin-
habitable swamps and worthless land.

The discovery of these frauds led to a resurvey by the Gov-
ernment of this entire region. These resurveys were made by
well known citizens of the State, among whom were the late
William A. Burt, a man whose name is now forever identified
with his profession, the Hon. Lucius Lyon, now deceased, and
Mr. Orange Risden, now residing in Saline, in this State. To.
these gentlemen, we are originally indebted for the valuable
information, we now possess in reference to the character and
resources of this part of the State, and which for so long a
time, lay beclouded under these fraudulent surveys. How
much injury has been done to the State in the way of delaying
its settlement, in consequence of this betrayal of trust by the
original surveyors, we are only of late beginning to estimate.
Doubtless we have lost by means of it; the benefits of at least
fifteen or twenty years of the pioneers’ and settlers’ labors in
this direction.

This northern portion of the Southern Peninsula as we have
already bounded it, is composed of two divisions, which we
may appropriately designate as the Eastern and Western
Slopes of the Peninsula, and all parts of which are abundantly
and suitably watered by stream and lake.

The principal of these streams are the western branches of the:
Saginaw, the Rifle river, the Aux Gies, the Aux Sable and its
tributaries, Thunder Bay river, and the Sheboygan, all of Lake
Huron; Boardman’s river, of Grand Traverse Bay; the Aux
Bec Scies, the Manistee and its tributaries, and the Big and
Little Sauble, of Lake Michigan; the Pere Marquette, White

12

river, the Muskegon, and some of the waters flowing into
Grand river.

These streams are invaluable, nay, indispensable to the future
development of this entire region. Each one of those empty-
ing into Lake Michigan, and so of all the streams along tho
entire western coast of the Peninsula, has, at its mouth, as will
be seen by reference to the map, a natural lake or harbor,
admirably, and apparently providentially designed to facilitate
the holding of logs brought down these various streams, to the
places of manufacture and shipment. In view of the impossi-
bility of booming logs outside, amid the rough waters of Lake
Michigan, and the impracticability of retaining them in tho
streams themselves, until converted into lumber, it will be seen
how important and valuable a feature these lake outlets are to
the entire timbered region from which they take their sourco,
and through which they furnish the facilities of floatage.

The eastern slope of this portion of the Peninsula, which
embraces all the regions watered by the streams above named,
as flowing into Lake Huron, in respect to its agricultural
adaptations, and having regard only to its general features, is
for the most part inferior to most other portions of the State.
The chief value of the land located north of Saginaw bay, on
this slope, consists in its pine timber, which ranks generally
with the best timber of the State. An exception, however,
should here be made of certain territory, embracing nearly two
counties, which is a vast sandy pine barren, covered with a
scanty growth of scrub pine, and supposed to be unfit for culti-
vation, (Oscoda and Crawford.)

This eastern slope remains yet largely unexplored, except
with reference to pine timber, and lying as it does geologically,
discoveries may hereafter be made of importance and value.

Extensive and valuable beds of marble have been discovered
in the county of Presque Isle, and the lands are owned by par
ties who expect soon to bring the same into practical use.

Superior water lime, in beds sufficient for all practical pur-
poses, have also been found in this region; and a lively inquiry

18

ts now making in respect to the possibility of discovering
sources of petroleum springs or wells in the county of Alpena,
and vicinity, as well as further south in the rapidly developing
county of St. Clair.

During the last two years very extensive beds of plaster
have been discovered on Tawas bay, and about forty miles
from Saginaw. It covers a tract of 690 acres of land, and has
been pronounced by those who have examined it, inexhaustible.
A few rods back from the shore, where it is now worked, the
bed is found to be ten feet thick, increasing rapidly in thiek-
ness as you recede from the shore. Thirty rods back, from the
present opening, an excavation has been made to the depth of
eighteen feet without reaching the bottom. The entire bed is
five feet above the water level of Lake Huron, and is readily
and inexpensively drained. This plaster is almost entirely
free from foreign ingredients, of a much purer quality than
that of Ohio, and can be ground at half the expense of the lat-
ter. This mine of wealth is being industriously opened by its
owners, several buildings having been erected, a good dock
built, a saw-mill, planing and shingle machine put into opera-
tion, and other improvements begun. Capital applied to its
development, could not fail, even under the disadvantages of
the present scarcity and high price of labor, to reap very large
returns.

In this region and north-west of Tawas Bay, is a tract of
beautiful undulating and well watered lands, embracing several
townships in extent, which has by experiment, been already
found well adapted to agricultural pursuits.

Along the coast of Lake Huron are extensive and valuable
fishing grounds, very remunerative to those who engage in this
business, and highly attractive to capital. They must ere long
be made to yield large amounts of wealth to those who shall
prosecute them on a liberal scale and with systematic energy.

The counties of Gladwin, Clare, Isabella and Midland, upon
the western branches of the Saginaw river, and extending to

the Bay, including the southern part of Bay county, and con-

14

stituting a portion of this Eastern Slope, possess all the ad-
vantages of this new region, in respect to timber and agricul-
tural resources. Timber settlements are springing up within
their limits, attracted there by this particular interest. Did
time permit, much might be said in detail as to the resources
of these counties, especially of Midland and Isabella, the latter
of which isagriculturally, one of the very richest of our north-
ern counties. Except for the retarding influences of the Indian
Reservations, which are located in this vicinity, this county would
ere this have been far in advance of her present condition.
The settlements in the two counties last named, including also
the county of Gratiot, are intimately connected with the Sagi-
naw Valley, whose lumber establishments are mainly eau
on them for their annual supply of logs.

The western slope, embracing the territory north of the
mouth of the Muskegon river, and along its waters, including
all that region already referred to as watered by the Manistee
and other rivers emptying into Lake Michigan, is by far the
best portion of northern Michigan for agricultural purposes.

Its favorable position in respect to the ridge running north
and south, and dividing the waters of Lakes Huron and Michi-
gan, whose surrounding waters afford to it a peculiarly mild
and even tempered climate, together with its rich soil and
large tracts of hard timber, interspersed with pines, combine
to make it a peculiarly desirable region for all settlers devoting
themselves to the cultivation of the ground.

The Grand Traverse region, already so well and favorably
known, embraces a territory almost exclusively adapted to agri-
culture, and is now being quite rapidly settled. The surprising
returns of this region for the last two or three years, cannot fail
to have arrested the attention of every observing citizen; and
conclusively demonstrate, that it must soon take rank with the
very first agricultural portions of the State. The abundance of
its hard wood, (principally beech and maple,) its proximity to
Lake Michigan, and its noble bay, give more than ordinary
value to its lands; and in connection with the existing large de-

15

mand for wood, cannot fail very materially to aid in the settle-
ment of the country embraced within its limits.

This Grand Traverse region, so called, may be said to extend
from the mouth of the Au Bec Scies River eastward to the
head waters of the Manistee, and northward to Grand and Lit-
tle Traverse bays, including the slender Peninsula west of
Grand Traverse.

From Traverse City, in a southwesterly direction, a chain of
beautiful lakes is found, forming the head waters of the Au Bec
Scies River. West of these, are several quite large lakes lying
near the coast; the principal of which is Crystal Lake, covering
an area of 15 square miles, with deep, pure and cold water,
surrounded by high banks, and capable of readily floating the
immense quantities of timber now standing round about it, to
points of shipment near the coast of Lake Michigan, and from
which it is securely separated by a narrow strip of high sand
banks, about half a mile in width.

Upon the banks of this beautiful sheet of water, and about
seven miles from the Aux Bec Scies River, a settlement com-
posed of stirring citizens of Ohio has latterly been made. These
men, while opening the country on which they have planted
themselves, have taken care to provide substantial institutions
of learning for their children, and provisions for the founda-
tion of a college have already been made.

The communication of this settlement (which bears the
name of Benzonia,) with Lake Michigan, is by the waters of
the river just mentioned; yet, in the improvement of the
country, Crystal Lake may be made largely available, as its
western limits are only two miles from the harbor at the mouth
of the Au Bec Scies river, where a town under the name of
Frankfort has been organized, and where substantial improve-
ments have been commenced, with a view of securing not only
to that region, but to the marine of the entire coast, a superior
and permanent harbor of refuge.

The settlement at Traverse City, through ‘its enterprising
founders, Hannah, Lay & Co., is too well known to need any

16

description here. Its lumber and agricultural interests have
already converted it into one of the most important points in
the State, and its future growth bids fair to be rapid, and in
the character of its population, valuable to the State at large.
During the last two years, whole townships lymg between
Traverse City and Frankfort have been settled and organized.

Other thriving towns have sprung up in this region, among
which are Elk Rapids, Northport, now a port of entry, and
Glen Arbor, all which have received an impetus in their growth
‘from the wood trade with Chicago, and her passing steamers.
Four hundred steamboat arrivals are registered at Northport
for each of the last three or four years; and during the last
year there has been cut and shipped to the Chicago market, by
Elk Rapids and Traverse City upwards of twenty million feet
of lumber.

So far as settlers have entered this region, but one opinion
prevails in respect to the desirableness of it for farming pur-
poses. Fruit and horticulture are also most successfully car-
ried on, and there is every promise that this northern portion
of the State, will soon be found equally productive in these re-
spects with that further south. Some facts having a bearing
on this statement might here be given; such as this, that pota-
toes can be safely left in the hills, all winter, and be dug out for
use asrequired. This was the case, as I have been informed,
with 150 bushels at Elk Rapids last winter. The early and deep
fall of snow peculiar to the region, and the shelter of the for-
ests seem to prevent the frosts from penetrating the ground to
any depth, while the waters surrounding it contribute largely to
temper their severity. Last winter when the thermometer was
at 40° below zero in Milwaukee, it stood at only 14° below at
Frankfort; and when 29° below zero at Detroit, it was only 7°
below at Traverse City. There is in fact, no portion of the
comparatively unsettled regions of the State, which offer such
marked advantages'to the settler as that just described.

Leaving the limits of the Grand Traverse region as above
defined, we come into the pine regions along the Manistee-and

17

the Big and Little Au Sable rivers. This region is almost ex-
clusively occupied for lumbering purposes, possessing its settle-
ments and some organized towns and villages, adjacent to
which some considerable farming has been done. The settle-
ments at the mouths of the streams on Lake Michigan have
sprung from the lumbering interest; and all these streams are
furnished, at or near their mouths, with those valuable lake
booms already described; such as the Manistee, the Big and
Little Au Sablé, Pére Marquette, Pent Water, White river and
Muskegon. These lumber settlements, however, at the mouths
of rivers, have little or no influence in the way of opening up
or settling the regions back of them; and although they are
becoming quite extensive, and are carrying on a large trade
with Chicago, nevertheless, in looking at this region as a whole,
we must reckon it as still a part of the unsettled portion of the
State.

The interior portion of this western slope, lying south of the
limits of the Grand Traverse region, and extending to and be-
yond the Muskegon, and remote from the coast, possesses, 80
far as known, many advantages besides the lumber lining its
streams, in reference to which only it has as yet been explored.
A favorable fact in connection with it, as a whole, is that in
constructing a road through it from Grand Rapids to Grand
Traverse, only one mile of swamp was passed in the distance
of 150 miles.

In the valley of the Muskegon, settlements are springing up?
and several towns of some importance already exist there; and
no little attention is beginning to be paid to the. interests of
agriculture.

Taking our stand, then, at a common centre of this entire
part of the Peninsula, say at Houghton Lake, in Roscommon
county, we see stretching eastward in Iosco and Ogemaw coun-
ties, the fine farming and pine regions already described; to the
south, the counties of Gladwin, Clare, Midland and Isabella,
with the different peculiarities already awarded them; to the

3

18

northeast, the region of Thunder Bay, with its vast and heavy
masses of pine—the Au Sable of Lake Huron intervening with
its large power of floatage, and penetrating the pine tracts
north of Houghton Lake.

These tracts on the head waters of the Au Sable and the
Manistee (both of which streams here run fifteen miles south-
wardly and parallel with each other—the Manistee then de-
flecting southwesterly through a varied region of pine and hard
wood into Lake Michigan) extend northwardly, with the valley
of the Cheboygan, as far as the Straits of Mackinaw. To the
westerly and southwest, we have the region just referred to as
comparatively unexplored, but containing a large amount of
valuable timber, and extending down to the pine regions of the
coast; and to the northwesterly the Grand Traverse region al-
ready delineated at some length.

Having thus taken a cursory bird’s-eye view of the interior of
this northern region, it may not be uninstructive to extend the
range of our vision along its coast line. Commencing at the
mouth of the Muskegon river, which supports a village of that
name, and passing northerly along the coast, we have a region
of low land, with various sorts of timber upon it. Next, we
lave White river, which boasts several settlements along the
borders of White Lake, which forms its mouth. Then still
northwardly, we pass through the fine farming region of Oceana
county, which here thrusts itself quite down to the Lake, and
after passing through a similar region traversed by Stony
Creck and the Pent Water, (excepting the sand bluffs at Little
Point Au Sable,) we reach the mouth of the Pere Marquette
river. Thence along the coast northerly we have a stretch of
bleak sand bluffs embracing the region of Big Point Au Sable.
Passing then the mouths of the Big and Little Sable rivers, at
which points are two new and thriving villages, known as Lin-
coln and Hamlin, the former at the mouth of the Little Au Sa-
ble, and the latter at the mouth of the Big Sable, we reach
the mouth of the Manistee; which, with its town, is already a
point of importance. This river, which takes its rise far in the

19

interior, in the county of Otsego, may be considered as the
southern and southeastern boundary of the Grand Traverse re-
gion. Leaving the Manistee, we find the hard wood of this
beautiful region, extending directly down to the coast, and
skirting it northward as far as the region of Little Traverse
Bay, indicating the superior soil we have already accredited to
this part of the State. Passing round through tte Straits, we
find the coast of Lake Huron presenting no features worthy of
especial notice, until we reach Thunder Bay, which ‘is a beauti-
ful and broad sweep of water, with fine advantages as a lumber
site, and holding an immense body of pine in its rear. Thence
southerly to Saginaw Bay, the coast is generally low and unin-
viling, presenting no attractions excepting the different lumber
set'lements and fishing points, which need not be here enumer-
ated.

Having thus, by our somewhat imperfect description, laid be-
fore the eye, these vast unsettled regions, we proceed to refer
to some of the causes which have operated to debar settlement
from them, and then to suggest some modes of action in con-
nection with their future.

The Indian Reservations, particularly in Isabella county, at
Little Traverse and Pere Marquette, and also in Mason and
Oceana counties, have for a number of years, embarrassed and
excluded settlement. Some of the very best lands in this vi-
cinity were thus tied up for a number of years, much to the an-
noyance of bona fide settlers who seeking their possession, were
compelled to turn aside, and locate elsewhere. But, as is now
understood, these reservations for the most part, run out in
July next, and so the restrictions referred to, bid fair at last to
be removed. :

Another agency, and perhaps the most injurious in its con-
sequences to the region we have been considering, has been the
extensive retirement or reservation of lands, growing out of
our railroad grants. Had the roads only been constructed in
good faith, and within the time prescribed by the acts regula-
ting the same, and devoting the lands to this purpose, no serious

20

mischief would probably have ensued; for the roads would them-
selves have opened the wilderness to the settlers, and drawn
them in by multitudes. But as this was not done, and the
time for building was extended, and the lands were still kept
out of the reach of the settler, and in the hands of speculating
corporations, who preferred private values in stock and bonds,
to public values, in the form of growing communities and set-
tled towns, along the lines of their prescribed routes, the ob-
serving and incoming settler has been turned adrift, and the
doors of this region indefinitely barred against his entrance.

Indeed, all that has been done hitherto in the construction of
railroad routes in the State, has been inspired by the desire to
secure a route through and over its borders; not penetrating
and bearing the tide of settlement into its interior regions, but
carrying it forward and at lightning speed into the States of
Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Northern Missouri. This policy,
so far as these railroad companies are concerned, was undoubt--
edly for their best interests, and is so far commendable. But,
(excepting the benefit conferred on those portions of the State
through which they run, and that is by no means small,) this
policy is none the less detrimental to the State, in respect to lo-
calizing improvements and settlements. Many if not all of our
Western States, like Wisconsin and Illinois, in the judicious
construction of their railroads, as well as by special efforts di-
rected towards the securing of settlers from abroad, have rap-
idly filled and built up their unsettled territory; while Michi-
gan, through which the currents so attracted have poured, has
been passed by, receiving little if any of the living tide.

In proof of the statement that the exclusively “through” char-
acter of our roads has largely aided these new States at our ex-
pense, we need only refer to the fact, that in some of the newly
settled portions of our State, such as the county of Montcalm,
settlers from Wisconsin who had first been whirled in thither,
and actually settled, have subsequently retraced their steps,
though at much additional expense, and chosen their homes in.
the very wilderness of our own State. What they wanted was.

21

a region furnished with timber. Michigan was the spot they
were really seeking after, but they were borne through it with-
out a chance to halt and examine its attractions.

The roads, however, to which we refer, being designed to open
the country, were strengthened for their object by these special
grants of lands, and not left to the.chances of private capital.
Capital in respect to enterprises of this sort, is timid, and will
not generally consent to build a road, unless it sees that a lu-
crative traffic is ready to beat the rail as soon as laid. There-

efore, there is no excuse for those who, aided and commissioned
by these extraordinary resources, ¢o open up the yet unbroken
regions of the State, and let in active life and busy settlement,
still suffer themselves to stand in default before the people,
demonstrating thatit is their own, and not the public welfare, for
which they are most concerned. The State, where they are
satisfied that due and fair progress has not been made by those
corporations who have assumed to make these lands available
for the purposes of giving us new roads, should refuse further
extension of time, and allow them to die of their own limita-
tion, which will be in the month of June, 1866.

