FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 387 



mavslies by their being thinly covered with ii sward of grass, by walking on 

 Aviiich evinced the existence of water or a very thin mud immediately under 

 tiieir covering, whicli sinks from six to eighteen inches from the pressure of 

 the foot at every step and at the same time rising before and behind the person 

 passing over. The margins of many of the lakes and streams are in a similar 

 situation, and in many places literally afloat. On approaching the eastern 

 part of the military lands towards the private claims on the straits and lake, 

 the country does not contain so many swamps and lakes, but the extreme 

 sterility and barrenness of the soil continues the same. Taking the country 

 altogether, so far as has been explored, and to all appearances, together with 

 the information received concerning the balance, it is so bad there would not be 

 more than one acre out of one hundred, if there would be one out of one 

 thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation." 



From the number of jiersons who, from that day down to the present hour, 

 have continued to decry Michigan in whole or in part, we conclude that the 

 surveyor-general of Ohio had a large family ! Even if some fertile tract could 

 be found amid this '^ extreme sterility and barrenness," according to their 

 gloomy prophecy, the swift-footed Indian, or sure-footed disease would soon 

 exterminate the daring intruder. Fifty-three years ago my father, with his 

 young family, left the banks of the Delaware to seek a home on the banks of 

 the Raisin in far-off Michigan. As we turned our faces towards the setting 

 sun, our friends regarded it as the sun-set of hope and life for us; they bade 

 "farewell, — everlasting farewell to the family doomed to extinction in the sav- 

 age wilds of the Michigan !" 



But as settlers poured into our new territory they were both surprised and 

 delighted to find, instead of sterile sand-hills and impassable bogs, a region 

 of wonderful beauty and fertility; thus one zone of counties after another was 

 taken from the supposed dominion of chimeras dire, and pronounced to be 

 "the best farm lands upon which the sun ever shone." The defamers of 

 Michigan, while conceding their mistake about these counties, only the more 

 stoutly asserted that the rest of the State was unfit for agriculture. Their old 

 rallying cry was "impenetrable swamps," "sterile sand-hills;" their mod- 

 ern slogan is "pine barrens," — "lumber country unfit for farming." I do 

 not suppose that the defamers of our State were moved by malice in making 

 such wild assertions ; theirs was the sin of ignorance, to be winked at, albeit 

 the wink may press out a tear. But who shall say how many persons by such 

 ignorant assertion and reckless statement have been deterred from making 

 their home in the best State in our union? It was sin that drove the first pair 

 from the primal Eden, but ignorance has barred out thousands of their chil- 

 dren from many an earthly paradise. 



IVhen we cast our eyes upon the map of our country we are struck with the 

 unirpie position which our peninsula occupies in comparison with other lands 

 lying in the same latitude, — Canada on the east and Wisconsin and Minnesota 

 on the west. AV'e mark how nature hugs with her protecting arm of water the 

 beautiful peninsula, and pours out tliese vast "unsalted seas" a rampart 

 against the cold. Some of this protection is felt in the southern counties, but 

 the fullness of its blessing is reserved for the northern counties, which nature 

 holds in the hollow of her sheltering hand. If other lands lying in the same 

 latitude, but without this singular protection of water, are fitted for the pros- 

 perous pursuit of agriculture, how much more tiie crown of the peninsula ! 

 Its geographical position and surroundings point it out as eminently fitted for 

 productive industry, while its easily available water-carriage will save it from 



