386 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



LECTURES GIVEN AT MORE THAN ONE INSTITUTE. 



AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES OF THE SOILS OF THE NORTHERN 

 COUNTIES OF THE LOWER PENINSULA. 



BY E. C. KEDZIE. 

 [A lecture delivered at the Farmers' Institutes at DoTvagiac and Bay City.] 



No State in our union lias suffered more in reputation by reason of false 

 statements and ignorant representations than Michigan. At the time of its 

 earliest settlement, to the popular apprehension the far off and unknown 

 Michigan was only, and would forever remain, the home of the stealthy wolf, 

 the cruel Indian, and deadly disease. For the Avhite man it was uninhabited 

 and uninhahitable. In a report made to a religious body in regard to the 

 feasibility of establishing missionary stations in order to christianize this 

 heathen wild, it was stated that the project was impracticable, "because only 

 a narrow strip along the border of the territory was inhabitable, the interior 

 being a vast and impenetrable swamp.'' 



In his admirable address at the laying of the corner stone of the new capi- 

 tol, Hon. W. A. Howard made the following extract from the report of the 

 surveyor-general of Ohio, bearing date November 30, 1815, ''The country on 

 the Indian boundary line, from the mouth of the great Auglaize lliver, and 

 running thence for about fifty miles, is (with few exceptions) low, wet land, 

 with a very thick growth of underbrush, intermixed with very bad marshes, 

 but generally very heavily timbered with beech, Cottonwood, oak, etc. ; thence 

 continuing north and extending from the Indian boundary eastward, the num- 

 ber and exLentof the swamps increases with the addition of numbers of lakes 

 from twenty chains to two or three miles across. Many of the lakes have 

 extensive marshes adjoining their margins, sometimes thickly covered with a 

 species of pine called tamarack, and other places covered with a coarse, high 

 grass and uniformly covered from six inches to three feet (and more at times) 

 with water. The margins of these lakes are not the only places where swamps 

 are found, for they are interspersed throughout the whole country, and tilled 

 with water, as above stated, and varying in extent. The intermediate space 

 between the swamps and lakes, wliichis probably near one half of the country, 

 is with a very few excei^tions a poor, barren sandy land on which scarcely any 

 vegetation grows, except very small scrubby oaks. In many places that part 

 which may be called dry land, is composed of little short sand hills, forming 

 a kind of deep basins, the bottoms of many of which are composed of 

 marsh similar to the above described. The streams are generally narrow and 

 very deep, compared with their width, the sliores and bottoms of which are 

 (with a very few exceptions) swaini)y beyond description; and it is witli the 

 utmost dilliculty that a place can be found over wiiich horses can be conveyed. 



"A circumstance peculiar to that country is exiiibited in many of the 