They should then take these lands back into their own hands,
by applying to Congress for such modification of the original
act of Congress, as will save them to the State for railroad
purposes, and this, Congress would no doubt readily consent
to do. The mode of carrying out this measure might in brief,
be stated thus:

Let the proposed act of Congress, modifying the orginal act,
provide that these lands should all be devoted to their original
purpose; but that the general Government should be author-
ized to sell the lands at the present minimum price, or at a
higher minimum rate, say $2 50 per acre, as might be thought
best; that the proceeds of these lands should constitute an in-
terest-bearing fund, in the hands of the General Government,
as trustee for the State of Michigan; that the State of Michi-
gan should be authorized to control that fund whenever she

é

22

wished to aid bona fide capital in its legitimate efforts to build
substantially these same lines of road.

The expression, “ substantially the same lines of road,” is used,
because these lines can be shortened very materially, and still
answer every purpose. The longest lines were resorted to, as is
very well known, in order to secure the greatest amount of
lands.

Now the practical view to take of this matter is, to make
these lands available as far as possible, for the best and perma-
nent interests of the State. Defaulting corporations must give”
way to the paramount claims of the people, whose vital inter-
ests demand that her unoccupied lands be opened to settle-
ment at the earliest day practicable. By the plan suggested,
the lands are saved to the State for railroad purposes; the Gen-
eral Government has the use of the money derived from sales un-
til the same shall be required for actual use; the State is less likely
to squander the fund; bona jide capital will soon appear, and
joining its means to the fund thus formed, the roads will be built;
while, if operators without capital, are left to scheme for the
construction of the roads on the lands alone, another decade of
years will scarcely see another ten miles of road. Letus there-
fore, have done with further trifling on this important subject.

One of these routes the interests of the State require should
be immediately constructed, and that is one connecting Saginaw
with the Bay de Nocquet and Marquette Railroad by way
of the Grand Traverse, which at Traverse City is 115 miles
only, and at Frankfort about 120 miles, in a direct line from
Saginaw. This would probably prove our shortest line to Lake
Superior, and it could be substantially covered by modifications
of the routes of the Amboy, Lansing and Traverse Bay Rail-
road Comparty, or of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad
Company. Many pressing reasons may be adduced in sup-
port of the early building of such a road, some of which I beg
leave here to submit.

As is well known to the people of Michigan, a railroad hag
already been constructed from Bay de Nocquet, on the north

23

end of Green Bay, to Marquette and the iron region of that
county.

The importance of a direct connection with Lake Superior is
such, that the people of Chicago are now taking active steps
for the buildmg of a railroad from Green Bay to Bay de
Nocquet, so as to secure to them a summer and winter connec-
tion with Marquette, on Lake Superior.

By reason of our peninsular position, we cannot get a winter
connection with Lake Superior; but this after all, in a com-
mercial point of view, is not essential, because the iron ore,
which is the one product to be transported, and which is
brought out at Bay de Nocquet, cannot be carried to advantage
by rail beyond the water line. Here it must halt for manu-
facture into iron, either at Bay de Nocquet, or pass over the
Lake to our peninsular coast, at some point where abundance
of timber, and easy facilities for shipping can be obtained; such
points, for instance, as Traverse City, or Frankfort, where
wood abundant for this purpose, and superior harbor accom-
modations, are to be had.

The absence of wood at Chicago, or at any intervening point
on the proposed railroad line from Green Bay to Bay de
Nocquet, precludes the idea of advantageously transporting
this ore elsewhere than to the points named above.

Moreover, the construction of a railroad northwesterly,
through the central part of this portion of the State, will neces-
sarily secure to us all the advantages which appropriately and
legitimately belong to the manufacture of the iron, the sale and
conversion of the wood, and the prosperous opening and settle-
ment of a large territory, which would thus naturally and
speedily take place. The distance of road to be thus con-
structed, is but a trifle more than that proposed by Chicago
capitalists, which secures to them only a connection with Lake
Superior, without the manufacturing and other advantages
just referred to, as being thus secured to us. For it will hardly
be claimed that the proposed Chicago line can successfully
carry either ore or freight in the winter; and in the summer

24

the competition of water communication would dismiss all ex-
pectations of anything like an extended business over this rail-
road line.

The enterprise of opening a communication to Saginaw, has
already had the attention of the Legislature, in connection with
a State road between Saginaw and the Grand Traverse region;
but the recent completion of the Bay de Nocquet and Mar-
quette Railroad renders this proposed new communication be-
tween these two points ain imperative necessity.

Looking at the future importance of the State’s iron inter-
ests, and the development of its northern unsettled regions,
there seems to be no measure or enterprise, which makes such
large claims on the gencrous and fostering care of the Legisla-
ture as this. For the fact appears, that notwithstanding the
generosity of Congress and the State, and the continuous ef-
forts of those among us who appreciate the great importance of
opening up this portion of the State, still almost nothing has
as yet been practically accomplished, unless it be the diversion
of a very large portion of the public lands from the hands of
actual settlers, into the control of those-who, whatever may have
been their private schemes, have utterly failed to accomplish
the important ends proposed by these State and national bene-
factions. It might be well for us, therefore, to consolidate, or
otherwise so dispose of the land grants already conceded to the
Grand Rapids & Indiana, the Amboy, Lansing & Traverse Bay,
and the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad Companies, (at least
so far as the northern portion of these several routes are con-
cerned,) as would speedily accomplish this highly important
end.

The truth is, Michigan has been too long indifferent to the
railroad projects most closely allied with her own interests.
Without doubt, by even a small proportion on our part, of that
measure of effort which we have seen made by other States in
their behalf, we might also have secured a large proportion of
their immigration, and so converted our present wildernesses
into smiling settlements. Some irregular and spasmodic efforts

25

have been occasionally made, it is true, and no little proclama-
tion of our resources now and then set forth in the public
prints; but it has generally been of such a character, as to be
destitute of much real or permanent value. Indeed, although
it may seem ungracious so to declare, yet it is nevertheless true,
that a large proportion of our citizens are to-day wholly or very
largely ignorant of the value of our unsettled regions—-quite as
much so as they are of the resources of any of the States lying
West of us.

Hence the apathy that prevails on this subject, and the actual
inability of citizens to attract the settler, even if they would,
into our still unoccupied and valuable lands. The mere owners
of large tracts of pine timber, are not interested particularly in
the promotion of settlements, for the reason that their timber
goes to distant markets, and is carried to the coast without the
aid of roads, or the ordinary modes of civilized communication. |

But the true interests of the State will not longer allow this
condition of things to continue. Active and sufficient measures
for the ends contempled must be immediately initiated. The
State, if she would have her lands sold and occupied, must act
on the same practical principles, as the individual land-holder
desiring to sell, and who by free but judicious expenditures,
advertises his possessions, arrests the eye of the settler, draws
him to his particular locality, and so with comparatively little
outlay, rapidly populates and improves his most secluded tracts.

Although the State now holds under the swamp land grants,
no inconsiderable amount of desirable lands, [not less alto-
gether than
unsold valuable lands, within the limits of the State, yet remain

— acres,| still the largest portion of the

in the hands of the General Government. The principal part
of the irreclaimable swamp lands belonging to the State, are lo-
cated in the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula, where by
reason of the severity of the climate, and their peculiar loca-
tion, settlements can scarcely ever be expected. But we haz-
ard the remark, that under the influences of future settlements,
the larger part of the remainder of this class of lands may be

26

made available and desirable to purchasers, meanwhile they
need careful supervision and control.

The process of disposing of the United States government
lands above referred to, is through the five local Land offices,
at Detroit, Saginaw, Ionia, Traverse City and Marquette, and
of the State lands through the State Land Office, at Lansing.

These offices are designed only to give title to applicants for
lands as they present themselves; no system or plan of spread-
ing information in respect to them, or of soliciting purchasers
or inviting settlements, having ever been engrafted upon their
land agencies by the general government. Those of us familiar
with the existing arrangement, can hardly realize that stran-
gers, and especially foreigners, do not equally with ourselves
understand its workings; while the fact is, that non-residents.
desiring to purchase lands, often wander into the State and
out of it, without having succeeded in obtaining even the pre~
liminary information necessary to the accomplishment of their
purpose. Inquiring settlers of this kind are now daily passing
through Detroit, in search of good lands for farming purposes,
with no one to point them to the region or county in which
they may be found.

In the absence of any encouraging information furnished
them at the threshold of the State, and with no prospect of
obtaining it elsewhere, there is little inducement for them
blindly to explore the country in search of lands, which even
when discovered, are frequently found already in the hands of
others. This condition of things seems to demand the serious
consideration and prompt action of those entrusted with the
State’s welfare. Every one of these thrifty settlers, and every
colony of settlers who can be secured to the State are, in times
such as these, well worth every effort and every reasonable
expenditure of means in that direction. The attractions of the
Central South are beginning, as never before, to turn the course
of settlement from the West—a fact to which we would do well
to take heed. Yet when we take into consideration the rare
advantages offered in our noble system of public schools, and

27

the superior intelligence and culture of the people of our own
State, especially, this ought not soto be. Indeed, stronger in-
ducements are thus offered by Michigan to settlers of kindred
tastes and culture, from the Kastern States, than are perhaps
found in any other State or region. We should strive not only
for immigration, but while so doing, our efforts should be di-
rected, as far as possible, after the very best class of settlers to
be had. A home immigration, so to speak, from New England
and Western New York, is better for the State than a crude
and unlettered foreign population, however much of an acqui-
sition even they would be, in these days, when the necessary
drafts of war are making such large inroads upon manly labor.

- What then, is the one great thing to do, in order to secure
these two important ends, of placing before the public the value
of the unsetted portions of the State, and securing their early
settlement and development ?

Our reply to this inquiry is, the immediate establishment by the
State of a Land and Immigration Bureau. The same thing has
just been recommended by Gov. Yates. This, for reasons so
apparent as to need no enumeration here, should be located at
the point where new comers and emigrants from other lands
first enter the State and begin their inquiries.

Among the first and most important duties assigned to this
Bureau should be:

Ist. The collection and systematic arrangement of all exist-
ing information in respect to unsold State and Government
lands.

On the removal of the United States Surveyor General’s
Office to St. Paul, in the year 1860, all the field notes, books,
plats and papers, pertaining to the land surveys in this State,
were by law deposited with the State authorities at Lansing,
where they still remain. These original maps, connected as
they are with the field notes, (and of which they are transcripts, )
form the basis of all the surveys of the State, from the remote
days of our settlement as a territory, and are of inestimable
value in all questions of disputed boundary hereafter to arise.

28.

Aside from their value in these respects, they embrace and ex-
press all the reliable information we have as to the topography,
character of soil and varieties of timber, throughout the entire
State. They should, therefore, be preserved as among our very
choicest possessions.

This large fund of useful information now practically un-
available to us for want of proper collection and location,
might be made, in connection with the Bureau here proposed,
of the very highest value in its practical workings.

2d. There should also be at once adopted and pursued
throughout the State, a rigid system in respect to the subdivi-
sion of sections, and the retracing and reéstablishment of orig-
inal lines of survey; and these duties would naturally appertain
and belong to this Bureau. The appointee to it should there-
fore be familiar with the government system of surveys, and
with all the laws, rules and regulations affecting the same, so as
to be able under all circumstances, to give direction and instruc-
tion to county surveyors.

The absence of all authority and instructions of this charac-
ter, now controlling the action of this class of surveyors, has al-
ready been the means of much confusion, and is daily sowing
the seeds of serious litigation in regard to boundaries. It is
proper, however, in this connection to remark, that this state
of things is not so much attributable to the surveyors them-
selves, as to the want of some recognized and authoritative
system, founded upon the code of laws and rules adopted by
the government, and which (being for the most part inaccessi-
ble) are possibly quite unknown to many of those entrusted
with the responsible duties of this important oftice.

3d. This Bureau should also be clothed with all needful pow-
ers to employ and direct suitable persons, as well to examine
and report upon lands, as to accompany settlers in their search
after and choice of them. The expense of all persons so em-
ployed, would for the most part be cheerfully borne by the par-
ties applying for lands, and the State saved from any large
cost in these respects. Under the exercise of these powers, the

29

State would soon be possessed, in a compact form, of a minute
statement or report as to the great body of her lands; and be-
ing thus informed, could fix far more intelligently than at pre-
sent, just and remunerative prices upon them. Thousands of
dollars would in all probability thus be annually saved to the
State; and possibly hundreds of thousands might so have been
saved, had such a system been adopted twenty years ago.

This is particularly obligatory wpon us in respect to the
State’s Mineral Lands, which have accrued to us through the
operations of the swamp land grants. A single location of
value might bring into the State Treasury many thousands
of dollars, while a disposition of the same property without.
exploration, might as readily result in a return of less than a
hundred dollars. This examination of mineral lands might be
associated with a further geological survey of the unexplored
region of the State, and all its advantages secured in this way
at a comparatively small cost. But irrespective of cost, this
work should be done, and these returns secured to the State at.
the very earliest day practicable. There can be no loss on such
an investment, but on the contrary, decided and affirmative
gains.

4th. Under the auspices of this department, agents might from
time to time, be employed to visit Eastern States and cities, and
even foreign lands, with a view to disseminate information; so
that the steps of settlers may be turned hitherward in the full
confidence of their obtaining here the object of their pursuit.
Other special and auxiliary means to this end might be adopted
from time to time, under the sanction of the Legislature as cir-
cumstances called for their employment; and so the stream of
immigration, once commenced, would continue to flow in upon
us with a steady but ever increasing current.

5th. As the productions of a State are best shown by samples.
of the same, there should also be committed to this depart-
ment the selection, preservation and presentation to the public
of the various minerals and other products found within our
limits, all of which should be accompanied with appropriate:

30

statistics and suggestions to capitalists at home and abroad. -
In short all information respecting existing resources, and all
recent discoveries, with every fact calculated to arrest attention,
and attract the settler, could be appropriately committed to
this department for compilation, and general diffusion through-
out the country.

Eastern States have long since found it to their interest, to
institute and maintain offices of this character; and the West-
ern States would do well to imitate their example in this im-
portant matter. At present, the want of such a State reposi-
tory, with its different specimens, and its classified information
and statistics, is almost daily experienced by every business
man in the State.

Still other features might be engrafted on this department,
which would suggest themselves as it took shape, and pro-
gressed in the direction prescribed for its operations; and
which need not encumber its action, or enlarge to any great
degree its expenses.

The simplicity of this plan of organizing and placing directly
under the eye of the State, all its varied possessions, overrules
at once the idea that it can only be achieved by some great ex-
penditure of $50,000 or $100,000. The expense of obtaining
and collating the main items of information necessary to the
department, would not be large, for the reason that the greater
portion of such information can now be had from the publie
offices, and from individuals who would be glad to furnish it,
when once the Bureau was established.

Nor would the general current expense of the entire depart-
ment be heavy, if a proper system of compensation should be
adopted, based upon commissions for lands sold and on fees
for information furnished or for services rendered by the de-
partment, to persons seeking the same for their own private
purposes.

Indeed, if committed to the right hands, it might be easily
made to do much more than pay its own expenses, and become
ultimately a source of moderate revenue. But over and above

31

all this, it will much more than pay all outlay upon it, in the
superior benefits resulting to the State from the acquisition of
settlers, and the sale of the public lands at prices correspond-
ing to their real value. In this last particular alone, the ex-
pense of the Department for years might be saved by the dis-
covery and assessment of value upon the State’s lands during
the first year of its operations.

For example, the chief value of the State. swamp-lands (ex-
cepting those in the mineral range) consists in the pine timber
upon them. No discrimination in price has yet been made be-
tween those covered with timber and such as are not thus fur-
nished. Parties therefore who purchase at the minimum price,
now enter upon these lands possessing the timber, strip them
of their value by removing the same, appropriate the proceeds,
and then abandon the lands, leaving them, for all purposes of
subsequent settlement, without any attractions whatever. But
the explorations under the directions of this Department, from
time to time, would (as already intimated) discover all this
class of lands, and so enable the State to increase their price
upon them, or to reserve them—as in our opinion they should
be reserved—until they were reached by settlements. They
would thus be made doubly subservient to the State; first by
attracting settlers into their vicinity, and secondly, by supply-
ing them with the character of timber required for building,
and at prices remunerative to the State. Thus in a short time
there would flow into the treasury large sums of money which
now, under the semblance of a contract with the State, are
annually stolen from its resources.

Before dismissing this subject of a land and immigration
Bureau, which in my opinion, holds, asin a nut-shell, the kernel
of any State policy in respect to our undeveloped resources,
which we iay hereafter see fit to adopt, it is proper to add that
great care should be exercised in making the appointment to
this department. 'The selection and placing over it of the wrong
man, might not only cause the experiment to fail at the very outset,
but would be very likely, (as affairs of this sort generally work, )

32

to prevent the State from following up the plan here sketched,
and without which, as it appears to me, nothing of real worth
can, in this field at least, be profitably accomplished.

The essential requisites in this appointee, should be capacity
and integrity. This capacity should involve a thorough knowl-
edge of our land-history, both Federal and State; a large
practical experience in the matter of examining, valueing and
selling lands; superior executive abilities, and a wide acquain-
tance with men both in and out of the State. The position
should be lifted above party level, and filled as we would fill an
agency to look after like interests for ourselves. Mere place-
hunters, on the modern system of giving to the victors the
party spoils, should, in this matter at least, be summarily set
aside and refused a hearing. The stake is too great to be
thrown into the cauldron of. party nourishment; such a course
would be almost certain to result in merely giving one more
man a chance to stand at the public crib; that, and nothing
more! The integrity required, should be of that character
which is exacted of those whom we place in the most confiden-
tial relations with our business. In such a place as this, a false
servant might do the State much mischief, while a true man,
in the matter of opening up the State to settlement, and bringing
to light her hidden resources, could do as much real public ser-
vice, as the Executive and Legislative departments of the State
combined. |

Such aman the Executive could find, and being found, he
should receive and be allowed to hold his appointment during
good behavior, so that he might grow with the department over
which he presided, and in and by such growth, aid and promote
~ yet more and more, the growth of the State.

