THE IXFLUEXCE OF SOILS 49 



able, as southeast of Marquette and adjacent to Big 

 Bay de Noc, contains some excellent agricultural 

 land. The extreme eastern portion adjacent to Sault 

 Ste. Marie is composed mainly of heavy clay soil, 

 which has for years been one of the best hay-pro- 

 ducing sections of the State. Near the shore of 

 Lake Superior and south of Marquette are sandy 

 districts less suited or quite unfit for agriculture, 

 although, near the lake, excellent fur fruit. The 

 western half of the Peninsula contains much rugged 

 country, with outcrops of bed rock. In Ontonagon 

 County and portions of Houghton and Gogebic 

 counties are districts of deep clay soil, some of it 

 undoubtedly potentially the most productive in the 

 State, where clover grows wild in remarkable luxuri- 

 ance, and where yields of potatoes exceeding five 

 hundred bushels an acre have been secured. By a 

 curious inversion, white pines grow on these "Ewen 

 clays"' and hardwoods appear on tlie "Seney sands'' 

 east of Marquette, and do extremely well in both 

 cases. In the west is the area of the metamorphic 

 rocks containing iron and copper, with lesser quan- 

 tities of gold, silver, graphite and marble. The 

 eastern section of the Peninsula is a region of strati- 

 fied limestones, sandstones and shales, in places lying 

 so close to the surface as to make tillage difficult 

 or impossible, although, as in the Big Bay de N"oc 

 section north of Point Detour, a vigorous hardwood 

 forest, especially of hard maple, once clung to the 

 surface and, where permitted so to do, is reprodiicing 

 itself today. Here, alone in the Upper Peninsula, 



