56 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



producing excelleut returns to the agriculturist. It is true the piue stumps 

 are an incumbrance and somewhat difficult of removal, but time and labor 

 will remove them ; and as the soil is capable of producing good crops, the 

 time will come when as good returns will be had from land once covered with 

 heavy pine as from the average lands covered with hard wood. 



MEAXS OF ACCESS. 



Surprise is often expressed that so desirable a portion of the country should 

 not have been settled earlier; that the tide of emigration which has been 

 flowing through the States so many years had not been turned into this un- 

 developed portion of it. But it is known that the means of access to this por- 

 tion of the State were very uninviting, and besides, when the rich prairie 

 lands of the West offered to the settler farms already improved, ready for oc- 

 cupancy, it is not surprising that they should be preferred to heavily timbered 

 lands which required the labor of a generation to bring them to the point 

 where they could be cultivated as cheaply and as easily as the prairie farms at 

 first. In fact, had it not been for the wealth of timber, it is probable that this 

 portion of the State would have lain a wilderness for many years yet. 



THE REAL PIOXEEll. 



The lumberman was the pioneer roadmaker and the pioneer agriculturist of 

 this portion of the State. In order to reach his lumber camps it was neces- 

 sary that roads should be made. But these camps being at so great a distance 

 from a supply, the cost of transportation was such as to make it desirable that 

 such articles as were needed in camp should be raised where they were wanted, 

 and the result was that the lumbermen turned their attention to farming for 

 the purpose of supplying their own wants, and their experiments demonstrated 

 the capability of the soil. But with them agriculture was only resorted to as 

 a means to enable them with greater economy to carry on their lumbering 

 operations, and consequently they limited their supply to the demand. In 

 fact, had a surplus been raised, there were no modes of transportation by 

 which it could have been profitably taken to market. But while the agricult- 

 ure of the country was inaugurated and the capability of the soil demonstrated 

 by the lumberman, yet, as the expense of transporting the surplus was pro- 

 hibitory, no effort was made to raise more than was wanted to supply the home 

 demands. Kow, however, as the country is opened up by railroads, so that 

 better facilities both for ingress and egress are afforded, many have availed 

 themselves of the opportunity to secure permanent homes, with the intention 

 of devoting their entire time to agriculture and kindred pursuits. 



HEALTH. 



Many have supposed this portion of the State to be unhealthy ; that fevers 

 and agues ware the common lot of its inhabitants. This idea, however, has no 

 * foundation in fact. While it is true that the inhabitants are not entirely ex- 

 empt from sickness, yet a personal observation of over twenty years justifies me 

 in saying that there is far less sickness than attended the settlement of the 

 more southerly portions of the State — less by far than attended the settlement 

 of Western New York or Northern Ohio. I do not think a healthier region is 

 to be found than upon the elevated lands of this central portion of the State. 

 Its pure water and clear and bracing air will demonstrate to any one visiting 

 the country that the stories told of disease and death in this region must have 

 originated in connection with that notion of an earlier day that Michigan waa 



