388 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sand. Much of it is too light and shifting to hold any promise of agri- 

 culture. Some may be devoted to the growing of fruit if proper protec- 

 tion areas are established, but the larger part, or all of it is capable of 

 producing a second crop of trees Avhich form the chief asset in the de- 

 velopment of the people's play grounds, parks, and summer homes. Nor 

 is the economic return to the State of small importance. Attention 

 need only be pointed to the action of several New England States and 

 cities in the development of aesthetic forests to show that it pays. Cali- 

 fornia owes much of her fame to the tourist business and while she has 

 many natural beauties to attract she has developed those other features 

 of orchard and ranch to attract eastern wealth. Prosperous citizens 

 make a wealthy state. Land lying idle is a sign of poverty. Sand lands 

 are not worthless if properly handled. Seldom if ever will the cost of 

 l)roper handling fail to give an adequate return. Michigan's west shore 

 belt should be developed by covering its sands again with forest growth. 

 The sand dune land of the west shore of Michigan is difficult of brief 

 description, but roughly speaking it embraces a belt of shore line varying 

 in width from one-half mile to five miles. It extends from the extreme 

 southwest corner of Berrien county northward along the lake coast to 

 Stevensville. It covers two miles of coast along the lake front at Benton 

 Harbor, a belt of sixteen miles north to South Haven, and an almost un- 

 broken belt north from Saugatuck to Whitehall. This is the largest 

 area of traveling and established dunes on the shore, being about fifty- 

 six miles long. Another belt reaches from Little Sable Point to Bass 

 Lake, fifteen miles in length. A belt from Ludington includes Big Sable 

 Lake and shore line to within five miles of Manistee, a distance of four- 

 teen miles, and from IManistee to Portage Lake there is a narrow belt 

 five miles long. There is a belt of one mile at Arcadia and a belt from 

 Frankfort around Betsie Point and along the coast for ten miles to the 

 northeast. It occurs again from Glen Haven and Sleeping Bear Point 

 with a few breaks up at Cat Hand Point. Across Great Traverse Bay 

 the dune area forms a narrow belt along the shore from Elk Rapids to 

 Charlevoix. From Charlevoix it becomes a very narrow belt of about 

 one mile or less in width. Along the shore of Little Traverse Bay to 

 Harbor Springs this belt is generally quite well covered with wild growth 

 of all kinds and is not serious, being of the sand fiat type. From Cross 

 Village to Mackinac City the sand area again becomes extensive with 

 frequent active breaks, extending over twenty-five miles of shore line. Ap- 

 proximately 235 miles of the west shore are of dune formation. Assum- 

 ing that this belt averages one and one-half miles in width of active dune 

 and three miles wide as an average of dune formation there are 352 

 square miles, one-half of which is shifting sands. The other half is 

 covered with various forms of wild growth. A small part is good selec- 

 tion forest of second growth. Most of it is cut over slash and brush 

 land which is rapidly forming traveling dunes. Some of it, formerly 

 cleared for farm purposes, is now reverting to an abandoned state of pot 

 hole blows and traveling dunes. Altogether a careful estimate places the 

 area fit only for timber growth at 225,500 acres. This forms the facing 

 of the peninsula toward Lake Michigan. 



