318 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



tion, or climatic condition which forbids their successful cultivation, then in 

 mercy to any and all who propose to make a home in such inhospitable wilds, 

 such facts should be known, clearly and unmistakably. Concealment would 

 be cruel. Be the conditions what they may, hopeful or hopeless, the public 

 have a right to know the exact facts in the case. 



In order to bring out the facts in the case a careful, impartial and extended 

 investigation is required. Persons in whom the public have confidence, and 

 who have no pecuniary interest in the results should be placed in charge of 

 such investigation, with means sufficient to make it thorough and exhaustive. 

 The object should not be to cry up or cry down these lands, but to determine 

 their real value and the conditions under which they may be successfully 

 cultivated. The pioneer has neither the time nor money for such investiga- 

 tion, and he ought not to be expected to make it. The natural results of 

 imperfect and inadequate trials of this class are seen in the hundreds of 

 abandoned homesteads that dot the plains and are a disgrace to the State. 

 If this is the necessary result of attempts to cultivate the plains, let us know 

 it and avoid it; if unnecessary, let us know it and cure it. 



The State owns hundreds of thousands of acres of these lands and would 

 be the party most benefited by settling these questions, and it is just and fair 

 that the State should undertake and carry forward this work to a satisfactory 

 termination. Let the hardy pioneer receive the benefit without bearing the 

 crushing burden of this investigation, and let the State receive her benefit in 

 the multiplied homes and increased inhabitants, or else in the satisfaction of 

 that feeling of parental guardianship that saves her sons from financial loss 

 in a hopeless enterprise. 



FORMER INVESTIGATION. 



Nine years ago I attempted an examination of the characteristic soils im- 

 our State, endeavoring to secure a fairly nepresentative specimen of soil from 

 each county for chemical analysis. The effort was not very successful, only 

 thirty-one specimens of soil being received. The specimens included some 

 of the best and some of the poorest soils in the State. The thirty-one speci- 

 mens were analyzed and the results published for public information in the 

 Eeport of the Board of Agriculture for 1878. I do not propose to reproduce 

 these results, except that a few of the soils were light sands, similar to the 

 soil of the plains, and I introduce them for comparison with the soils now 

 under consideration. 



THE PRESENT INQUIRY. 



Last September I visited Crawford county, examining the soil and produc- 

 tions, gathering specimens of soil for analysis and grasses for identification 

 by Prof. Beal. In November I visited Iosco county for the same purpose. 

 Seven representative specimens of soil then collected were carefully analyzed. 

 The results of analysis of these soils, together with five soils of a similar 

 class analyzed in 1878, and one soil from the Campine sands of Belgium, 

 are given in the following tables. The soils are before you in glass jars, 

 except that sand from the pine barrens of New Jersey replaces the similar 

 sand of Belgium. The physical qualities of the soils you can directly com- 

 pare by examining these jars, and these tables tells you their chemical com- 

 position : 



