240 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



In addition to the work carried on at the sub-station and in the several co- 

 operative experiments conducted in that section, the superintendents have, when 

 their other duties permitted, responded to invitations to inspect orchards in the 

 vicinity, where dangerous insects or diseases liave appeared and advise regarding 

 the remedies that should be employed. The advice thus given, as well as sugges- 

 tions for handling the orchards, has been found very valuable, especially as sev- 

 eral hundred fruit farms in Van Buren county have been purchased by Chicago 

 parties who have had little or no experience in fruit growing. 



From the opening of the sub-station exhibits of the different varieties of fruits 

 have been made each year at the State and West Michigan fairs and, as the 

 number of varieties in bearing has increased, the exhibits have become cor- 

 respondingly larger until the number of varieties shown has in recent years 

 reached about four hundred that were in condition at the time of holding the 

 fairs. 



SPECIAL BULLETINS NOS. 28 AND 31. 

 Reports of the Upper Peninsula Sut-station for 1903 and 1904. 



C. D. SMITH. 



The Upper Peninsula Sub-station was created by an act of the legislature 

 approved in the early spring of 1899. By the terms of that act $5,000 was appro- 

 priated for the purchase of a suitable tract of land in the Upper Peninsula and 

 for the maintenance of the sub-station for two years. Late in July of that year 

 the State Board of Agriculture, to which board the control the sub-station was 

 delegated by the law, located the site at Chatham, in Alger county, and accepted 

 a donation of 160 acres of land Immediately north and west of the railroad 

 station, viz.: the S. E. one-quarter of Section 28, Range 4G North, 21 West. 

 Chatham is eight miles due south of Au Train Bay on the south shore of Lake 

 Superior and from 250 to 300 feet above its level. 



When accepted, the farm was covered with a heavy growth of hardwood tim- 

 ber, principally maple, and was in the center of a large tract of hardwood cover- 

 ing several townships with few clearings, none larger than a dozen acres. 



The donors of the farm agreed to clear, brush and stump forty acres and to 

 remove the timber from the next forty but they partially failed to fulfil their 

 agreement, contenting themselves with clearing something like seventeen acres. 

 The State Board has, as a consequence, been obligd to go to the expense of clear- 

 ing the land needed for the station plots. By the autumn of 1004 when Special 

 Bulletin No. 31 was written, nearly forty acres had been cleared, with all 

 stumps and stones removed. 



The valley of the Slap Nick Creek, running, with high banks, from east to 

 west, cuts the farm in two. The flood plain of the creek overflowing each spring 

 and remaining too wet to work, takes up fully five acres of the cleared area. 

 On both sides of the flood plain are alternately banks too steep to work and 

 fairly level terraces upon which the plots are laid out. The clearing began on 

 the entire east line of the farm and has extended westward forty rods. 



Over most of the cleared portion the soil is thin, seldom exceeding three feet 

 in depth. The northern third of the cleared portion has a deeper soil, in places 

 fully fifteen feet deep. The underlying rock is a very calciferous sand stone. 

 The soil is a dark colored sandy loam with abundant humus. 



A house and barn have been erected on a terrace north of the creek. The 

 fields have been fenced with wire fencing at no inconsiderable expense as many 

 of the post holes had to be blasted in the rock. 



The funds expended in the years ending on the dates mentioned are as follows: 



June 30, 1901 $4,257 G4 



" 30, 1902 2,501 55 



" 30, 1903 3.2(59 93 



" 30, 1904 4,402 87 



