LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 393 



logs. The lumberman's profit or loss depends on the cost of hauling, and 

 they find that it pays to have good road surfaces. Here we have clay roads, 

 which need only grading and drainage, and sand roads which need no 

 drainage, and have, two or three feet below the surface, a hard pan, 4 to 

 12 inches thick which, if dug up and used on the surface of the road, is as 

 good as gravel. Put it on as thick as you can. It is composed of clay and 

 gravel, and is of a red color; we strike it in digging post holes. 



Mr. Thompson : My first principle in road making is to grade the hill 

 tops down to the hard pan, and there leave it in place, unless it is absolutely 

 necessary to grade lower. 



Mr. Ladd : This hard pan makes a horribly muddy road in wet times. 



Allen Dunn: I am more interested in knowing how to get men to work 

 on the road instead of telling stories. One way is to let them work as much 

 as may be on the road adjoining their own premises, where they feel person- 

 ally interested in it. Don't do too much of the work near the path masters 

 place, nor gather the men in too large gangs. 



Mr. Thompson : That is just the reason why our road work amounts to 

 little. Every man works over against his own house, and no general plan is 

 pursued, and nothing accomplished. One year in my district I had but 32 

 days' work, and I put the whole of that on one end of the district, and so far 

 as we were able to go, we made a good road. The next year we could take 

 the next section, and so it would only take a few years to thoroughly make 

 the whole road of the district. 



Mr. Grant: Our State law is bad. Jackson county has had enough road 

 work expended to macadamize every bit of road in it. I would make but 

 about three districts in a town, and have all the work under the general 

 supervision of one man, with authority to put all the work wherever it is 

 most needed. As to macadamizing, it costs in Ohio, $3,000 per mile, and 

 $100 per mile to care for it. They make it 18 inches thick, and thoroughly 

 drained, and have a man going over the road every day. 



THE PROBLEM OF THE PLAINS. 



BY DR. K. C. 1CBDZ1E. 



Read at the Grayling Institute, Feb. 1, 1889. 



In the northern portion of this State, scattered through 15 counties, are 

 about 2,000,000 acres of light sandy soil, the principal timber being jack 

 pine, with occasional groves of Norway pine. These lands have been called 

 the pine barrens, jack pine lands etc. Wisconsin has about the same 

 amount of the same kind of lands. The problem of converting these arid 

 wastes into fruitful fields is an important one, from the large extent of ter- 

 ritory, but the difficulties in the way of solving the problem, are numerous 

 and perplexing. The pioneers on the plains had often asked advice 

 and assistance, but no means were available for this purpose till the 

 Hatch bill was passed. The money was not available until one year 

 ago. The Board of Agriculture then determined to establish an experi- 

 mental farm on the jack pine plains, and Grayling, Crawford county, was 

 selected as an experiment station. The M. C. R. R. Co. donated 80 acres of 

 land for an experiment farm. Contracts for clearing the land and prepar- 