Another topic which cannot here be appropriately passed
over, but which is more than sufficient of itself for a lecture, is
the subject of manufactures.

The great variety of raw material abounding in our State,
has already been referred to, and the list might be yet further

33

enlarged had we time todo so. As itis, we can only express a
thought or two on the general suject.

Never before were such favorable opportunities offered a
people to originate manufactures on a grand scale, as those
which are now unfolding to us. The necessities of the nation’s
treasury, have set at rest for generations yet to come, all
questions as to the expediency of a prohibitory tariff. We have
it, in full measure, on_ almost every article which we desire to
work up into marketable material, so that protection may be
‘said to be now permanently guaranteed to all American man-
ufactures.

In addition to the abundance and variety of our material, it
should not be forgotten, that our central western position as a
State and our peninsular form, afford us facilities of transpor-
tation east, west and south, and cheaper access to more markets
for our commodities, both raw and manufactured, than those
enjoyed by any one of our sister States. The iron and copper
ores of Lake Superior for instance, may be brought down to
the well-timbered coasts of the Lower Peninsula, and being there
manufactured, can be economically dispatched westerly and
and southerly, by Wisconsin and Llinois, or easterly to the sea-
board, and direct to Europe. Instead hereafter of being the
dependents of Great Britain for her manufactured articles, she
will even begin to solicit us for some of ours. Glasgow is al-
ready asking us for Lake Superior iron; and unless we unhap-
pily drift into a warlike exchange-of a heavier commodity with
this ungratious kingdom, it will not be many years before the
sceptre of commercial empire, through the medium mainly of
our vast and valuable manufactures, shall have passed from the
boastful hand, of Britain, into that of the towering and invin-
cible Republic of the West. Our iron mountains are only be-
ing now unveiled, our copper mines only beginning to take
remunerative shape; our coal, a source of wealth, gypsum, salt,
oil, (now pouring its millions into the lap of Pennsylvania, ) are
yet to be devoloped, while our woolen, cotton and ware manu-

factures have scarcely begun to appear.
5

34.

A French gentleman and naturalist, named Trouveleau, now
of Massachusetts, has recently discovered in our Cecropia and
Polyphemia flies, two varieties of the silk worm, whose cocoon
is four inches in length, and the fibre of whose silk is much
stronger and the yield greater than those of European coun-
tries. The worms feed in the open air on oak leaves, and
require very little care. From his experiments with them, quite
recently made, it may be safely asserted, that silk culture on a
most successful scale, is shortly to be added to the list of our
native manufactures. Thus the path is opening for the nation
to march forward into a total independence of foreign Govern-
ments; strengthening upon herself the imperative obligations,
of what the people have long since accepted under the name of
“the Monroe doctrine,” and saying to foreign nations, as they
anchor their navies a league from our coasts, “ thus far mayest
thou come, but no farther!”

But it is alleged by those interested, that capital is deterred
from investing in the development of these attractive materials,
in consequence of burdensome taxation under existing provis-
ions of law—that promising enterprises have thus been fettered
in their feeblest years, while some have been strangled in their
very birth. It is also asserted that while illinois discriminates
in avor of capital, Michigan discriminates against it, by taxing
it eight times as much as is done in the former State; and that
capitalists must continue to locate their factories elsewhere
than in Michigan so long as these legal prohibitions remain
upon her statute book.

There is no doubt that it is for the interest of every govern-
ment to encourage and cultivate manufactures. England and
France cherish these interests as the very apple of the eye; dis-
criminating by protection and appropriation, whenever and
however it becomes right and proper so to do. Thus these
two nations have largely multiplied their wealth, and fastened
tight their commercial grasp upon the remaining nations of the
earth.

With little or no surplus wealth to be thus invested it be-

35

comes the duty of Michigan to do what she can to bring in the
wealth and labor of others, in her efforts at self-development.
Instead of erecting barriers against their approach, all obsta-
eles should be removed and the way cleared for their entrance
into the-fields of our native but dormant wealth, and if needs
be a premium of privileges offered to win their presence and
citizenship.

How far the operation of existing laws can be properly sus-
pended in respect to manufacturing associations not yet pay-
ing dividends, and such as are hereafter to be organized, and
how far, by special legislation, capital may be invited here to
imvest, are matters of appropriate, nay, even urgent considera-
tion by our Legislature. Illinois, by her discriminating legisla-
tion, in respect to manufactures, (such, among other privile-
ges, as exempting from taxation all machinery thus employed,)
has done much to build up this important element of commer-
cial wealth within her borders. Michigan, instead of extending
like favors to the incoming capitalist, demands one per cent.
on the capital of mining, and one-half of one per cent. on the
capital of manufacturing corporations. Within my own kniowl-
edge, the following discrepancy accidentally revealed itself in
respect to the State taxation for the last year, upon a manu-
facturing establishment in the city of Detroit; its capital being
$100,000, the State tax under the law, was $500. But it so
happened that the establishment having been but recently con-
verted iuto a corporation from a business firm, the assessment
had been made by the officers entrusted with this duty, upon
the entire property, under the supposition that it still continued
a firm, and the assessment éhus made was only $82! a penalty
of $418 paid for the privilege of being a manufacturiug corpo-
ration. This same company annually pays, besides the $500
to the State, the sum of $1,000 for city and county taxes, and
$10,000 to the General Government, making an annual tax of
$11,500 on a capital of $100,000. It has been heretofore as-
serted as sound doctrine, that any man or establishment which
paid ten per cent. interest for their capital, must soon run into

°

Le
o

ruin. Manufacturing establishments whose dividends do not
fairly expose them to such heavy burdens, ought to be re-
lieved as far as practicable from this large specific tax.

We are not apt to credit manufactures and machinery, aside
from the home market they yield, with the large benefits they
confer upon the producer, and especially wpon the agricul-
turist. They are to a large extent identified with each other.
For example, one locomotive, in twenty-four hours, will perform
as much in the way of transportation as 400 pairs of horses,
with all the attendant retinue of wagons, teamsters, stables
and taverns planted over the route of their travel. The differ-
ence thus saved goes to swell the profit of the agriculturist
upon his produce thus borne forward to market. No State in
the Union has such great natural resources and facilities for
manufactures as Michigan, and none has such excluding and
repelling laws to the manufacturing capitalist as those found
upon our statute book.

Still, in order intelligently to iegislate on this important sub-
ject, facts should be gathered and digested. .

it might be well, therefore, if some authoritative steps were
taken in the way of a Commission of Inquiry to ascertain and
collate material facts upon this whole subject, with a view par-
ticularly to elicit information on the following points:

What are the existing provisions of law on this subject, and
what their practical effect on manufacturing establishments ?

How do these laws compare with those on the same subject
in other States, Kast and West, and especially in manufacturing
States ?

What changes in our laws, if any, are expedient?

And what further and special legislation may, in the exercise
of a sound judgment, be deemed appropriate in order to attract
capital and induce its investment in the development and man-
ufacture of our unconverted mineral and other wealth?

This report, when made, should also present all the testi-
mony and facts procured by the commission, so that the same

oF

might take permanent shape, as a valuable document for future
reference. -

In conclusion, we have only to remark that in order success-
fully to develop this great State, her citizens must all be an-
imated with an open and generous fraternal sentiment towards
each other. In all measures affecting the public welfare, they
must unflinchingly follow the dictates of a sound and patriotic
judgment, and not the mere whim, and ehpemeral caprice of the
selfish partizan. For if the people of each particular precinct,
resolve that their influence and efforts, both in the Legislature
and out of it, shall only be given and rendered for the benefit
of their especial locality, we shall soon have nothing but jar-
ring jealousies, wrangling contentions, warring restrictions, and
general confusion and ill feeling on all sides.

With the bloody and legitimate fruits of this selfish spirit
immediately before us and now displayed to the world on a grand
scale, in what is speciously styled a State rights rebellion, we
should be very careful to guard ourselves against even the ap-
parent approval of any such narrow and destructive policy.
But, while we continue our efforts for its complete and final
overthrow, and for the vindication of that broad but long
trampled constitutional right of intercitizenship throughout
the Union, we should stand here at home, shoulder to shoulder
for the common welfare of the State, and the perpetuity of the
National Government.

“Tn union there is strength,’ and without its spirit as well
as its letter among the people, this beloved Government which
has already cost us so much, and which, in itself, is worthy of
every sacrifice, must utterly fail and perish.

Let every citizen, then, rise to the level of our new condition,
and promptly assume his share of duty in the upbuilding and
enrichment of the State. |

dy

THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY:
ITS MEANS AND ENDS.

O.aqnee Wes sha Od Din Ole Sea sie

Delivered January 18, 1865, before the Executive Committee of the
State Agicultural Society, in Representative Hall,
at Lansing, Mich., by

A. S$. WELCH,

Principal State Normal School.

o~<—* =

The means which any society employs should always be ade-
quate to the end it proposes to attain. If the end proposed be
wide and comprehensive—if it includes subordinate ends which
are many and various—then the means must be equal in com-
prehensiveness, variety and number; for it is a law as wide as
the universe, that success in any enterprise depends upon the
wise adaptation of the one to the other.

Now, the object which called the Michigan Agricultural So-
ciety into existence, is as broad in its scope as it is philanthropic
in its spirit. It proposes to encourage not only the skillful til-
lage of the soil, but also the more perfect development of all
the values that spring from the soil, whether directly in vege-
table, or indirectly in animal forms. To every honest worker,
in any of the numerous branches of agriculture, it seeks to ex-
tend the helping hand, stimulating him by every motive it ean
offer, to reach the largest possible excellence of product, with
the least possible investment of labor andcash. Of every plant
and animal and implement, it inquires rigidly its precise pur-
pose, and aims so to increase its effectiveness that it may answer
that purpose with the smallest waste of muscle or material. Tt

40

would give to the roadster just that compactness of bone and
muscle which will secure a speed that is most rapid and sus-
tained; to the draft-horse, just the complement of form and
weight most conducive to streneth and rugged endurance; to
the sheep, just the breeding and treatment which will eventuate
in an annual offering of the heaviest fleece, with the flnest fibre;
to the dairy cow a process of assimulation so perfect and pecu-
liar, that whatever the mouth devours the udder restores in the
largest measure of the richest milk; and to the ox such a nice
adjustment of form to fate, that he may bring to the block the
least proportion of gristle and bone, to the largest proportion
of round and surloin.

But it is also within the province of this Society not oply to
aid in adapting the animal forms to their ultimate uses, but
likewise to help in determining what food will best subserve in
quality and kind each of these various uses; what special
forces are contained in the varieties of vegetable aliment, and
which of these is adapted more than all others to produce
some special quality of animal tissue, are problems which at
best have been but partially solved. Their full solution and
distinct announcement would save in our State untold sums,
which now annuallyrunto waste. The greatlaws of economy in
feeding are left mainly to the unaided observations of the farmer
himself. The consequence is, that while the fitness of certain
ingredients to single results remain the same, the practice
in feeding is various and capricious. Of the large number of
different crops annually raised in this State for animal con-
sumption, some are best fitted to be worked into the fibre that
gives capacity for fleetness, some into the weight that pro-
duces strength, some concentrate most largely the elements
that are promotive of growth, others the elements that are pro-
ductive of the constituents of fat. Muscle and bone, butter
and cheese, and pork and beef all lie in scattered atoms in the
soil. They are gathered first by the subtle processes of growth
into vegetable forms, and then changed by assimulation into
animal products, and the prime question is, how to conduct

41

the whole series of combinations so that the dead mould shall
be transformed into the marketable commodity with the
smallest waste of material. This problem must be worked out
in all its details by chemical analysis carefully conducted, and
by experiment. And while the former can be best carried on
in the laboratories of our agricultural schools, the latter falls
fairly within the field of work which this Society has proposed
to itself to aid in accomplishing.

But further, if, as I have said, this Association properly ex-
tends its fostering care over all the values that spring from the
soil, then every plant which is useful to man for food or fabric,
is the object of a special solicitude. The whole catalogue of
esculent roots, the host of cereals adapted to this latitude, and
the countless variety of excellent fruits, whether new or old,
come within the circle of its sympathies, and it puts forth its
best endeavors to bring each of these to the fullest perfection of
form and size. But the objects of this Society are not limited
to the production simply of the finest examples, but they ex-
tend to all the processes by which the raw material is worked
up into staples for immediate use. Our published lists of pre-
miums offered to competitors at the State Fair, includes not
only the purest grain, the lucious grapes and apples, the noble
cows and fleecy sheep, but wines and vinegar; butter, cheese
and bread; cloths and flannels as well: thus showing that we
lend support to the miller, and baker, and weaver, and in short,
to every earnest worker in the useful arts, as fully and freely as
to the farmer himself. Again, if it behooves this Association to
expend its energies in improving the staple productions of
the soil, whether in the crude or the ultimate state, then it fol-
lows that the improvement of all the implements and machines
by which the soil is prepared, the seed sown, the crop har-
vested, cleaned, garnered, transported or ground, must also be
added to the list of its avowed odjects; and it is manifestly a
part of its appropriate work to stimulate and quicken the in-
ventive genius which has, of late, made such marvelous achieve-

ments in this department.
6

42

Accordingly, there is many a successful inventor, who carries
the diploma awarded by the agricultural committee, as a valued
evidence of the genuineness of his invention; and it is a cause
of congratulation to-night, that, in the improvements of the
methods by which machinery is successfully applied to the sal-
vation of the human muscle, Michigan is no whit behind her
sister States. But further, if the perfection of its products be
our prime purpose, it follows again that all the fertilizers by
which the soil is enriched and rendered prolific, may properly
receive a share of attention. -How mineral and animal manures
should be composted, prepared, preserved and applied, are
questions of vital moment to farm economy. Every growth of
whatever crop is a constant drain requiring a replenishment as
constant. Continue to drain while you fail to replenish, and
permanent exhaustion will surely follow. Some of the older
States, with their thousands of acres impoverished by a system
of cropping that returns nothing to the soil, rendered as barren’
and irreclaimable as a desert, are striking examples of a great
public calamity which Michigan will be wise to shun. If suc-
cessful agriculture lies at the basis of national prosperity, if the
wants of an increasing population must be met by a produc-
tiveness increasing in similar ratio, then the fertility of every
cultivated farm should be augmented year by year, until the
soil reaches the topmost limit of its producing capacity; a re-
sult that never can be reached so long as nature’s restoratives
are given over to be dissipated by the winds, the sunshine, and
the rains. It surely cannot be foreign to our mission to give
our moiety of influence in settling a system of judicious econ-
omy on so vital a point, and thus aiding to avert a public mis-
fortune

a misfortune which, if general and wide-spread, is the
sure precursor of national ruin. Again, it is manifestly in har-
mony with our organization, the constituted guardian of the
soil, to gather, in a place convenient for public inspection, all
those products whose form and permanence render them avail-.
able for preservation; to collect, classify, and exhibit all those
geological specimens which indicate the mineral constituents.

48

of the soil in the locality where they are found, and to arrange
and publish the resources of this State, as an agricultural re-
gion, especially the richness of our uncultivated lands, and thus
to arrest and divert hither the tide of emigration that annually
sweeps by us to people the less favored regions of the far west.

It is ours to give the warm welcome to the new settler by
whose energies the waving grain will replace the leveled forest.
It is ours to cheer the farmer in every department of his vari-
ous toil, to stimulate his efforts after genuine results, to furnish
models of excellence which he may strive to realize, to reward
his successes and publish them to the world, to offer him better
tools and better processes for bungling ones, to teach him how
best to destroy those natural enemies which infest his grains
and fruits, to give him easy access to all superior methods which
science or experience has furnished, to arouse his ambition and
enlarge his knowledge of agriculture, whether by objects ad-
dressed to the eye or by essays addressed to the judgment.
All these are, as seems to me, included in the comprehensive
sphere which our organization was destined to fill; for less than
this would not satisfy the aspirations or realize the ideal of an
association, originated for the advancement of a great branch
of industry, on which so much of human welfare depends. AIL
these objecis are consistent with each other; they are all at-
_tainable and their attainment is indispensable to any real pro-
gress in the science and practice of agriculture: and gentle-
men of the committee, we shall compass these benign and
worthy objects, not only by looking to the farmer’s wants in
the present, but by providing for his future needs; not only by
offering stimulants to the production of single specimens of
excellence, but by diffusing, as far as possible, that knowledge
and. skill which shall supersede the necessity of temporary stim- .
ulants, and make anything else than the permanent production
of excellent results impossible; not only by aiding to improve
the quality of the work, but by aiming to elevate the condition
of the worker.

And all these objects are to be sought, not as ultimate ends

44.

alone; not that the finest farms, the fieetest horses, and most
symmetrical short-hornsmay be produced and exhibited, (though
these are worthy results;) not that this, that, or the other ex-
hibitor should take our premiums or diplomas, but as all in-
cluding and tending to secure the one nobler end, namely: that
the million within the borders of our State may be warmed and
sheltered, clothed and fed, with the smallest wear and tear of
human muscle and human life. Ido not aver that we have
not seemingly had, at times, a nebulous perception of the rela-
tive importance of some of the objects I have named, and a
clear perception of the value of the rest. Ido not deny that
we have sometimes, seemingly, ignored and neglected some
branches not at present so pressing, to concentrate our ener-
gies upon others more immediately urgent. What I affirm is,
that all these parts form the one great whole, which constitutes
the enterprise we propose to forward. Most assuredly we are
not a sporting clib for the trial of speed in horses; we are not
an association for the breeding and improvement of devons and
durhams; we are not an association of grape growers; we are
not a pomological or horticultural society; not a combination
for the raising of sorghum and the production of syrup; we
are all of these together, and much more; we are not coérdi-
nate with any one of them; their purposes are epecific, ours gen-
eric; we overlap and comprehend them all.

