THE OLD PEAR TREES, ETC., OF MONROE. 359 



alumina, have left a mantle of clay wherever tlie waters stood, depositing a 

 rich inheritance for tlie tiller of the soil. I know and appreciate central Mich- 

 igan to its full extent. 



THE BED ROCK OF AGES. 



But as you a]>proach the head of Lake Erie, you find that nature has pro- 

 vided a different soil. I was twenty years of age before I saw a quarry. Now 

 and then was to be seen a little pocket of limestone. But the conception that 

 there were places within fifty miles of where I lived, that you could ero down to 

 the foundation of the nniverse and quarry the rocks that were lying here be- 

 fore the glaciers brought down their rich freight and left it as a win row along 

 the center of our rich peninsula, never crossed my mind. That there was a 

 region fifteen miles wide by fifty miles long, within twenty-five miles of my 

 home, which the river Kaisin nearly bisected, where there was hardly a boulder 

 or gravel pit, and which was productive soil from the surface of the ground to 

 the underlying rock, — soil that needed neither plaster nor artificial fertilizers 

 to give the diligent farmer a suitable response to his toil. — that there was such 

 a region was a surprise indeed, when I found it. 



A MINERAL AKD VEGETABLE SOIL. 



This whole region is, manifestly, not the product of the drift period, or at 

 least only partially so. It is true the glaciers passed over it, as is manifest 

 from the striae on the rocks at Stoney Point and Pointe de Peanx. But their 

 heavy deposits seem to have been carried further to the southwest, leaving the 

 original rocks comparatively bare; and when the more quiet waters came, 

 there was deposited a soil from three to twenty-five feet deep, made up of clay, 

 sand, and particles of lime, and so generous in all the elements of vegetable 

 sustenance, ready for immediate absorption, that, from surface to rock, the 

 roots of the mightiest tree or the tiniest flower might grow to the fullness of 

 its nature. The soil is not like the prairie, — deep in vegetable mould,— which 

 has accumulated by centuries of growth and centuries of decay, but it is made 

 up of this vegetable mould, combined with all the mineral substances which 

 so largely enter into the product of vegetable life. You may dig a well to the 

 rock and throw up the earth from its bottom layer, and the next season raise 

 as fine a crop of corn as ever gladdened the eyes of the farmer. 



THE RAISIN VALLEY. 



Now this is the soil in which, and these the conditions under which the old 

 pear and apple trees were produced. It is a conceit of the Raisin valley that 

 this soil, so rich and so strong, so permanent in its character and so inexhaust- 

 ible in its resources, is the best calculated for a hardy fruit tree; that it will 

 produce a cleaner grain, a hardier fiber and more actual vitality than lighter or 

 different soils. At any rate, such is becoming the settled conviction of our 

 fruit growers. 



So, as the old pear and apple trees seem to indicate by their thriftiness that 

 we have a soil that gives a hardy constitution to the tree, we have an abiding 

 assurance that to this constitution we shall, as time passes on, add quality, as 

 experience may suggest, and that, with intelligent culture, assisted by the mod- 

 ifying and mollifying breezes of Lake Erie, we shall eventually make the valley 

 of the Raisin the garden of Michigan. 



