348 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Ill the matter of oats the excess was still greater, the weights ranging from 

 thirty to forty pounds per bushel. 



These are the facts. Our llelds yield abundantly of grain and vegetables. 

 and pasturage furnishes the best of feed for stock, with pure water easily ob- 

 tained. This condition is produced by a salubrious climate, a summer whose 

 sun does not beat througii an atmosphere robbed of all moisture, but one 

 whose humid air is continually fed from the bosom of the benelicent lakes. A 

 winter whose coming is delayed until after the harvest is home, and whose se- 

 Ycrity is ameliorated by the kindly offices of the inland seas on either hand. 



SECOND EVENING SESSION. 

 Hon. Albert Miller, of Bay City, read the following paper on the 



PAST AND PROBABLE FUTURE OP THE SAGINAW MARSHES FROM PERSO]!fAL 



OBSERVATION. 



I can convey as correct an impression of the changes that have taken place 

 in the condition of the Saginaw marshes during the last half century, and the 

 efforts that have been made to utilize them, by relating facts and incidents 

 which have come within my knowledge, as by any other method. My personal 

 knowledge of the Saginaw country commenced in the fall of 1831. Then the 

 Saginaw river rolled between well defined banks, and the creeks and bayous 

 were confined within much narrower limits than at the present time ; and from 

 observation and information derived from Indians, and others who had pre- 

 viously known the country, I am satisfied that there had been a much lower 

 stage of water in the Saginaw river and bay during the half century next pre- 

 ceding the time above referred to, tlian there has since that time. At that 

 date tliere stood on the bank of the river below Carrollton, some very large apple 

 trees that must have had fifty or sixty years' growth, tliat were destroyed by 

 water more than forty years ago. In the first grove of timber on the prairie 

 which the railroad passes north of East Saginaw there stood a green pine tree 

 two feet in diameter, and mucli of the timber then growing in that grove was 

 beech, maple, and white oak, all of which has long since disappeared. The grove 

 of timber still f urtiier north (which is within the embankment I shall hereafter 

 mention) was called Pine Island on account of the predominance of pine tim- 

 ber. In the early years of my residence at Saginaw the Indians raised corn on 

 Crow Island and on a small island near the junction of the Shiawassee and 

 Tittabawassee rivers, and on otiier lands knoNvn to the present inhabitants as 

 only low and worthless. In 1833, on the 20th day of March, Judge Jewitt, 

 late of Saginaw, and I commenced to plow on G''cen Point, and with one plow 

 we broke up tliirty acres of prairie land, all of which we planted with corn that 

 season. We had no reason to complain of the growth of our crop, but it being 

 the only field in the country it hardly sufficed to feed the millions of black 

 birds tliat preyed upon it; sometimes darkening the sky in their fiiglit to and 

 from the field. After the corn was in the milk, we spent our time in the field 

 with horns, bells, and guns, in the vain endeavor to protect our crop; in the 

 fall we gathered off the butts of the ears sufficient to fatten forty-seven hun- 

 dred weight of pork. 