Having glanced thus briefly at the ends which it is the pro-
vince and purpose of this Association to compass, let us next
give earnest heed to the means which we either now employ
or may properly employ hereafter. These means are substan-
tially three in number: First in the order of time, and fore-
most for immediate effect, is the State Fair, at which thousands
of our citizens annually assemble, to study the finest samples
of all that the State produces, and hundreds of exhibitors
gather to compete for the premiums we offer for the best speci-
mens of all the animal, vegetable and artistic products. Both
the visitors and the exhibitors are greatly profited, and an im-
petus to agriculture is given and felt throughout the State.

45

The second means is the annual public meeting in winter, at
which papers and addresses, by prominent agriculturists, on im-
proved processes and methods in farming are read and afterwards
published. To these may be added other printed matter, such
as occasional prize essays on topics requiring special elucida-
tion, and pamphlets of instruction, similar to the one issued by
the committee last year on points of excellence in cattle. The
first of these meetings, held at Ypsilanti last season, was a
most gratifying success.

The third means is the proposed Agricultural Museum,
wherein are to be collected all those more perfect specimens
and illustrations in agriculture, which can be successfully clas-
sified, arranged, and held on exhibition throughout the year.

Undoubtedly these three institutions do not include all the
means which the Society might profitably employ. But they
present, in themselves, a kind of completeness which is pleas- .
ant to contemplate. They constitute a series of agencies, each
of which aids the efficiency and remedies the defects of the
others. They are counterparts each to the others, and form,
together, a symmetrical and harmonious system; a system that
would produce not only immediate, but permanent and lasting
results; a system that would furnish to the masses not only
wholesome recreation and amusement, but food for instruction
and refiection, as well, that would appeal not simply to a just
pride and a proper emulation, but to intellect and judgment
also; a system that would incite the farmer not merely to the
production of excellence in special things, for a special occa-
sion, but to the habit of attaining to excellence in all things
and for all occasions; a system, in short, that reaches and stim-
alates the farmer at once, and then offers to him and his child-
ren the means of a constant and perpetual progress.

But these are general statements which need a more particu-
lar analysis and amplification. Let us, then, scrutinize closely
the merits and demerits of these three means, and determine
precisely which of the ends proposed, it is calculated to subserve.
A fair and a museum have some characteristics in common,

«

46

which itis well to notice. Wach consists of a collection of inter-
esting objects, selected and displayed as the most perfect spec-
imens of the classes which they represent and illustrate.

A fair is a temporary museum—a museum a permanent fair.
A fair is composed of a wider variety of attractive articles, sim-
ultaneously gathered, whose bulk and value in many instances,
make their transportation expensive, and their retention im-
possible; and hence they are on exhibition for a limited period.
The one is an assemblage of samples, more miscellaneous and
less perfectly classified; the other a collection of specimens
completely classified on a scientific basis. Both present their
objects to the eye and seek to gratify a laudable curiosity; the
one, in order to amuse, inform, and excite competition; the
other, to instruct and educate. Tt will be seen, therefore, that
while both accomplish results that are kindred in gnany
respects, the one is more favorable to salutary recreation, the
‘other to serious study.

The State Fair, bing the effective agency for quick results,
has very properly, here as elsewhere, been first in the order of
time. It has been held annually for sixteen years. From first
to last, it has been conducted by self-sacrificing men, who
counted their services and time as fully requited by its success
and salutary influence wpon the agriculture of the State. It
has been under a succession of Presidents, whose administra-
tion of its affairs has evinced rare earnestness and executive
skill. It has attracted a yearly gathering of from ten to
twenty thousand visitors, and paid out $40,000 in premiums
alone. It has given a marked and rapid impulse to the devel-
opment of the resources of the State in the shape of more
remuncrative crops, labor-saving impleménts, and valuable
stock. Under its transforming influence, the grafted fruits have
everywhere supplanted the crabbed offermgs of the natural
tree; the scythe, the cradle, and the flail have well nigh disap-
peared, and sinews of iron and steel do the drudgery once
done by the human arm; the horse has gained a better breed-
ing, and greater vigor and endurance; the sheep, once thinly

47

and coarsely clad, has exchanged its worthless toggery for a
fleece unrivaled in beauty, weight and fineness; and the native
cow, with her pinched vitals and gothic ribs, is fast giving
place to the symmetrical Devon and the magnificent Shorthorn.

Such are the results which the State Fair has accomplished;
but great and valuable as they axe, they do not include all the
ends which we have enumerated as properly within the prov-
ince of this Association. The State Fair aims to excite emu-
lation, and appeals to pride and profit, motives which are
easily reached, but which do not comprise all the incentives to
human effort, nor the only available ones. The very rapidity
with which it attains its objects, suggests a doubt as to their
stability and permanence. Its success depends on excitement,
and excitements do not survive the discontinuance of their
causes. Should any unforseen obstacle intermit the annual
holding of the Siate Fair, it may be questioned, in the absence
of other incitements, whether very many would not relapse
into the indifference and torpor which are the besetting sins of
the farmer’s life.

The State Fair stirs up ambition and excites immediate inter-
est, but-needs, as seems to me, other helps to perpetuate that
interest, by making it more discriminating and intelligent. It
presents samples of the finest results in farming, and thus fur-
nishes the visitor an ideal which he may strive to realize; but
from its very nature, it can give him no instruction as to the
processes and methods by which these results have been pro-
duced; consequently, in his endeavors to attain similar excel-
lence, he must grope in the darkness of experiment, unless he
gains the requisite information as to the quo modo, from other
sources. I may admire a blooded horse, groomed and capari-
soned for the annual exhibition, and my admiration may induce
me, at high cost, to barter my sorry nag for the noble gelding;
but my blooded horse will soon subside into a nag that shall
be sorrier still, if I am ignorant of the proper manner in which
such an animal should be fed and treated. Admiration fora
beautiful product isa good thing, but an attempt at its pro-

48

duction or possession without a commensurate knowledge, is a
hazardous experiment. This unavoidable defect in the State
Fair, needs a compensation somewhere, and it is true that it
may be derived from several sources, the periodicals or the
Agricultural College, for instance, but we hope it may be found
also, partly at least, in the lime upon line and precept upon
precept, given in the published proceedings of our winter
session.

Again, an argicultural fair, though it stirs up zeal and stim-
ulates effort, fails inevitably to give precise notions even of the
objects which it presents to the eye. Precise notions can be
gained only by deliberate and protracted examination of single
objects to the exclusion of all others. Amid the din of the
crowd and the vast variety of forms that attract the eye, it is
impossible even for the most disciplined attention, to concen-
trate on a single one long enough to enable the memory to repro-
duce it faithfully. It is true that, in rare instances, an amateur
may scrutinize minutely some one article, which has for him a
higher interest than all the ethers together, but such amateurs
hold a very slight comparison in number, with the multitude
that are to be benefitted by the exhibition. No doubt the ad-
vantages from our yearly exhibition are many and great, but
they do not consist in the acquisition of clearideas. We carry
from our annual fair a quickened zeal, gratified curiosity, a
sturdier courage, renewed friendships, more active sympathies,
and a deepened impression that the farmer’s life is the truest
life that man can live, but we carry also a confusion of intel-
lectual images not generally available as data for judgment or
reasoning. The time is too short, the throng too restless, the
objects too numerous and distracting for such a result. And
this second defect, which is inseparable from a State fair, will,
we believe, find a remedy more or less complete, in the agricul-
tural museum, where the specimens are arranged for minute
inspection, where the company are more constant but fewer in
number, and where the time devoted to examination is lim-
ited only by the inclination and convenience of the visitor. -

49

Another influence which operates asa drawback to the many
genuine results reached through the State Fair, is the tendency
to encourage an abnormal rather than a normal development.
Of all the qualities in specimens displayed at public exhibitions,
that of size is the most striking and impressive. Only the most
cultivated eye is able to resist the effect of huge and unusual
proportions. The viewing committee, magnetized by this influ-
ence, not unfrequently pronounce that of all the articles placed
in competition, the biggest is the best. The consequence is, an
anxious production of a rank overgrowth which is utterly at
variance with that compactness and fineness of fibre and deli-
eacy of flavor which, combined with the proper dimensions,
constitute genuine excellence. Grossness of growth and coarse-
ness of texture are inseparable concomitants. Of two potatoes,
the one whose size is astonishing, has attained its surface
development at the cost of a cavity within, and sogginess to
boot, while the other, with the smooth and clean skin, the
round and moderate growth, is dry, mealy, and delicious. ‘Of
the same varieties of fruits and roots, it not rarely happens
that the larger are for admiration, the smaller for eating.

From a similar influence in the stock department, an effort
is constantly made to improve the outside appearance at the
expense of a proper internal condition. As the annual occa-
gion approaches, even milch cows and working cattle are often
_ made to lay on a quantity of superfluous fat, which fits them
for the show, but unfits them for their peculiar uses. Some
specimens of beeves displayéd at our stalls had attained so
unique a condition as to induce the suspicion—and the hope
indeed—that there is one quality of beef for the market and
another for the Fair. A single example from a neighboring
State, was a striking instance of the point in question. Its
muscles were enveloped in huge layers of fat, ga:hering here
and there into wen-like excrescences, unhealthy enough to
spoil the digestion of an Esquimaux. Yet this monstrosity of
greece took the premium over another whose tumors were less
_ protuberant. :t confess to an impression which is in full sym-

50

pathy with one who complains “That the societies for agricul-
tural encouragement persist in giving premiums to (so-called)
fat cattle, mere monsiers, not of good wholesome muscular
fibre, well mottled, but mountains of adipose substance, which
no christian can eat, and which are only disposed of profitably
by serving :s an advertisement to some veniuresome lan dlord
from whose iable the reeking fat goes to the soap-pot.”

The truth is, that in every organized substance, whether
vegetable or animal, it is the harmonious development of ailits
natural qualities that constitutes its perfection, and as sizo is
one of these, it follows that it can be enlarged only in a jus
ratio to the improvement of all the rest.

T am glad to say that this tendency to overrate the value of
mere bulk, marked as itis in particular cases, is, atter all, excep-
tional, and so may be looked upon as a departure from the gen-
eral practice in awarding premiums at the State Fair. Such
awards are, beyond question, generally just, and the few that
are not so under the influence of the above mentioned preju-
dice, are, at any rate, in harmony with public opinion. The
tendency I have referred to, will disappear before the progress
of a more discriminating taste and judgment, counteracted, as
it will be, by the influence of the Museum, whose collections,
to some extent identical in kind with those of the Fair, will be
more slowly, and therefore more deliberately and carefully
made.

Another lack in the compl teness of the many positive bens-
fits conferred by the State Fair, lies in the methods of prepar-
ing particular products for exhibition, a defect which is closely
related to the one we have just considered. It may be fairly
doubted whether, in some cases, the special policy pursued in
fitting commodities for the Fair, will serve as an example which
may be profitably followed in general practice on the farm,
The question fully stated is, whether the thing exhibited fanly
represents the general results reached by the exhibitor, in tho
production of the entire clas3 to which ib belongs, or whether

it has been evolved from stimulating processes outside of his

‘ 51

ordinary practice, and too expensive for general adoption. In
the former case, the article, if excellent, is of great value for
the end to be gained by the exhibition; in the latter case, what-
ever be its qualities, it is worthless, except for the purpose of
empty show. Of course any product, however remarkable in
form or beauty, is valueless as a sample, which has been, and
must be produced ai an out!ay which its marketable valu» can
mever refund. Thus a Canadian showed, with great compla-
cency, at his county fair, a monster carrot, und unwittingly
killed the interest it excited, by revealing the significant fact
¢hat it had sprung from a chance seed on the sunny side of his
baxnyard, and had been hoed and watered assiduously through-
out the season; while his staple crop was less than the ordinary
yield. My pleasure in dwelling upon the rounded form and
magnificent size of a yearling heifer, was once greatly disturbed,
on my being told by the owner, in a burst of confidence, that
up to the very tinie of the exhibition, it had daily exhausted the
adders of a brace of cows, and that it was the most expeditious
milker on the farm. I like magnificent yearlings, but I have an
internal habitual respect for butter and cheese as well. The
question is, can I raise such carrots and calves, by a similar in-
westment of care and cash, consistently with any known prin-
ciple of agricultural economy. Nothing is clearer than that we
_¢an never exhibit collections of purely representative objects,
do long as the farmer raises, by different precesses, one kind of
product to show, and another to sell.

T have ventured thus freely to glance at these unavoidable
defects for the purpose of showing that, however complete its
success in some directions, the Fair cannot be expected to sub-
serve all the ends, which it is the duty and destiny of this So-
¢iety to reach, and therefore, that it needs compensating helps,
such as sisi» r bodies in the older States have adopted, to
enabis cm to accomplish fully their allotted work.

f have now a word to offer in respect to the kind of help to
be derived from the judicious management of our winter ses,
gions, and then I will endeavor, with your indulgence, to ex-

52

amine, with some minuteness, the nature of an agricultural
museum, and to show what portion of our enterprise it will be
calculated to further. In the first place, the exer ises of our
winter session, if wisely conducted, constitute one of the agen-
cies which will increase the efliciency and remedy the defects of
the Fair. So far as they go, they will tend to satisfy the aspi-
rations for knowledge which the Tair excites, and furnish the
information which it makes necessary, and yet withholds. The
winter session is designed to teach precisely what the Fair |
does not. The latter presents to the eye the bare results of ©
agricultural labor; the former should present to the judgment
the processes by which these resuits have been obtained. It
will clucidate and offer, for general adoption, those modes of
procedure on the farm which will produce the paying article,
and expose, for general rejection, those that will not, whatever
be their attractions in other respects. By showing that kind
of economic labor which will secure results that combine both
the elements of beauty and profit, it will tend to reduce to a
negative quantity, a species of idle amusement known as fancy ,
farming.

Thus will our winter meeting be made to counteract some of
those agricultural abuses and abnormal developments of pro-
duct, which the State Fair, as we have shown, not only cannot
correct but is even liable, unwittingly, toecourage. Butin order
to make it subserve these desirable ends, it is essential to ob-
serve, in its management, the following conditions:

1. That of the numerous topics needing discussion, those
should be selected which embrace methods practically the most.
important, and at the same time the least known.

2. That these methods shall have been tested by actual.
practice, and found to be suitable to the soil, climate and other
conditions of farming in this State.

3. That men be invited to present papers on these methods,
who have proved their value, by successful trial, and can give-
the emphatic utterances of actual experience.

4, That the questions selected for discussion, involve astatisti—

53

c1l statement of the processes by v hich the morestriking results
presented at the State Fair, have been ;roduced.

In this way we shall make the winter session and the Fair
effective auxilliaries, each indispensable to the other, the one
completing, in a measure, what the other successfully begins.
Tn this way, too, we shall find the winter session, in itself, an
unfailing source of valuable information to the farmers of Mich-
igan. The marked success of the initiatory meeting, last sea-
son, was an augury most encouraging for the future.

Of course, I am aware that, in this branch of our enterprise,
we have many efficient allies. Among them may be reckoned.
the agricultural periodicals, the State Board of Agriculture,
and the State Agricultural College under their charge. The
value of most of the periodicals, being issued at the east, is
lessened by the fact that many of their articles are of doubtful
application to the varying conditions of the west. The Secre-
tary of the Board of Agriculture, a gentleman widely known
for his attainments in all matters relating to practical farming,
is constantly engaged in labors kindred to our own, and the
Agricultural College has inaugurated a series of published
experiments, which give great promise of usefulness. These
energetic co-workers will stimulate us to still greater endeav-.
ors; for it may be said, without irreverence, that asin the moral,
so in the agricultural field, the harvest truly is great, but the
laborers are few.

Let us now concentrate our attention upon the nature and
purpose of the third instrumentality to be employed by this
Society, namely, the Agricultural Museum. | This project,
though properly last in the order of time, is by no means last
in the order of importance. For, though slower in action than
the other two, it ‘will be far more enduring in effect; for its
prominent purpose is to impart a precise and definite knowl-
edge of the products and resources of this State in agriculture
and its kindred arts, and to give facilities for the acquisition of
such knowledge, not only to the present, but to coming
generations as well. To what more noble purpose can this

54 :

Society devote a portion of its energies anc surplus funds, then
to the furtherance of a project which shall furnish for every
earnest observer, a means of gaining those accurate notions
which lie at the basis of all genuine progress? How can we
better help the farmer than by giving to him and his children
access to the means of a most familiar acquaintance with the
material on which he works? How can we better aid in
developing the agricultural resources of the State, than by
gathering an exhaustive collection of samples, which, when
classified and arranged, shall represent these resources with
infallible accuracy as to their kind, quality and value? At @
loss of ‘ime and money, I may travel to Saginaw to inspect the
salt it produces, or to Plymouth to test the quality of mari
found on lands adjacent, or to any orchard io explore for
examples of the ravages which the borer has made, or to this,
that, or the other farmer, to secure some one of the varieties
of choicer seeds; but if all these things were collected and
arranged in a single locality, convenient for access and study,
then, certainly, I and a multitude of others would be apt to
avail ourselves of such an opportunity to accomplish the same
object, at the saving of so much time, trouble and expense.
But how much greater the advantages which such a collection
aifords, if each of its specimens is so classified and labeled ag
to indicate with precision its origin and qualities. If, as our
Constitution declares, it be our object to promote the progress
of agriculture and its kindred arts, where in the widest scheme
for accomplishing this, both for the present and the future, can
we find means more fitting and effective ?

