426 REPOET OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



THE POINT DE PEAU VINEYARD AND ITS WINES. 



From the Michigan Farmer. 



On the shores of Lake Erie, a few miles below the mouth of 

 the Detroit river, there are several points jut out into the Lake, 

 just North and East of the mouth of Monroe harbor. One of 

 these is Point de Peau, its name being French, and derived 

 from the usage of the Indians, who used it as a high dry place 

 on which they could cure skins of the animals which they 

 caught in hunting or trapping. It is situated nine miles 

 northeast of the city of Monroe, between Stony Point and 

 Swan creek, and we drove there partly over the old road that 

 leads to the northward along the lake and the Detroit river. 

 The country, all through this section, is quite level and flat, 

 with a strong clay loam that is rich in calcareous matter. The 

 soil rests on the rock known to American geologists as the 

 Trenton limestone, which crops out in many places. The 

 timber is mostly oak, ash, black walnut, hickory, elm, cotton 

 wood, and there is a good business done getting out staves in 

 some sections. It is a magnificent land for grass, and wheat 

 is generally heavy, but the land, which is mostly cultivated on 

 the old French system by the inhabitants, does not have much 

 chance to show what it can do under any system that would 

 develop its strength and ability to grow either meat or bread- 

 stuffs. All along the road from Monroe to the Point are scat- 

 tered the log houses of the holders of small tracts of lands 

 mostly French, who raise their little patches of corn, and keep 

 a cow, and possibly a hog or two, and are occupied mostly in 

 the fisheries or in hunting in the marshes, when they are not 

 busy watching their crops grow. There is no knowing what 



