278 STATE BOARD OF AGllICULTUllE. 



will we in a few years be able to supply all local demands for agricultural 

 products and have a surplus for exportation. 



THE FUTUKE. 



And now, what of the future? In what I may say under this head I must 

 be understood as speaking of intelligent fanning, which, while each farmer 

 may not i)roduce all his land is capable of producing, yet on the whole will 

 give us a high average. Wiiile we have seen that the soil is rich and produc- 

 tive, that the whole region is watered by lakes, rivers and springs of the purest 

 water, that farms may be cleared up and become profitable to their owners, 

 yet to have all this we must have good farmers, and judging from the past and 

 the present, I have no doubt but that this territory will continue to be settled, 

 owned and possessed by intelligent, industrious jieople. Keeping this in mind, 

 we must look to some of the older agricultural counties for the facts upon 

 which our prophecies shall be based. 



In the iiew counties the average size of farms is larger than the older, while 

 some of the oldest also seem to be above the general average. This, to my 

 mind, is easily accounted for. In the new counties land is cheap and large 

 tracts are purchased. As the county becomes developed high prices are offered 

 for lands, coupled with the belief that smaller farms are in the main more 

 profitable, besides affording or being the means of affording other advantages, 

 the size is reduced. In the oldest counties, as farmers become wealthy they 

 purchase the smaller places of their neighbors, who desire to seek for pastures 

 new, thus increasing the size of their farms and reducing the population. 



In Berrien county farms average 75 acres, Calhoun 103, Eaton 77, Genesee 

 84, Kent 81, Lenawee 80, and Saginaw, I believe, not quite 79. If we take 80 

 acres as the average this would give ns eight farms to the section, 288 to the 

 township and 1,G08 to the county. That eighty-eight families in a township, 

 owning the lands they cultivate, is better than though the lands were owned by 

 one or two individuals, even although the same number of men were employed 

 to cultivate the soil, is apparent to all. Small farms when carried on by the 

 owner are better cultivated, the highways are more in number and better, 

 schools are built within the reach of all, churches are erected, besides other 

 advantages, so that we have wealth, intelligence and Christianity more generally 

 and equally distributed with all the civilizing influences that follow in their 

 paths, and certainly a more independent and more American class of people. 

 God pity the poor man and his family who seek a home in a country where 

 large tracts of land are owned by individuals for stock or farming purposes. 

 May small farms ever be the rule in Michigan. 



The population of an agricuUural county is about thirty thousand. In the 

 territory I have described there are seventeen counties, which would give us a 

 population of 510,000. We have in the cities and villages on this river to-day 

 a population of 60,000, which we may safely assume will be increased to 150,000 

 at least as the country is developed agriculturally. This would give us a total 

 population of nearly seven hundred thousand. I think I might safely say that 

 we will yet have one million residing upon this territory. I shall speak, how- 

 ever, of the smaller number. 



It appears that the number of acres devoted to wheat in very many town- 

 ships in this State run anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 and upwards. Take an 

 average of say 4,000 acres in each township to wheat, which would be about 

 fourteen acres to each eighty-acre farm, and allow a yield of twenty-five bush- 