But a conviction of the benefits which would accrue to agri-
culture from one or more museums, situated at accessible
points in the State, needs no prolonged statement of reasons
so.obvious. Even tn the absence of all experience of its opera-
tion and effect, there is a strong presumption in its favor.
Many of the similar societies in the older States have found it
an invaluable adjunct to their other means of advancing the
interests of agriculture. The Board of Agriculture of Massa-

55

chusetts, for example, a body organized for a purpose similar
to our own, has its agricultural cabinet, in which, among other
matters of high scientific interest, is @ complete collection of
insects injurious to vegetation; and by legislative authority, its
Secretary, Charles L. Flint, has edited and published, at small
cost to the reader, a beautiful edition of Hurris’s work, which
gives full description of these insects, together with their
habits, metamorphoses, mode of propagation, and how they
are most easily exterminated. »

The New York Agricultural Society has always regarded its
museum as one of its most prominent instruments of success,
in the furtherance of its objects. Col. Johnson, the Secretary,
writes me that it is held in the highest estimation.

A brief extract from a notice of its contents, by the New
York Tribune, four years ago, will serve to show somethin gs of
the character of this interesting collection:

“The Museum room is about 67 feet long by 37 wide, and has
two galleries, supported by light iron columns. The room is
lighted by side windows as well as by two enormous sky-lights
n the roof, and is as well adapted to the purposes for which it.
was buili as any we have ever seen. The stairways are of iron,
and a neat iron railing runs around each gallery. Against the
walls are glass cases, those on the main floor being ap: ropriated
to miscellaneous articles, such as costumes and fabrics of for-
eign nations, antiquities and relics of this country, and curiosi-
ties in the way of sports of nature, old spinning wheels, looms,
minerals, and other matters of interest. The cases on the
second floor are filled with a most complete set of specimens of
the grains and seeds of our own and various foreign countries,
which in itself is a study of a most interesting nature. The
seeds of America coming first in order, we see here scores of
varieties of Indian corn, many of wheat, rye, oats, and other
cereals; and a very complete ass riment of all the common and
uncommon garden vegetables. England, Hungary, Bavaria,
Austria, France proper, African Colony of Alcev'a, are all rep-
resented by numerous specimens. The resouices of almogt

56

every European and some Asiatic countries, are more or less
complete'y illustrated in these cases, and it is a curious study
for the farmer to notice how closely grains from widely separa-
ted countries resemble each other.

«The cases along one entire side of the third floor are appro-
priated to Dr. Asa Fitch’s entomological collections, which al-
ready are superior to any others in the world in many respects.
Time will be when the zealous student of Natural History will
be able to study the nature and habits of our noxious and other
insects more satisfactorily on this third floor of the State So-
coicty’s Museum than he could anywhere else, and time will
also be when our farmers will awake to the fact that one of
their greatest benefactors has lived out his quiet life, and per-
haps laid him down to die in an obscure rural district, with no
monument to keep green his memory, except these splendid
collections which he freely gave years of his life to gather from
our fields and forests.

“ The Fitch co'lections, when arranged this fall, will be divided
so that the various insects in all their stages—egg, larva, pupa
and moth—will be placed in drawers beneath the cases, whilo
the more roomy space of the latter will be devoted to the dis-
play of specimens which illustrate the ravages of the insects.
There are now but few specimens set up in the cases, but quito
enough to show the ultimate value of the collection. Thus we
have a piece of basswood, the substance of which has been
mined out by white ants, Alongside it is a glass-covered box
which contains specimens of our dread foe, the wheat midge,
its larva, a male fly, and kernels of wheat shrunken and ruined.
Another of these little boxes shows us the Hessian fly, its larva,
its flax-seed-like eggs, and a wheat straw broken open to show
the “flax seeds” within. Here we have a twig of mountain-
ash covered with scale insects; here, on a twig of poplar, the
eggs of the “executioner tree bug” strung along in two un-
broken parallel and contiguous lines, like a string of sandal-
wood beads or a daintily-braided strand of maiden’s hair; here
we have a limb of black oak cut off by the oak-pruner; here a

57

piece of red cedar—which every one has believed insect proof—
utterly destroyed by the stump wasp; while, like the mysteri-
ious foot prints in the red sand-stone and chalk, on the bit of

pine bark are to be scen the finger-like tracks of the “pine
- bark-beetle,” starting from one central pit or hole, and spread-
“ing—always four at one side and two at the other—like the
fingers,of a hand. In a bottle of spirits, here we have the
larva of the “hickory moth,” the largest known, which is so
frightfully ugly—what with its long horns, and bamboo-like
joints—that we cannot blame the plantation darkies for calling
it the “horned devil.” Here is a hickory ax-helve, sound asa
nut when first made, but since then completely riddled at one
end by some hickory beetle, probably (says the label) by the
Apate basillaris—which of course will be perfectly intelligible to
every one of our readers. In this case, near the -tairway, we
see a great section of applewood—five feet seven in circumfer-
ence, one foot ten in diameter—which has been literally honey-
combed by the borer. Not to occupy space with further enu-
meration, we will merely say that by this time next year, farmers
passing through Albany will be able to examine, in this collec-
tion, several thousand specimens of insects and their ravages.

«On the ground floor are arranged numerous American farm
implements which have from time to time been donated to the
Society. The foreign visitor can here see many of our best
variety of reapers and mowers, drills, harrows, cultivators, fan- °
mills, and a large collection of plows not only of the latest im-
proved patterns, but, whatis especia'ly valuable for comparison,
those clumsy contrivances of wood with which our grandfathers
pried apart their stubborn furrows. Among the best of the
modern plows is the “center-draft,” of Prouty & Mears, which
was honored at the London World’s Fair with a first premium.
Tf ever an award was honestly earned from reluctant judges,
we esteem that this one was; and however public opinion may
be divided in the Henan-Sayers case, it must be fairly conceded
that our English friends did the fair thing for American plows

—when they were forced to do' it. At the trial in question,

58

Coionel Johnson heard the English laborers discussing the
merits of the Yankee plows in uncomplimentary terms. They
had decided that the flimsy things would break, or at any rate
that they would notrunin. This latter seemed the opnion of
the plowman who was ordered to guide the Prouty & Mears
plow, for he persistently bore upon the havdle with his whole
weight in the benevolent intention of forcing the nose to enter
to the requisite depth until he was ordered by the Colonel to
let it do its work as intended. The man turned two furrows
around his “land,” and then admitted in aloud “aside” to
some of his anxious friends, ‘that ere dom’d thing would ’a held
self if oid a let it.’

"Not one of the least valuable things in the Society’s cases,
ig a pair of lone-handled ‘thistle tongs,’ for eradicating thistles
from pastures more effectually, and certainly pleasantly, than
if the unprotected hand were used for the purpose.

“A large assortment of agricultural and horticultural tools
from India, all of which have been in actual use, have been re-
cently presented to the Society, by L. H. Morgan, of Rochester.
Thus the farm tools of the time of Jacob and Laban, are
placed alongside those in common use among our New York
farmers to-day; and while in the main we are thus led to see
the march of improvement which through the long centuries
has been made, we cannot fail to be surprised at finding in this.
lot of rude too's, some contrivances for which patents have been
granted at Washington, within a few years. For instance,
there isa pump made with a series of buckets on an endless
rope, which, to all intents, is the same as the chain pump which
we think such a remarkably clever Yankee invention; and in
two of the grain and seed-drills, the seed is dropped through
tubes which pass through a shoe, the furrow is cleared for
it, the seed is covered, and compactly embedded exactly as
our sced is now planted and covered by a score of ‘modern
improvements’ which are to be found a& any of our large
Pairs.

«The Hindoo cultivator is, to our notion, a more philosoph+

59

¢al tool in principle, than our modern harrow; for, whereas the
latter compresses the soil over which its wedze-shape teeth
travel, the barbarian’s cultivator, while it loosens, lifts the
earth, and thus leaves it in as porous @ state as previously.
There is a great plow in this lot of tools, meant for a team of
twelve bullocks, which will plow, or rather root, to a depth of
gome eight inches, and which embraces that principle of the
double arch, which Professor Mapes counts as the great merit
of his ‘soil lifter.’ True, the cole of this Hindoo plow is of
wood, and not less than five feet in length, and only its nose ig
shod with iron, but from nose to beam, and from center to sides
of the sole, there is a definite although gradual arch, which ig
well calculated to lift the soil and throw it outward from the
center.

“ We should be very loth to conclude our imper/ect sketch,
without some complimentary rotice of a beautiful suite of
specimens of dried grasses and flowérs, made by afarmer’s wife,
in Rensselaer county. By some peculiar processes of desicca-
tion, she preserves all the colors of the flowers in their origina)
brilhancy, as well as retaining their shape. A large bouquet,
and many single cards of flowers, which bad beea in the cases
for a twelvemouth, were apparently as fresh in color as on the
day when they were picked. Another lady amateur botanist
contributes a collection of 154 varieties of weeds, all of them
collected, pressed, and correctly named, by herself. And so,
from case to case, and gallery to gallery, we might wander, and
find a host of things of more or less interest to our readers, but
we trust we have said enough to convince our farmers that a
day spent in the Meseum, at Albany, connot fail to prove, in a
high degree; profitable.”

Of course, museum collections will vary with the resources
and necessities of the particular States in which they are made.
The fundamental purpose of our own should be, as seems to
me, to make a full exhibit of all the productions of Michigan
which are limited to a certain bulk, and to include complete:
sets of specimens Ulustrating all the values that lie in and be-.

60

neath her soil. In the first place, it ought to embrace ex-
haustive samples of those geological strata which indicate the
qualities and mineral constituents of the soil in the region
where they are found. It ought also to contain complete ex-
amples of the minerals and ores which have already proved
such a prolific source of wealth to the State. It should com-
prise, moreover, illustrations of commodities for household
consumption, of subterraneous origin, in different localities,
such as the coals, and various qualities of salt manufactured so
successfully at Saginaw; and also select specimens of all the
mineral fertilizers, as limestone, marl, plaster aud the like, of
whose abundance we have already so large a promise.

Of all these, many may be easily gathered from the places
that supply them, and the rest may be obtained, it is hoped, by
an arrangement with the gentlemen who have had in hand the
scientific survey of the State, which was begun several years
ago, and which it is hard to believe the Legislature will aban-
don before it has been completed.

The museum should be likewise a depository for the more
excellent of the machines and farm implements, which have
been tried and approved by actual practice, together with a
collection of similar articles, from the most bungling to tho
best, whose purpose shall be to display to the eye the progress
of art in this particular. In addition to these, all the latest
inventions, which are useful in prospect but as yet untried,
will naturally find place in this division. Implements, of what-
ever sort, too large for the room assigned them, could be repre-
sented by smaller models prepared for the purpose. This de-
partment could be easily filled by voluntary contributions from
various manufacturers and by inducing the exhibitors at the
State Fair to give still greater publicity to the premium arti-
cles, by a further exhibition at the museum, indefinitely con-
tinued. y ‘

Another portion of the museum should consist of sample
varieties of wood, indigenous to Michigan. These samples
might be cut into the likeness of volumes, of uniform size,

61

neatly finished, labeled on the back, and put up in library style.
Such a library I once found in the interesting collection of the
Agricultural Academy at Hohenheim, in the kingdom of Wurt-
emberg. It presented, arranged upon shelves, a great number
of wooden tomes, whose titles indicated the different species of
valuable timber, in which the forests of Germany abound.
Each tome, when examined, was found to open in the centre,
revealing a cavity within, which contained, glued to its sides,
the preserved leaf, flower and fruit of the tree of whose wood
the tome was a sample, together with a short essay, in script,
on its qualities, cultivation and uses. These ligneous books,
whose leaves displayed no printed sentence, furnished, from
their very covers, a deal of information on a topie of no little
importance. A collection of this kind is the more desirable,
because the time is coming, nay, has already come, when the
wealth of our forests should no longer be carelessly squandered;
when a system of economy should be urged, in the preservation
and judicious use of the valuable fuel and lumber, now doomed,
in many instances, to thoughtless and thriftless destruction.

Acain, the Museum must be made a depot for seeds, which
shall be perfectly ripe, pure and healthy. No part of the en-
terprize can be of greater moment to good husbandry than
this. Throughout the wide domain of organized nature, it is
an immutable law, that under favorable conditions, like produ-
ces like, even in the minutest particulars. Principles better
known and applied in the breeding of domestic animals, proba-
bly operate with equal precision, in the reproduction of varie-
ties in the vegetable kingdom. Hence, the saving and plant-
ing of seeds which are plump and perfect, are of vital conse-
quence to the coming crop. “The development of a plant,”
says Leibig, “depends upon its first radication, and the choice
of proper seeds is, therefore, of the highest importance to the
future plant. Poor and sickly seeds will produce stunted
plants, which again, will yield seeds bearing, in a great meas-
ure, the same character.”

If this be true, he who, by new combinations, produces an

62

improved variety, is a public benefactor; and he who secures
its wide distribution, earns a similar title. This Socicty may
properly participate in so benevolent a work, by opening,:ib
may be, an office in its museum, for gathering and furnishing
widely to others, reliable or improved seeds for the grain crops,
or grasses, or.esculent roots.

A feature of not inferior interest would be found in carefully.
arranged specimens of wools from the flocks of our successful
wool-growers, specimens which should demonstrate the effect
of breeding upon the fincness and compactness of the fieece,
and no less attractive to the stock raisers in general, would be
the numerous engravings donated by the owners of sheep, cat
tle or horses, which have become known to fame by combining,
in a superior degree, all the excellent qualities which spring
from purity of pedigree.

Another department likely to excite the enthusiasm of vis
ttors, would consist of artificial mode's of all the finer varieties
of Michigan apples and pears, prepared by an inexpensive pro-
cess lately invented, and so accurately finished and painted as
to be undistinguishable by the eye from the natural fruit
Specimens for models might be obtained, to some extent, from
the best samples shown at the State Fair, and by gratuitous
contributions from other sources. No part of the collection
would combine so strikingly the beautiful and the useful ag
this.

But the limited space allotted to a lecture warns me to for-
bear a complete enumeration of the classes of things which
would properly find a place in an agricultural cabinet. IT will
only add that our museum ought to embrace prepared and
preserved specimens of all the smaller animals, which in this
latitude are harmful or helpful to the farmer. There is an
argent necessity for a general onslaught to be made upon
those innumerable pests that, season after season, make such
alarming havoc with our crops of fruit and grain. There isa

are naturally destructive to these noxious feeders, should bo

necessity as urgent that all the quadrupeds and birds which

63

eareinlly multiplied. With every returning summer comes the
resurrection of the swarms of borers, curculios, weevils, worms,
and the like, which combine, in countless hosts, to rob the
farmer of the earnings of his toil. Particular families of these
have of late generated with such marvelous rapidity as to
beget a well-grounded fear that their numbers will resultgin
tho utter destruction of the crops on which they feed. In
6ome quarters this fear is already realized. The locust, once
valued for its enduring wood and greatful shade, has yielded
to millions of perforations, which have well nigh reduced its
limbs and trunk to dust. The palm tree, which once offered
its sure fruits, round, ripe and melting, now casts them annu-
ally to the ground, blighted and worthless. In all manner of
vegetable delicacies the worm is demanding to be served first.
The time may come when no man taste an apple whose skin,
onflecked and unstrung, shail forbid the apprehension that the
first incission of the teeth will reveal a slimy occupant. The
time has already come when, to indulge in the luxury of green
peas, is to devour a host of unsavory grubs, which are the prog-
eny of a prolific weevil. These various destroyers, threatening
such wide-spread evils, deraand the wisest and most vigorous
measures for their extermination. Such measures can be
founded only on an accurate knowledge cf their form, habits,
metamorphoses and modes of propagation, and more can be
learned from a glance at these in their different states than
from an hour’s application to the unaided descriptions of a
book.

But if the museum should present his enemies to the far-
mer’s eye, it should likewise present his friends, the insectivo-
rous birds—should present them in such guise, that he should
be made to appreciate the value of their friendship—should
perceive, indeed, that he who wantonly shoots a single wood-
pecker, gives life to thousands of injurious insects that propa-
g«te in more than geometrical ratio.

I have thus, gentlemen of the Committee, endeavored to
gather within the compass of an hour, the prominent character-

G4

istics of the three agencies which we may fitly use, in the further-
ence of our allotted enterprise. I attempted first, to sketch the
nature of this enterprise, to show how broad and benign it is, and
how worthy to call forth all the energies of this Association. I
have taken a rapid survey of the merits and defects of the State
Fair, showing that the former are great and striking, but not
lasting in their effect, and that the latter need to be remedied by
counteracting influences outside of itself. Ihave shown that one
of these is the winter meeting, and that its suecess depends on
cond tions that are easily realized. Ihave shown that the other
is the Agricultural Museum; that in itself, it is an object deserv-
ing our heartiest interest; that it is a scheme appropriate to
the known purposes of this Society; that it is e-sential to the
development of our agricultural resources; that its material
may be found within the State; that it is no untried experi-
ment, having been tested and approved by societies older than
ours, and that in itself, it will be the sure instrument of great
and lasting good.

These views embody my honest convictions set forth after
much reflection, and you are to pronounce whether they be
genuine or no.

Iwill only add in hasty conclusion, that the proposal for a
museum was made by one under whose administration the So-
ciety reached its highest prosperity; one who has left a reputa-
tion for great business integrity and tact; one who had broad
views and quick sympathies with every effort to promote the
public good, and if this project, which he cherished to the last,
be unwise or hasty, it will stand in solitary contrast with all the
other purposes of his active and useful life.

ERRATA.

The following address having been printed without permitting the au-
thor to see the proofs, numerous typographical errors have occurred.

