302 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Mr. Love: I agree with the gentleman. Plow the last of June or the first 

 of July when the grasses are full of juice. I would rather pay for having it 

 done then than to have it done for nothing in the fall. 



Mr. W. C. Johnson : Why is our wheat crop on the pine plains usually 

 injured in the spring? Most of it looks well in the fall and goes under the 

 snow looking well, but after that it seems to be tender. 



Mr. William Metcalf : I have been farming on the plains here six years 

 and have had reasonable success. I came to Michigan about 50 years ago 

 and commenced farming near Ann Arbor on the white oak openings there; 

 and am not so much discouraged with the barrenness of the plains as I would 

 have been if I hadn't lived there. Around Ann Arbor, 50 years ago, we could 

 not raise as good average crops as we can here on the plains. I remember 

 when we got eight bushels of wheat to the acre there we thought it was a good 

 crop. The ground was all light oak openings and the same woods and the 

 same ferns that grow here flourished there. 1 have raised all kinds of grain 

 and I have always exceeded the State average. I broke a piece of land in 

 June and July, three years ago, for the first crop and sowed to wheat and it 

 produced 16 bushels to the acre. It was turned over next year and planted 

 to corn; it brought an average of about 60 bushels of ears to the acre. I 

 planted an acre of it last year to potatoes and that produced 200 bushels. My 

 average of wheat all through on new breaking is seldom much less than 15 

 bushels to an acre. As far as the lands deteriorating and growing poorer it 

 is not so in my experience. My laud grows better and the crops grow better; 

 the longer I farm it the better my crops are. I had splendid grain last year, 

 good wheat, good oats, good crops as anybody anywhere in the State of 

 Michigan. 1 live three miles east of Cheney, in Center Plains township. 

 The soil is better than the average plains; it was originally timbered, I 

 think, with Norway ; there is some jack pine on it but not much, and what 

 jack pine was on it was large, no small jack pine but good large timber ; 

 that is all I ever saw. I never saw any grow to exceed 12 or 15 inches. There 

 is clay on the surface in spots, but such spots do not seem to be any more 

 productive than the sand ; in fact, for the first crop, not as good ; though 

 they may be a little better after a few years. 



Dr. Miles: How is the sub-soil? 



Mr. Metcalf : Nearly all of it has a clay sub-soil down to the depth of six- 

 teen or eighteen inches and where there is no clay there is a kind of hard pan, or 

 some soil harder than clay; you can hardly dig it or do anything with it, it 

 appears to be welded together so you can hardly get through it. 



Mr. Willits: Is that a characteristic of the plains lands generally? 



Mr. Metcalf : I think not. The most of the plains laud has very little 

 hard soil under it. On the high lands this sub-soil predominates and they are 

 the best lands that we have. I think that I have got the best land in the 

 country. 



Mr. Eeynolds: Are your high lands jack pine lands, generally? 



Mr. Metcalf : No, the timber is Norway, mixed with white pine — big white 

 pine. 



Mr. Head: I have a genuine plains farm. I think it is the poorest in 

 Crawford county. There isn't a thing on it but sand and there isn't a thing 

 under it but sand for seventy feet. I plowed up a cow yard of half an acre 

 and planted it to corn, followed the corn with wheat sowed Sept. 14th, and 

 from the half acre got eighteen bushels of wheat. I had, besides, three acres 

 and a half of wheat following potatoes, they having been the first crop ever 



