MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 207 



under conditions in the Lake States for $25 per acre, and tliat the costs may 

 easily run to $150 per acre.^* 



A furtlier very critical item has been but little considered in connection 

 with the profitable farming of our stump lands. The fact that parts of 

 Michigan have but a 70 days' growing season, and tliat practically all of the 

 cut-over part of the state can depend upon less than 140 days,'® is not much 

 dwelt upon in our agricultural literature. In the past there has been almost 

 a conspiracy to promote "development" of the cut-over lands, irrespective of 

 whether it was economically sound or plain wild-catting. Conditions are 

 changing rapidly. A member of the Society of Agricultural Engineers can now 

 say to the promoters of cut-over land settlement, "There is no sense in the 

 cut-over land owner trying to deceive himself, because profitable development 

 must be based upon the lands as they are * * * The problem of the land 

 owner is to determine whether his most profitable crop will be timber, (refore- 

 station), cattle or sheep (grazing), or suckers (miwarranted land selling)...^" 



We no longer lack for specific inventory and analysis of the business of 

 farming upon our cut-over lands. The office of Farm Management of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture has rejiorted in detail upon 801 

 typical farms of the north Lake States with the following results : 



1. There was an average investment per farm of $6,856. 



2. If there was no outstanding mortgage or other debt, and if 5% interest 

 is allowed upon the investment, there remains as a labor income to the farmer 

 an average of $49 per year, or 13.4 cents per day. 



3. On 49% of the farms there was a minus labor income averaging $280, 

 indicating that the farmer received no wages whatever, but did receive 0.9 

 of 1% on his investment as his year's return, provided he had no outstanding 

 debts. 



The Bulletin remarks, gratuitously, that "From a strictly business point 

 of view these farms do not appear to the successful * * *" and that, "it is 

 important, in all cases, to make sure that the quality of the land justifies the 

 expense of clearing." " 



As things stand, in spite of all the Federal and State homestead laws and 

 in spite of the Experiment Stations, and in spite of the plant explorers, the 

 the plant breeders, and the rest of the agricultural technologists, in spite of 

 decades of experimenting, and in spite of boomers and booming, Michigan has 

 today over 10,000,000 acres of idle land ; the nation has an area ten times 

 that of Iowa, in black stumps, and brush. And this area is increasing. 



Admitting that great areas of the cut-over country are, or will become, 

 of actual value for agriculture, it should be obvious that only a small fraction 

 of the total can, by any chance, be reclaimed from its waste and come under 



"M. A. C. Special Bull., No. 90, 1918, p. 28. 



Wis. Ag. Coll. Bull. 259, 1918, p. 23. 

 «Seeley, Kept. Mich. Acad. Science, 1918, p. 223. 

 ''"Morse, Cut-over Land Magazine, June 1918, p. 6. 

 21U. S. D. A. Bull. 425, 1916. 