Page

65
TE
74

a4

Line
6 & 10

12
10
22

5 & f

6
14
13
V7
11
us
1]

9
12

5
Il

from for read
bottom, * drives ” “ dunes.”
top “waving” “ waning.”
cc <4 set 7 te sit.”
a ‘Sarmaceous” ‘ arenaceous.”
¥e “tends” “trends.”
bottom * forms” for.n.”
ce “tends” “ trends.”
top “ typographical ” “ topographical.”
bottom “ shoals ” “ shales.”
oe “carniferous” ‘ corniferous.”
top Insert a period after “ few.”
Ke “ robbing ” “ robbery.”
a Plains” ‘ Plaines.”

“ Tnsert a period after “ exist.”
‘“ Insert a period after “sands.”

bottom “inhabitable” ‘ uninhabitable.”
ec “sifted” “ shifted.”
top “even” “ever.”
e “ wrenana” “ arenaria.”
bottom ‘“ Peninsula ” “ Peninsular.”
Je * Demark ” “ Denmark.”

top Remove capital from “ Continent.”

et ee

* . f A

Nes aie _ _e a py i OU ay :
: is Sano 4 wos

i, WC TT UO Re

ON THA

SOILS AND SUBSOILS OF MICHIGAN,

Prof, A. WINCHELL,
Of the State University, Ann Arbor, Mich.

—_—___—___~<>-s—______-

ANALYSIS.

¥, The Connection of Human Condition and Progress with the Soil.

Hlustrations to show how national and individual character are
determined by the soil.
ti, The General Geology of Soils.
1. The basis of all soils and subsoils is disintegrated rocks.
2. Soils have existed at other periods of the world’s history.
3. Drift agencies.
ii, The Different Varieties of Soils in Michigan.

1. Sketch of the geology of the Lower Peninsula, with an accouns ef
the soils derived from the various formations.
2. Physical characters of these soils.

3. Agricultural and sanitary properties of the three principal varie-
ties of soils.

4. Peaty soils—their origin and properties.
5. Upland prairies—their origin and characteristics.
6. Sand drives—their origin and effects.
T¥. Influence of Human Agencies upon the Soil.

1. The destruction of the forests.
2. The drainage of swamps and lakes,
3. The creation and fixation of drives,

VY The Excellence of the Soils of Michigan.
1. What they are capable of producing,
2. Reflex influence upon the population of the State.

3. Necessity of making greater eforta to develop our resources and
, disseminate information.

9

66

Genttemen: Man is the foster-child of the soil. From the
day when he frees himself from maternal dependence, he draws
all his sustenance from mother earth. She yields him the
grain which forms his bread, and supports the cattle which
furnish him his meat. He learns to regard the soil as the
bounteous almoner of Divine beneficence, and feels himself
growing into intimate relationship and unity with it. He ap-—
propriates it and calls it his own. He reaches his arms around
broad acres, and they nurse him, and he fattens in proportion
to the nourishment they afford. Seeing that his life is perpet-
uated by the exuberant productiveness of the soil, no wonder
that nations have imagined their existence to originate in it—
autochthones, as the people of Attica thought themselves—or
have fabled a panoplied host, to spring up under the influence
of cultivation—as Cadmus, when about to found the city of
Thebes, sowed the serpent’s teeth, and raised a crop of full-
armed warriors, ready for his service.

Iu a literal sense national character is the growth of the
soil. The ancient Egyptians were an agricultural people be-
cause they dwelt upon a soil made affluent by the sediments of
the Nile. The Athenians were driven from their native country
by their sterile limestone hills, to seek the products of Egypt,
and Italy, and Sicily, and thus became a commercial people.
The scanty soil and rock-encumbered slopes of the Alps make
herdsmen of the hardy Swiss; while vineyards and gardens
glow with the ruddy fatness which bursts from the genial soils
of the Rhenish valley. New Eugland hums with the whirl of
a million busy spindles, while the Great West rolls forth the
food for New England manufacturers, from her exhaustless
granaries of corn aud wheat. Massachusetts spins and weaves:
the wool to which Michigan has given existence. The Hast
elaborates the material—the West creates the material, and
feeds both East and West.

Not only is the character of peoples an outgrowth of their
60, but the character and condition of individualsalso. Travelh
across our country and mark the phases of human condition

67

which greet the eye. The plain but healthy mountaineer con-
tents himself in his rock-sheltered hut, from whence he and his
sons go forth in the morning to tend his herds of sheep and
cattle. At the foot of these mountain abodes lies the smiling
plain, with its winding streams and sun-lit meadows, and daz
wing village walls. The fields are fat with grain; the orchards
are redolent with fruit; and the flush and well-fed farmer waits
upon the steps to welcome you to a place at his well-spread
board. But the plain breaks into easy swelling ridges; the soil
becomes thin and sandy; the tenacious subsoil retains the water
m the shallow depressions of the surface, and only occasional
clearings in the piney forest, reveal the rude log cabin, upon the
steps of which, in place of the lusty farmer, sits the sorry mas-
tiff, contemplating the pigs and geese which his master’s indi-
gence and indolence have failed to fence out of his family
quarters. Again we penetrate a region diversified with wooded,
fertile plains and rolling hills, whose heads are crowned with
the beech and maple and oak, always uttering such welcome
tidings of the goodness of the soil in which they have fastened
their roots. Sturdy and resolute men have claimed these acres,
and attacked these ancient forests. The resistence of the
timber to their encroachments, makes them willing to limit
their grasp to a few acres each, and these are tilled with intel-
tigent and persevering industry. A tasteful dwelling crowns
each rising knoll, and liberal barns and well-filled cribs pro-
claim that plenty dwells with the master of the premises. The
rolling hills subside; the forest vanishes; we stand upon the
prairie sea. As far as the eye can reach,-no mountain, no hill
intercepts the horizon; a limitless meadow stretches around us,
with its green undulations succeeding each other in the dim and
biue perspective, like the heaving storm-swell of the mighty
ocean. Here is no forest to oppose the greed of the unrefiect-
ing farmer. The excellence of the soil tempts his cupidity be-
yond the beunds of propriety, and the tillage due to a hundred
acres he wastes upon a thousand. His corn-fields are weedy
and dank; his wheat maintains an unequal conflict with the ab-

68

original vegetation. But munificent nature refuses to be shamed
by the failure which negligent farming deserves, and always re-
turns a praiseworthy crop. Yet, where nature bestows what
man has been too indolent or too imprudent to deserve, she
still inflicts retaliation, by allowing him to smother his energies,
to waste his stern and virtuous manhood, and forfeit the sweets
of enjoying the award of conscious desert.

Thus, man everywhere assumes the character moulded for him
by the uature of the soil on which he lives. Rocks and hills
create good water power, but indifferent crops. They turn the
wheel of the artizan, while they wash away the resource of the
farmer. The valley and the plain are the abode of agriculture,
because there nature has mixed her richest soils, and conserved
them for the uses of man. If the plain, albeit, be neglected by
nature, sterility reigns unchallenged, and the squalid, drivel-
ing, neryeless populations who content themselves with such
inhospitable acres, excite the pity of their fellows, while they
mirror the indigence of their fields.

Tf such isthe connection between man and the soil on which
he dwells, we are all concerned in the inquiries, whence comes
the soil? What are the soils on which our individuals and
public characters are growing? To what are they adapted?
Are they as good as could be desired? How shall we avail
ourselves of all their capabilities ?

As to the origin of soils and subsoils—this is purely a geo-
logical problem; and geology has solved it neatly and conclu-
sively. Ninety-five per cent. of all productive soils is. mineral
matter. This has had a geological history; its annals are as
ancient as those of the granite hills. You may take a grain of
the sand which glistens in your soil and contemplate it. Here
is a little worn translucent particle of quariz. You may crush
it under your foot, or cast it upon the earth, forever beyond the
hope of rediscovery. ‘This little particle of quartz existed as
you see it before Cesar conquered ihe Gauls—before the stone
imp ements were fashioned which we find among the most an-
cient of the “ Kjoekkenmedding” of Denmark or Sweden—

69

before Moses stood upon Mt. Sinai, or Adam fled from the eye
of offended justice. It has perhaps witnessed half of the rev-
ofutions which the material globe has undergone in the pro-
gress of its development. It has lain buried in the midst of
eubic yards of solid rock—it has been the sport of the ocean’s
surges, and danced to and fro for ages upon a shore that
has ceased to exist—it has bleached upon the land, bathed by
the tears of Heaven, and smiling when again the Heavens
smiled upon it. Its fellows, by whose side it lay for number-
less years are far away to the north, glued together in a flinty
mountain mass. . These innumerable grains of sand with which
it is keeping company are all strangers. They have met to-
gether only a few thousand years ago, and each is pining for
its familiar bedfellows.

There was a time when every atom of this shifting, mobile
sand was an element of the solid rock, The mighty agencies
which have moulded the world have struck them in fragments
from their parent masses, ground them between the mill-stones
of the ages, washed and assorted them in the sea, and strewn.
them over continents for man to dweil upon.

That which is now the surface of the earth has not always
been its surface. Continents and islands have expanded them-
selves to the warmth of the sun, which became afterwards the
bed of the sea. Soils which were clothed wit! the vege-
tation of a former age, have been sunken where a thousand
feet of ocean slime have accumulated upon them, which, in turn,
has been changed into a thousand feet of solid rock. Our vast-
coal measures are but fossil “swamp lands,’—the vegetable
debris of a buried age.

But no soil has ever existed upon the surface of our planet
at all comparable in utility with that which enwraps the conti-
nents during the passing age of man. As the era was draw-
ing nigh when the consummation of the Creator’s works was
to take place, some striking and unprecedented phenomena
occurred. For the use and enjoyment of the human race—at
once the culmination of organic perfection and the recipient

70

of super-organic intelligence—a soil was to be prepared that
should possess all conceivable adaptations and perfections.
The continent was finished, and seemed only to await the
advent of the superior being that was to possess it, and subdue
the bruie natures that had roamed upon it at will. But frost
was destined yet to exercise a reign of inexorable rigor, and
the sea was permitted once more to career over mountains and
plains that had seemed rescued from his sway. The elevations
of the polar regions occasioned cold which clothed all the
southward slopes with fields of ice. Asin the glaciers of the
Alps and Greenland, a gradual movement of these icy masses
resulted, as we believe, from the diurnal and annual variations
of temperature. The movement was necessarily southward.
The mighty load slid over hill and vale, and plowed the under
lying rocks, and heaped up masses of rubbish compused of
pebbles and sand and finer materials, which we now find
strewn from the Arctic Sea to the Ohio River. This mighty
power astonishes us, both with the magnitude of the rocky
masses which it has moved, and the unexpected distances
which they have traveled. Boulders weighing many tons have
been borne for hundreds of miles, A rounded mass of Jaspery
conglomerate on the University grounds at Ann Arbor, has
traveled from the northern shore of Lake Huron, though
weighing nearly seven tons. The mines of Lake Superior
have exported their native copper into southern Wisconsin and
Michigan, and even to the middle of Ohio and Ulinois. The
immense mass of the rubbish which we call “drift,” gives
evidence, in nearly every case, that it has been transported
toward the south. Its thickness sometimes amounts to three
hundred feet or more.

The reign of ice being past, a geological spring-time suc-
ceeded. The mountain glacier yielded to the soft influence of
the sun, and a thousand rills issued from the bosom of the ice,
to wend their way, in ever confluent and increasing streams to
the great Mexican gulf, which reached its long arm northward
to the mouth of the Ohio, to receive the limpid gifts. Concur

“1

rent with these phenomena, the land began to sink. Mile after
mile disappeared in the insatiate maw of the exultant sea till
America was no more, and superior intelligences mourned that
the great and beneficent work which they had watched for so ~
many ages, was engulphed in ruin at the moment when it
seemed to have reached its completion. Omni:cience felt no
such apprehension. Slowly the continent rose from its last
sea-burial. As the waters receded down the mountain slopes,
they lingered lovingly and dallied with the pebbles on the ever-
receding beach. The action of the waves, as they traveled
over the land, assorted the drift materials, and in every case
the lighter particles, last dropped by the waving strength of
the surges, remained upon the surface, and concealed tho
-coarser fragments from sight.

Thus was constituted the basis of our soils. No other soils
in the long history of the world have been founded upon a
preparation so vast and so complete. The great abundance of
superficial materials has caused the rocks to lie for the most
part several feet beneath the surface. The depth of this sub-
soil secures at least two important advantages. First, the
droughts of summer cannot dry out the soil, for capillary at-
traction continually replenishes it from below. Secondly, we
have an inexhaustible store of the saline constituents of soils,
which are perpetually drawn to the surface with the moisture
which rises in obedience to capillary action, and are deposited
at the surface, when that moisture escapesin vapor. And then
we should not overlook the benefits of that assorting action of
the waves which has left the finer constituents at the surface.
The slow recession of the sea might have caused a feeling of
impatience in the mind of a finite being, as its submergence
would have overwhelmed it in disappointment. But the very
deliberateness of the operation, is what secured the execution
of the omniscient purpose.

The face of the earth was naked and barren. Before the
reign of ice it had been clothed with verdure like that which
now adorns it under the same climatic conditions. I venture

1%

the assertion that the germs of that preglacial vegetation were
stored away in the masses of drift which overwhelmed it; and
that they retained their vitality unimpaired through all that
geological winter; and that when the regenerated continent
rose dripping from its last ablations, those germs yielded to
the sweet invitations of summer warmth, and came forth in the
‘form of herb and shrub and tree, as in the beginning. They
grew and flowered, and went to decay, and their successive
crops, mingling their remains with the surface sands, consti- —
tuted the soils which, in this age, yield a supply for all the
natural wants of man.

What we have said pertains to the history of soils in general
Our own soils are formed from the remains of rocks which im-
mediately underlie, or form the northern wall of our Peninsula
—the barrier which interposes between us and our Canadian
friends. Those constituents derived from the northern bar
riers have been uniformly distributed over the Peninsula; and
may be said to constitute the “constant quantity” in our soils.
Those constituents derived from the underlying rocks, or those
in the immediate neighborhood, introduce the variations, and
may be said to form the “variable quantities ” in our soils.

The constant quantity is silicoargillaceous. It is derived
from those ancient rocks in which silica and alumina form the
main constituents, with limited quantities of lime, alkalies, iron
and manganese. These substances—silica and alumina—are
practically insoluble in cold water, and never disappear under
immersion in it. By far the greatest proportion of a!l these is
silica. The finest particles of this substance are the ever
present companions of the particles of alumina—insomuch that
what is usually denominated pure clay, is more than four-fifths
silica, in a minute state of subdivision. The fine impalpa~-
ble portions of the constant quantity have been to a great ex-
tent sorted out from the arenaceous portions, and form beds
of clay—so called—sometimes occupying the surface, but gen-
erally deeply seated in the drift materials. The arenaceous
portions of the constant quantity fortunately overstrew the

Ts

entire surface, and prevent our soils from acquiring that adhe-
siveness so detrimental in highly argillaceous soils. These
sandy particles have been derived from quartzites, granites,
syenites and gneissoid rocks, still remaining in place in the
regions north and south of Lake Superior, and north of Lake
Huron.

The first thing worthy of notice in the soils of the Agricultural
Peninsula of Miehigan is the universal distribution of the “ drift’’
materials. We find very few naked patches of rock—few areas
with so thin a covering over the rock as to be in danger of dry-
ing out during the rainless periods of the summer months.
The States of Louisiana and Florida, alone, present so few
outcrops of the rocky basis of the land. Should it have hap-
pened that the geological structure concealed beneath this cloak
of drift presented any considerable complication, like that of
the mineral Peninsula, it would have been impossible to map it
out. Asitis, none of the area is lost to agriculture; nearly
every acre of the land can be made a cultivated field.

The three leading varieties of soils in Michigan, as elsowhere,
are arenaceous or sandy, argillaceous or clayey, and calcareous
orlimey. These varieties are created by the changing character
of the soil constituents which have a local origin. In the vi-
cinity of limestone the soil assumes a calcareous quality, from
the destruction of the limestone rock. In the vicinity of sand~
stone strata the soil becomes arenaceous, and in regions un-
derlaid by shales or slates, it assumes an argillaceous character.

These principles being established, it is obvious that when
we have learned the character of the rocks underlying a given
‘region, we have a clue to the nature of the overlying soil; and
consequently of its timber and agricultural adaptations. The dis-
tribution of the leading varieties of soil in the southern half of
the Peninsula, is well determined from observation, and is found
to corroborate the statement just made. The northern half of
the Peninsula is imperfectly known from direct observation.
The geology of the coast region is tolerably well ascertained,

10

t4

but that of the interioris mostly a matter of inference. Yet
where strata nave been so httle disturbed, as those of the Lower
Peninsula of Michigan, stratigraphical inferences may be re-
ceived with considerable confidence. I venture the assertion,
therefore, that Iam abie to set in my study and map out the
geographical limits of the leading varieties of soils in the north-
ern half of our Peninsula with greater precision than any of
our citizens have been able to acquire by direct observation.

The rocky substratum of the Peninsula, is extremely simple.
The highest layers of rock belong to the “coal measures,” and
occupy the central portion. The rocks belonging to the coal
measures, are of a mixed character, and consequently pro-
duce @ soil of little uniformity. Shales alternate with sand-
stones and limited beds of limestone. A considerable mass of
sandstone, which I have styled the “ Woodville sandstone,”
overlies the whole, and where it has not been denuded or
washed away, it gives predominance to an armaceous quality
of soil. In districts where this sandstone is destroyed, the
mass of underlying shale, develops a plastic, argillaceous soil.
This, in some instances, is dark colored, and in others, quite
light—varying, of course, with the color of the neighboring
shales. The soil and subsoil often contain streaks and frag-
ments of coaly, matter which, in all ordinary cases, imply an
outcrop, or approximate outcrop, of coal at no great distance
toward the north. The slight undulations of our strata bring
to the surface, at different points, beds of rock occupying dif-
ferent positions in the series, even without any variation in
topographical elevation. The coal measure soils are, therefore,
very irregularly distributed. As a group of soils, it may be re-
marked that they possess a limited supply of lime; while the
abundance of pyrites in the shales, introduces considerable sul-
phate of iron or copperas; and the presence of kidney iron ore
in the shales, and of iron-oxyd in the sandstones, introduces a
rusty stain in many patches of the soil.

