38 RURAL MICiriGAN 



depth. It lias produced .sandy "outwash aprons'' 

 overlying soil of great agricultural value. It 

 lias created depressions, where surface water accu- 

 mulates, giving soils of all grades of moisture, de- 

 posits of muck and peat, marshes, swamps and 

 lakes. These conditions are characteristic of Mich- 

 igan in a very high degree, and, as relates to the 

 distribution of surface waters, more so in the early 

 period of settlement than at present. Drainage 

 and the removal of the forest cover have changed 

 wet and subaqueous soils into arable land of good 

 agricultural possil)ilities. On the other hand, the 

 removal of forest from the surface of the land, par- 

 ticularly from the uplands, and the cultivation of 

 the soil, have favored denudation and erosion. In 

 consequence, hill-tops have become barren, hill-sides 

 have worn away, their surface soils have been re- 

 moved to the adjacent low grounds or carried away 

 in the run-off into the water-courses and permanently 

 removed, to the ultimate impoverishment of the land 

 and its abandonment for the uses of tillage. 



Commonly tlie richer soils bore a dense forest of 

 hardwoods ; maples, elms, ash, beach, oaks, and hick- 

 ories. White and Norway pines, spruce and balsam 

 grew on the sandy uplands. Sometimes the situa- 

 tion was reversed, as where, in the Upper Peninsula, 

 white pines flourished on the clays of southern On- 

 tonagon County and hardwoods on the sands of the 

 Seney swamp country. Sometimes tall pines towered 

 above the oaks and maples in the same half-acre, as 

 along t1ie Thornapple and the Maple rivers. Cedars 



