GRAYLING INSTITUTE. 303 



grown on the land. The wheat was manured somewhat and yielded twenty 

 bushels per acre. 



Dr. Miles : The scrub oak has been spoken of to-day as a red oak. That 

 is not quite correct, as the red oak is a large tree. The proper name of the 

 scrub oak is, I think, scarlet oak. 



Dr. Beal: I agree with you that what is here called scrub oak is the scarlet 

 oak. 



Mr. Johnson: I think I have the poorest land in the county, poorer than 

 Mr. Head's. I bear him out in his statement that jack pine lands are poor 

 lands. My land is entirely jack pine land, and the jack pine is pretty poor 

 at that, it don't grow very large. My first crop was poorest, my second crop 

 was better than the first (I think it was a better season) and my third crop 

 was poor. I have not cropped it since to see whether it would be better; 

 didn't think there was any use. I thought perhaps I had got all there was 

 in it and left it there. It would catch the grass even then. 



Mr. Webber : Will these gentlemen please state whether they refer to 

 winter or spring wheat. 



Mr, Love : Mine was winter wheat. 



Mr. J. G. Marsh : I meant to have said my wheat was winter wheat. 



Regarding the depth of soil here on the plains, it is from forty to eighty 

 feet to water. 



Mr. Thomas Lound then presented the following paper: 



ROOT CROPS IN" CRAWFORD COUNTY. 



The idea seetns to have gone abroad that the plains lands of Northern 

 Michigan are a barren waste of sand susceptible of raising nothing but snow 

 storms and pme logs in winter, and drifing sands interspersed with mosquitos 

 and flies in summer, with an occasional deer or bear thrown in. The speci- 

 mens of our products exhibited here tonight prove these ideas to be erroneous. 



While we are all willing to admit that we are subject to the drawbacks 

 incident to a new country, yet these are no greater here than elsewhere. To 

 further prove this claim I will give you an experience of eight years in raising 

 roots on the plains of Crawford county. 



I understand the term root crops to include potatoes, beets, carrots, ruta- 

 bagas and turnips. 



Commencing with potatoes. In the spring of '78 on new breaking I plowed 

 the first part of May and planted during the same month in rows to cultivate. 

 After plowing, the ground was thoroughly dragged and prepared as if it had 

 been old ground. The crop was cultivated during the growing season. 

 This way of planting and cultivating did not suit my ideas. The seed was 

 not deep enough and the potatoes were more inclined to grow small ones up 

 on the vine than large ones down in the ground, and I think that cultivating 

 after rains increased this tendency. My crop was about 35 or 40 bushels to 

 the acre. 



In the spring of '80 we tried plowing them under on new ground, that is, 

 we dropped the seed in every third furrow, about two feet apart, after plow- 

 ing, giving a thorough dragging and no other cultivation. The result was a 

 little over fifty bushels to the acre. This finished my plowing under potatoes 

 on new ground. Those planted the same season on second plowing without 

 any manure whatever, three feet apart each way, and cultivated both ways, 

 yielded on half an acre 38 bushels of good marketable potatoes. 