Underneath the mass of coal measures is a bed of sandstone,
called the Parma standstone, whose edges are exposed in a belt

to

bas waraetent

around the borders of the coal area. It is the “ conglomerate”
ef Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the “millstone grit” of the
English geologists. It is the reservoir of the brine which sup-
plies the wells of Bay City and vicinity. It is well exposed in
the township of Parma, in Jackson county, and thence tends
northwest through parts of Haton, Barry, Ionia and Kent
counties; and by inference, we trace it through Newaygo,
Osceola, Roscommon and Ogemaw counties, to the north side
of Saginaw bay. From Sandstone township, it tends in the
opposite direction, east and northeast, through Washtenaw,
Genesee and Tuscola counties, to the south side of Saginaw
bay. This rock, as a whole, is the whitest and cleanest sand-
stone in the Lower Peninsula, and gives character to a gray,
_arenaceous soil, entirely destitute of adhesive properties, except
so far as they have been introduced by the argillaceous element
of the northern drift.

Immediately underlying the Parma sandstone, we find the
carboniferous limestone, which may be traced from Newaygo
county, through Grand Rapids and Bellevue, to the middle of
Jackson county; and thence bending northeast and north,
makes its appearance in Huron county, and forms the islands in
Saginaw bay. Of its northern curve, we know little, except
that it outcrops in the vicinity of Higgins and Houghton lakes,
in Roscommon county. This sheet of limestone is not more
than seventy feet in thickness, and does not play a conspicuous
part in the formation of our soils, except in the immediate vi-
cinity of its outcrops. Moreover, the lower portion of the for-
mation—especially on the eastern side of the State—is highly
arenaceous, and the entire mass abounds in nodules and layers
of chert or flint. Its contributions to the soil are consequently
‘of a calcareo-silicious character, and forms no well-marked
limits to the arenaceous soils of the Parma sandstone.

This limestone is superimposed upon the argillaceous strata
of the Michigan salt group—a formation which becomes
greatly attenuated in the southern part of the State, but
develops a thickness of 160 to 200 feet around its northern

76

curve. It is strongly marked in the western part of Kent
county, and thence to Muskegon and Oceana counties. Arch-
ing around through Crawford, it strikes the eastern shore of
Tawas Bay, where the geological survey disclosed the exist-
ence of an immense deposit of gypsum, rivaling that in the
same formation at Grand Rapids. In the southern portion of
the State the tenuity of the formation gives it an unimportant
place among the sources of our soils; but toward the north it
develops a plastic subsoil, and a surface somewhat rugged
from the unequal wearing of the pyritous and magnesian
bands of limestone with which the sbales are intersected.
Besides the immense beds of gypsum which this formation
contains, many of the shales themselves are gypsiferous; and
it is consequently to be presumed that the soils derived from
he formation are not wanting in the calcareous element.
Beneath this repose sandstones which give origin to the belt
of arenaceous and pine-covered soils stretching from the Au
Sauble, of Lake Huron, through Crawford and Kalkasca
counties, to the Manistee. On the south side of Saginaw Bay
they constitute the cliffs at Point aux Barques, and underlie
the ridge of land extending thence through Huron, Sanilac,
Oakland and Washtenaw, to Hillsdale county, whence the out-
crop tends through Calhoun and Allegan to Grand Haven.
These are the Napoleon and Marshall sandstones—the reser
voir of the brine which supplies the wells at East Saginaw and
vicinity. These sandstones are generally much stained with
oxyd of iron, though locally of a pale buff color—as at the
typical locality, Napoleon, in Jackson county. They impress @
positive character upon the soils of the region which they
underlie. The warm and porous soils of the northern part of
Lenawee county are derived from these strata—as well as
those of Oakland and Macomb on the one hand, and those of
Calhoun, K:nlamazoo, Allegan and Ottawa on the other. The
‘sandy and somewhat sterile belt of country reputed to exist in
the region regarded as overlying the northern trend of these
rocks has undoubtedly been misrepresented. The characters

di

discovered in the immediate vicinity of the lake shores have
erroneously been imagined to stretch across the State. Every
geological indication assigas to the country in question a soil
similar to that of Oakland and Hillsdale counties. The excep- :
tions are only of limited extent.

An immense deposit of argillaceous strata—called the Huron
group—rests still beneath the Marshall sandstone, embracing
the well known black slate of Thunder Bay and Kettle Point.
Tis northern irend is from Thunder Bay, through Otsego, An-
trim and Leelanaw counties. On the south it affords the char-
acteristic clayey soils of Allegan, Van Buren, Kalamazoo and
Branch, reaching even beyond the limits of the State, and
curving north again through Lenawee and Wayne. The typo-
graphy of this belt of country is level and moderately low.
The subsoil is always a bluish or blackish, or sometimes a
whitish plastic clay—often with disseminated pebbles—and
the soil, though generally with intermingled sand, is for the
most part tenacious, late to dry out, and quick to feel the effects
of dry weather. The abundance of kidney iron ore in the
shoals fill the soil with ferruginous matter, which after solu-
tion, enters into new arrangements in the form of bog ore, shot
ore and ochre. This is the only strictly argillaceous belt of the
State.

Lastly, we reach the limestone strata, which afford the only
well marked calacareous soils of the Peninsula. The carnif-
erous limestone occupies Monroe county, and passing thence
by two courses into Ohio and Canada, it reappears on the north
side of Thunder bay, and underlies all the region thence to
Mackinac. It forms the bulk of Mackinac, Bois Blane and
Round islands, as well as the Manitou islands of Lake Michi-
gan. It is immediately underlaid by the Onondaga and Niag-
ara limestones, the first of which belongs to the lowest salt
formation of the State—and which supplies the well at Port
Austin, in Huron county. ‘This series of limesienes presents a
mass of considerable thickness, and gives a marked character
to the soil of all the northern region of the Peninsula, and ae

78

the islands to the east and west of Mackinac, in the two lakes.
The soil of this northern limestone region is similar to that of
Ohio and Indiana, in the neighborhood of the line separating
the two States, and throughout the region stretching east to
Sandusky and Columbus. It is a dark, strong soil, and pro-
duces excellent crops, as I have been able to observe upon
Drummond’s and Bois Blane islands, as well as upon the main
land.

Of the physical characters of the three varieties of soils to
which I have thus far alluded, little needs to be said on this ©
occasion. The subject is treated in every text book of agricul-
ture. The arenaceous soil warms most rapidly under the solar
influence, and retains its heat the longest. The argillaceous soil
is lowest. in caloric susceptibilities. On the other hand, the last
is most retentive of moisture, and the arenaceous the least so.
At the same time the arenaceous soil suffers less from drought, ~
because, being so porous, it draws water—so to speak—from ©
the deeper portions of the subsoil. The arenaceous and calca-
reous soils are easiest to work, but they have the disadvantage
of being most easily washed away. Indeed the leaching of
arenaceous soils, where the surface is broken, renders it neces- —
sary to make more frequent application of restoratives than is
necessary in either a calcareous or argillaceous soil. An are-
naceous soil is best adapted to a climate subject to extreme
vicissitudes of wet and dryness. Itis also suited to northern
latitudes, from its power of receiving and retaining caloric. T
have seen corn averaging twelve inches in height in the north-
ern part of Lenawee county, on the same day that its mean
height on the stiffer soils of Washtenaw was but six inches.
For the same reason, crops are more forward at Bay City in
July than they are in Wayne.

Not more is necessary to be said of the agricultural adapta- —
tions and capabilities of these three leading varieties of soil.
It is well known that pine timber loves a silicious soil, while the
sugar-maple is particularly fond of a calcareous one, and the
beech and oak and hickory flourish upon both a calcareous and

79

an argillaceous one. Pine covered soils have a reputation for
barrenness. This, to some extent, is merited; but in many
cases, the stigma belongs to the stagnant water which broods
over an impervious subsoil. I have little doubt, as already in-
timated, that the pine covered belt, stretching across the Lower
Peninsula will, at some future day, present as strong attractions
for the farmer as the best lands of Shiawassee or Ingham.

In point of salubrity, it is supposed that arenaceous soils sur-
pass the calcareous. It has been observed that epidemics rage
most violently in districts supplied with strong limestone water.
This subject was investigated at the time of the last visitation
of cholera, and the suffering of Sandusky City is supposed to
afford an illustration of the proposition. In many portions of
Mississippi and Alabama, underlaid by cretaceous limestone,
the water obtained from wells excavated in it, is unfit for domes-
tic use, and cisterns are employed instead. Our old military
post at St. Stephens, on the Tombigbee river, was abandoned
in consequence of the insalubrity of the water afforded by the
tertiary limestone of the locality. It seems reasonable, how-
ever, to believe that the noxious qualities of certain limestone
waters do not establish an invariable rule. At Huntsville, in
Alabama, the city is supplied by a wonderful stream of pure
water, gushing out from a bed of limestone. Chemically speaking,
it cannot be doubted that streams percolating through arena-
ceous strata, imbibe fewer impurities than any others.

I have thus far spoken of soils which have their origin in the
general geological structure of the Peninsula. There are others,
of more limited distribution, which have had a more local origin.
The first to be mentioned are the “swamp lands.” ‘These gen-
erally possess a soil containing a surplus of vegetable matter in
a state of partial decomposition. There are indeed swampy
lands of an argillaceous character; and wet lands whose sur-
face soil is even sandy, as is the case with some spruce and
cedar covered soils already alluded to. Still, most of our
swamp lands are depositories of vegetable acids, and I shall
embrace in my account of them, all our accumulations of peat

80

and muck. All these beds are intimately connected with the
geological history of our Peninsula. They are the connecting
links between the present and the past.

I have already called to mind the grand events which accom-
panied the last great revolution of the globe. We have seen,
in imagination, the world emerging in a resurrection from its
grave of waters. The waves have glided down the shoulders
and sides of the continent until she sat with her feet only
bathing in the sea. But the surface of the land was covered
with inequalities, and thousands of little depressions he!d their
lakelets of water prisoners in their arms. So the land was at
first dotted with thousands of little inland seas. But the
clouds cast their burdens of fresh water upon land and sea,
and every little pool, raised to the brink of its bounding barri-
ers, poured its salt libations on the land, or sent them on their
journeys, over a thousand laughing rills and brooklets to the
mother sea. All save a few, some residual pools left by the
retreating ocean, were environed by walls so high that, with
all the reinforcements of the clouds, their waters could never —
scale them. They have never given out their brine—and to
this day, their saltness remains. Indeed, since precipitation,
in these later ages, has not kept pace with evaporation, these
inland cauldrons of brme have even become concentrated, and
in some cases have precipitated their salt upon the bottom.
These are our “salt lakes.”

But by far the greater portion of tinge residual seas found
passage-way to the wide ocean. From year to year unnum-
bered streams transported their saltness to the briny ocean,
while the clouds return< d them only fresh waters. As the result
of this unequal exchange, they lost their saltness, and became
lakes. How, let me'ask, did their stock of fresh water fishes
and molluscs come to take the place of the marine animals
which must have been entrapped at the epoch of tho receding
ocean? And how did it happen that the same species should
exist in a hundred different lakelets, separated by barriers im-
passable to aquatic breathers? These nutlets are dropped for

our mastication.

81

We follow the history of our lakelets. For ages they re-
ceived and swallowed up the leachings of the surrounding
hills, and their highly caleareous waters precipitated by de-
grees a bed of fine calcareous mud. To this were added the
dead shells of myriads of little molluscs that flourished upon
the lime held by the waters. The bottom of each lakelet be-
came a bed of marl But all around the margins of the lakelet
the grasses and sedges were vieing with each other in venturing
into the water. The amphibious rushes put them both. to
shame by raising their dirty heads straight through the slime
of the lakelet’s bottom. And there they stood—the rushes up
to their knees in water, and the sedges and grasses scarcely
over shoe. And every leaf and stem which fell upon the water
or found its way to the shore, became entangled in the herb-
age, and lay down and rotted there; and the rush, and the
sedge and grass, when November came, bowed their heads in
his presence, and wrapped themselves in the cerements that
had gathered around them. And thus a soft bed of vegetable
mould fringed the lakelet, and overlapped the deposit of marl
which was growing beneath the water. From year to year as
the water shallowed about the margins, encroaching vegetation
crowded further and further toward the centre of the lakelet.
T have not seen the beginning of this process; but at that pe-
riod of time in which I have been permitted to begin my obser-
vations, I find these changes in progress. The little herb stand-
ing by the water’s brink this year, dies and forms a deposit
exactly like that which was formed the year before my eyes or
any buman eyes detected the character of these vicissitudes;
and my logic compels me to reason from that which I have
seen to that which no man has seen. And so, I may add, of
the changes upon the ocean’s shore, until the facts of the pass-
ing world are made to illuminate the dark,and mysterious
chambers of the fossil realm. P

Reasoning thus, we are forced to the conviction that many
of the ancient lakelets have become completely filled. Others
are only half filled—others have had the work completed even

11

82

«within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.” What then re-
sults on the filling of the lakelet? A marsh—a bed of muck
or peat underlaid by a deposit of marl. But the progress is
not at an end even when the lake is filled. The surrounding
hills still continue to afford lime-yielding water which saturates
the muck and deposits its lime; while vegetation still pays its
annual tribute to the accumulating stores, till the solid material
becomes sufficient to exclude the excess of water. Man then
steps in, robs the soil of its marsh grass, and materially re-
tards the process of desiccation, unless he compensates for the
robbing by draining off the stagnant water.

Such is the origin of ourswamps. Their constitution is such |
that in agricultural wealth they exceed the most favored up-
lands. They are immense stores of vegetable nourishment for
which the barren hills are groaning. It is evident, however,
that for immediate use such soils have little value. They are
wet and sour-—two vices which can generally be reformed. For
the first, drainage and sunlight are the remedy; for the second
we must administer an antacid—a remedy most abundant in
nature’s pharmacopeeia; and in this instance brought literally
to our hands in the shape of marl. A further beneficial treat-
ment, as you all know, is to plow up the peaty soil, and leave
it exposed to the action of frosts and atmospheric air. But
this is not the occasion for the common places of agriculture.

There is another variety of soil, intimately related to the
peaty, both in its origin and its constitution. This is the up-
land prairie. This soil is characterized also by its abundance
of vegetable matter, existing however in a state of complete
decomposition, and being alredy in the form of plant food.
‘Prairie soils are the sediment of a greater lake which has
spread its waters over rolling regions capable of draining
themselves when_the waters receded. Our Peninsula contains
but little upland prairie, and that seems to be restricted to the
south-western portion of the State. Our prairies are mere ap-
pendages or outliers of the vast prairie region ‘of Hlinois. I
have elsewhere discussed the origin of the prairies, and have,

88

in this address, already alluded to the agencies concerned in
their formation. They are also connected with the last grand
cataclysm of the globe. At the time when a thousand little
lakes first began to nestle upon tbe undulating bosom of our
fair Peninsula, the great lakes-mgiants even at their birth—stood
a hundred feet higher than we behold them. We have the
proofs of this, but they belong to science. When Lake Mich-
-igan was twenty-seven feet higher than at present, its waters
flowed over the dividing ridge into the Des Plains and the Illi-
nois. When it stood one hundred feet above its present level,
it submerged the entire region now covered by the prairies—
except perhaps an occasional knoll which stood a grand island
in the midst of the waters. Lacustrine sediments accumulated
then as now—dark, slimy and abounding in the remains of
lacustrine shells. When, by the removal of barriers, or the
elevation of the land, the waters of the lakes were drawn off
to their present level, the lake bottom was left a naked, slimy
waste, exposed to those solar and atmospheric influences, which
develop the germs of vegetation wherever they exist, upon the
eravelly knolls of the drift materials, the seeds stored up
from the reign of ice sent forth herb and shrub and tree—if,
indeed, these were not all in possession of the soil while yet it
was an island in the lake. But where the great lake had rested,
the storehouse of seeds had become buried beneath a load of
lacustrine slime; and the appearance of vegetation had to await
the gradual introduction of seeds from without, through the
slow agency of birds and windsand waters. But none of these
_agencies would transport the heavier seeds; and hence the
grasses and other herbs first gained possession of the soil—and
having gained it,*they held it, aided, perhaps by the Indian,
against the encroachments of the forest. And that is the
reason why the prairies are treeless.

Still another condition of the terrestial surface, presents
itself to the eye of the student of physical revolutions. I refer
to the dune sands which border a considerable portion of the
great lakes, especially the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

84

These sands are washed up by the waves, from the rocky out-
crops in the bottom of the lake. The Marshall and Napoleon
sandstones already alluded to, undgrlie some of the eastern
portion of Lake Michigan, and-of course, constitute an abun-
dant source of shore sands; morever, the Huron group of

shales extends under two-thirds the length of that lake; and,
as all shales contain a large per centage of sand, these also, give

rise to an additional supply. Nor is this all: few limestones
are so pure as to supply, on solution, an inconsiderable amount
of silica; and we find, accordingly, that upon those shores of
Lakes Huron and Michigan, which are backed by a limestone
region, the sands are nevertheless abundant.

The action of storms throws these sands above the mean level
of the water, and when the calm succeeds, the sand dries,
and the prevailing winds impel the particles, by a kind of hop-
ping motion, toward the interior. This is especially the case
along the eastern shores of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay.
It is ascertained by careful observation, that the wind is unable
to raise the particles of sand over a barrier presenting a perpen-
dicular face; but where nothing prevents, it will roll them up an
inclined plané to an indefinite height. Consequently, the hills
of dry sand, soon accumulated, grow higher and higher; or the
materials of which they are composed, continually move for-
ward under the impulse of the winds, until gardens, fences,
farms and dwellings are buried beneath it, and a fertile re-
gion changed to an inhabitable desert. These sands, while in
a condition liable to be sifted by every wind, possess, of course,
no agricultural value. There are, however, certain grasses and
trees which will root in such a soil; and where land is scarce,
they may be made to return some compensation for the trouble
of planting and cultivation. I shall presently allude to this
subject in another connection.

Another point of view from which the soils of Michigan pre-
sent themselves to our consideration, is the influence of human
agencies upon them. Man possesses the power to leave the
impress of his energies upon the face of nature. To a certain

85

extent. he controls nature. Not only are the beasts of the wil-
derness and the trees of the forest subject to his dominion, but
inorganic matter is made to yield to his convenience or caprice.
His labors change the aspect of the globe; modify its climates;
temper or aggravate its storms;*and infect or disinfect the at-
mosphere of wide regions. Old rivers are made to flow in new
channels; and new rivers are led for hundreds of miles, wp hill
and down, in obedience to the behests of commerce. Takes
are drained, marshes are desiccated, the ocean is restrained in
his mad encroachments upon the shore, and populous lands are
transformed into voiceless wastes, by letting loose the pilgrim
sands upon a leeward coast.

The earliest and most pervading agency exerted by man in
the modification of the soils of the Peninsula, is the destruction
of the forests. Forests are the garments ‘of the soil. They
protect it equally from excessive cold and excessive heat. They
shelter the snows from the drifting power of the wind, and are
thus enabled to await the lapse of the rigorous season of winter,
with their feet wrapped in a fleecy blanket. Hvery autumn
they pay back to the soil, with interest, all that the soil has ex-
pended upon them. They fend off the burning rays of the
summer sun, and restrain the fervor of the atmosphere. They
shield the soil from evaporative influences, and maintain an
equable degree of humidity. On sloping surfaces they bind
together the soil, and resist the denudation of torrents.

All these conditions and results are changed when the forest
is removed. The sweeping blast of winter strikes the earth
with the fury of an invisible demon—drives off the natural
covering of the soil, and exposes the stems and roots of vege-
tation to an unwonted, and often insufferable trial. The cir-
cumstances of spring-time are changed. The soil feels every
slight fluctuation of temperature—treezing by night and thaw-
ing by day—instead of reposing in peaceful shelter under
its coat of snow till the advancing season is able to guarantee
a vegetative degree of warmth. And then, when summer
comes, the burning sun rapidly drinks up the moisture of the

86

soil, and the whole air becomes torrid and dry. Instead of a
regular humidity and gentle rains, the agency of man has sub-
stituted alternating thirst and floods. And on hill-slopes,
where the natural ligatures of the soil have been removed,
sudden torrents wash it away and score the earth with ugly
and even aggravated gorges and ravines. A most striking
example of the effects of clearing a fine and incoherent soil, is
seen in the rear of Vicksburg, where ever recurring torrents
have gnawed the hillsides into most unsightly shapes; and
whole plantations have been berne into the Big Black and the
Mississippi, to navigate their way to the Balize. Similar in
kind are the effects upon the gravelly hillsides of our own Penin-
sula. It is not cropping that deteriorates their soils so much
as the action of torrents in transporting the fine alluvial parti-
cles to lower levels. In the fine and friable soils of the Gulf
States, I have seen thousands of acres completely ruined by
precisely such an agency as is at work in Michigan, under the
disadvantage of a more gravelly and a more coherent soil.

Such results should be foreseen and provided against. It
should at least be required that all abandoned soils subject to
wash should be planted to trees, which will eventually restore
the surface to its primitive condition, and compensate, to some
extent, for the fearful destruction of the native forest which our
citizens are perpetually waging. If this matter is overlooked
we shall eventually reach the condition of some of the older
countries of _Europe—tields washed away—villages deserted—
population on the wane—and authorities anxious about the
diminishing revenues.

Next in importance among the agencies which man exerts in
modifying the soil, may be mentioned the systematic drainage
of swamps and lakes. The mere clearing of the forest and con-
sequent drying of the atmosphere must contribute greatly to
the promotion of these results. But ditching and pumping are
the direct means by which most is accomplished. It is almost
incredible what physical changes are produced in a soil by
simple ditchine—even where such ditch has no outlet. The

87

Swamp is transformed into an upland prairie. The aspect of
the vegetation is changed. The oxydation of the organic sub-
stances in the soil is rapidly completed, and that which was re-
fuse land becomes the garden of the estate. I need not dwell
here upon the utility of ditching, nor the changes which it in-
duces in the soil. There is one idea, however, in connection
with drainage, to which allusion may be made, and that is the
drainage of lakes. In not a few instances which I have ob-
served, the ditching which would drain a marsh occupying the
site of a lake, would equally drain the lake, and thus anticipate
the results of perhaps a hundred years of geological progress.
When our poptwlation becomes more dense, and land propor-
tionally enhanced in value, enterprise will not permit the thou-
sands of little lakelets to nestle undisturbed upon the richest
soils of the State. It has been estimated that there are in the
Southern third of our Peninsula 1,425 of these lakelets, cover-
ing 228,000 acres of the surface. Some of the enterprise, and
some of the urgency, which undertook the drainage of Haarlem
lake by steam pumps, will eventually be brought to bear in
some of our Michigan lakes. The lake of Haarlem was a body
of water fifteen miles in length and seven miles wide, and cov-
ered an area of 45,000 acres, and was exhausted by the action
of three of the most powerful steam pumps ever constructed,
working continuously for five years. It is not imagined that
any such costly methods of drainage will ever be feasible in the.
United States; but it is apparent that if the Netherlands could
engage in drainage on such a scale, Michigan might find it an.
object to diminish somewhat the 600,000 acres of water surface
formed by our small lakes, if it can be done by the digging of
a few ditches. The whole prairie region of Dlinois, it will be
remembered, is but the bottom of an ancient lake, and the fertile
valley of the lower Mississippi possesses a soil of a similar sed-
imentary character.

A striking example of the results of human agency is seen
in the growth and movement of the dunes; and there are few
cases in which the reparative interference of human power is

88

more urgently or more immediately demanded. Just at pres-
ent, little inconvenience is felt from the encroachments of the
moving sands; but the evil is in its infancy; and if not pro-
vided against, will reduce to barrenness thousands of acres of
the finest lands lying along the western border of the Penin-
sula. The moveable dunes are the creation of civilization.
While the forests stood, the winds were deprived of the power
to drift the sands far beyond the immediate coast line. They
both sheltered the soil and bound it with their roots. The
destruction of the forest opened a broad highway for the
travels of the sand. Already we see the dunes encroaching
seriously upon the most costly improvements; and the time is
coming when their march will force itself upon our earnest
attention.

The history and present condition of Western Europe
teaches us the tendency of the physical conditions existing
upon a dune-producing coast. In Denmark and the adjacent
Duchies, in Western Prussia, in the Netherlands and in
France, the encroachments of the dunes haye for years excited
the most serious alarm; and the most energetic measures have
been adopted in all these countries to check,the progress of
the invasion, and as far as possible, repair its devastations.
The fixation of the drifting sands, like the protection and
restoration of the forests, has been taken in charge by the
governments of these countries; systematic experiments have
been instituted; scientific commissions and standing bureaus
have been charged with the duty of devising means to combat
this enemy of the soil; and an abundant special literature has
sprung into existence as the result of these public and private
efforts. It is not our purpose to recapitulate, at the present
time, the amount of destruction caused by the dunes of West-
ern Europe, nor the measures that have been adopted for their
fixation. Having directed attention to the subject, I shall
leave it, with two or three additional remarks. The progress
of the dunes, though slow—amounting in Denmark to only
thirteen and one-half feet a year—is a steady and certain pro-

89

gress; and in the course of years, has resulted in the inunda-
tion of hundreds of thousands of acres of soil. The principal
means relied on in Europe for the fixation of the sands is the
planting of them with certain grasses and trees adapted to the
situation. A favorite grass is Arundo arenana—a species which
already flourishes spontaneously on the sandy beaches of our
great lakes. When the sands have been partially fixed by the
grass, the dunes may be planted with trees. In the cold cli-
mate of Denmark, the hardy pines, as well as the birch and
other northern trees, are found to flourish well, and to yield
some profit. So far as we can judge, the pitch pine, often but
improperly styled the “ Norway pine, (Pinus resinosa,) would
flourish well.in our State upon the dunes, as well as some of
our oaks, birches and poplars, and especially the common
locust. Some recent developments, however, prove that the
very best tree for binding dune sands, and one at the same
time extremely tolerant of heat and cold, dryness and mois-
ture, is the Japan Varnish Tree—Atlanthus glandulosa. The
planting of this tree upon some of our dunes, in connection
with the Arundo arenana, is an experiment well worth the trial.

We come now to contemplate the soil of our adopted State
in another light. If I indulge a little of that feeling of com-
placence with which Americans have been reproached, you will
be predisposed to pardon it. I say it intelligently—-I say it
with emphasis—ours is a State in which to be content—a State
of which we may boast. I have traveled over the length and
breadth of our country, from British America to the Gulf, and
from beyond the Mississippi to Cape Cod. I have sojourned
in nearly half the States of the Union; and yet I never return
to our Peninsula State-—-the Demark of America—without
feeling prompted to utter the exclamation “Michigan, my
Michigan!” With a climate infinately more bracing than that
which debilitates the swarthy and bilious son of the South, it
is yet more temperate than that of other States upon the same
parallels. Our soils afford us every variety of crops which

12

90

flourish in the temperate zone. There is no State which yields
better returns of the cereals; and maize is almost equally sure.
In regard to fruits it would seem as if Pomona herself had
selected Michigan for her chosen abode. I am proud to travel
over the north-west and hear the acknowledgment made that
for their fine apples they are indebted to Michigan. The same
is true of strawberries and other smaller fruits. Behold how
nature herself has selected Michigan as the field for the per-
fection of some of her wild fruits. The raspberry of Mich-
igan enjoys a fame wider than the Continent; and half of the
north-west is supplied with our huckleberries and cranberries.
And speaking of wild fruits, in the culture of which nature bas
led the way and set us the example, it certainly is meet that we
give due consideration to the nuts of the hickory, black-walnut
and butternut. Of all the nuts produced in America, the
chestnut and pecan alone, are wanting in Michigan, and the
former even, is not entirely unknown. The grape has not yet
become a staple article of production; but where the peach will
flourish the vine may be successfully reared. Next, in regard
to pasturage and hay, I believe no other State can come into
competition—other States may export more, and may even pro-
duce more; but let it be remembered that the greater part of
our State is still under the shade of “the forest primeval.” Our
stock is unsurpassed. Our horses, I am pleased to learn, are
in prime request among cavalry officers. And, as a wool-pro-
ducing State—a character depending on the qualities of the
soil—Michigan stands high, with a fair prospect of soon stand-
ing preéminent. In the production of maple sugar, moreover,
bounteous nature has furnished us with a resource which makes
us comparatively independent of cane growing regions.

Unite these qualities of the soil which reward our labor with
so abundant a fruitage, with the possession of all that mineral
wealth which science and capital have brought to light, anc
which we have good evidence lies still undiscovered, and where
is the State that can present equal attractions for capital or for
labor? But, though foreign from my subject, I will take the

91

liberty to say that our educational institutions are the crowning
glory of our State—the creation of the people who own and til)
the soii—the product of the wisdom and sagacity of those able
legislators who have passed, or are rapidly passing from the
stage of active life. It is generally admitted, and cannot,
therefore, be regarded as invidious, to state that our system of
education is superior in its plan, and especially in its workings,
to that of any other western State. Our schools are superior
even to those of New England—if we except a few in the larger
eastern cities. It is a matter of personal observation with me,
that we exact better qualifications in our primary and Union
school teachers than are required in Connecticut and most
parts of New England and New York. New England teachers
make many failures in Michigan. Iam sure you will pardon
me if I give public utterance to a sentiment which is in every
heart, that a great degree of the success which our educational
system has achieved, in its actual working, is due to the effi-
ciency of the Normal School, and the faithful and enlightened
labors of that public officer who has been at the head of the
system during the past six years.

But I have not yet said all. This exuberant soil—this mate-
rial wealth—these wise laws and excellent institutions impress a
character upon our population. Michigan is not the asylum for
indolence and vice. Those only are tempted within her borders
who can bring honesty and industry along with them. Such
labor, and are rewarded. They acquire honest wealth, and
are content. Thisis no boast. The fact was unsuspected by
me, until travel and observation forced it upon my attention.
How do Michigan soldiers compare in physical, moral and
mental character, with those of other States? I am happy to
have some direct testimony on the subject from high authority.
Major General Butterfield declared to me, last winter, of his
own accord, that no State, save Massachusetts, sent to the field
such men as Michigan. I have the same testimony from Gen-
eral Slocum and numerous inferior officers. Straws will show
the moral status and breeding of a people, as well as the direc-

tion ol the wind, {Dinu tod iNnaana are blessed with a milder
climate than Michigan, and the prairies of the former, have
caused her to be styled the garden of the west. But who can
travel by the public conveyances in those States, without being
struck by the difference in the regulations required to secure
propriety of conduct among the passengers? On our Michigan
roads, ladies and gentlemen universally occupy the same cars;
and no lover of the cigar thinks of puffing his smoke in the
face of fifty fellow passengers. But in the States referred to.
all this is changed. Istep to the door of a car and propose to
enter, but a low bred employé pushes me back, with the re-
mark, “ Ladies’ Car.” Some dirty Bridget, with her bundle, fol-
lows me, and the door flies open. Igo away convinced more than
ever, that “there is no accounting for tastes,” and find a seat in
the midst of tobacco smoke and its kindred filth, without ever
being able to ascertain why I am not entitled to as pure air and
as clean a floor as Bridget. In Michigan the soldier rides in the
same car with other people—ladies as well as gentlemen. In
Tllinois, he is not only thrust out of the “ladies’ car,” but the
gentlemen’s car also. He is demoralized—if not demoralized
before—by this sentence passed upon his respectability. It is
greatly to be feared, however, that there is a measure of justice
in the sentence. These are small things, but they are indexes
of public and private character.

T return again to my adopted State, and exclaim with greater
unction than ever, “ Michigan, my Michigan!” Here certainly
is a title to the honorable appellation “the garden of the
West.” A garden is constituted by a variety of crops growing
upon a good soil well tilled. What State can prefer a claim
paramount to ours? I insist upon it that our Peninsula is
the garden of the West. It produces the greatest variety of
crops, cultivated by the greatest amount and variety of intelli-
gent labor, and exports its products to the farming regions of
surrounding States. But why has not this title to preéminence
been recognized? Ohio and Indiana, and more especially the
bald and dreary prairies of Illinois have been preferred,

93

while Michigan has been reproached as the land of swamps,
lying far away to the north, where ague sat brooding over a
nest of human ills on every quarter section. Even Wisconsin
and Minnesota attract the foreign emigrant beyond the

3

“pleasant Peninsula;’ and we stand by, permitting them to
pass, as if it were the ordination of heaven. I assure you that
this is all wrong, and it is all needless. Let our resources be
what they may, they are valueless without labor. What we
most want is men. In the truly practical language of the
Governor, in his message, “ we must have setilers.” Our beau-
tiful State, which has already taken so high a position amongst
her sisters, and has sent over 80,000 brave volunteers to the
army, is still, in the main, a wilderness. Let us have settlers
to fell the forest and develop the soil, and we shall soon occupy
the very first rank in all that constitutes a great and prosper-
ous State. We must lend a helping hand to every judicious
effort to open the interior to travel, and connect it with the
business marts. We positively need two or three railroads
through the northern wilderness. Especially do we need a
road connecting the Saginaw Valley with the Grand Traverse
basin, and and another running through Mackinac and con-
necting with the Grand Trunk road on the east, and a North-
ern Pacific road on the west. Still more do we need to adopt
a more enlightened policy in lending public aid to the develop-
ment of our resources, and in publishing to the world more
abundant information in reference to our topography, soils and
other material resources. Again I am glad to be in unison
with the Governor in his late message, as well as my esteemed
predecessor, who addressed you on Tuesday evening, and
entered more at length upon specific recommendations. No
investment has ever paid the State better than the half-finished
surveys she has made of her natural resources. Let them be
completed. Let the truth only be known, and widely known,
and we shall see men flocking to our borders from the four
quarters of the world. Numbers and accumulated wealth will

94

yield us additional power and consequence, and our prosper-
ity will multiply in an increasing ratio.

it must be confessed that a litle want of public spirit and
private enterprise manifests itself among our citizens. The
government itself, save in our earlier history, has been emi-
nently conservative. Our own dullness has left open the door
for foreign and non-resident adventurers; and they are to-day
reaping harvests which more enlightened statesmanship and
more private enterprise would have secured to our own citizens.
I speak with knowledge of what I say, when I allude to the op-
portunities already sacrificed to the stupid genius of conserva-
tism, and notify you that non-residents are coining millions
from your domain, and bearing it out of the State. Let this
reproach cease to exist. If we are true to our own interests,
we shall attract the admiration of the world, not less by our
business sagacity and broad based public spirit, than by the
wisdom of our laws, the genius of our institutions, the wealth
of our mineral resources, and the unsurpassed excellence of our
soils. ;

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jan. 6, 1855.

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