52 RURAL MICHIGAN 



place. With the exception of old to^\^ls, like St. 

 Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie, dating from the French 

 period, it set in much later in the northern penin- 

 sula than in the southern. ISTational sovereignty was 

 not asserted here until 1820, and the full extinction 

 of the Indian title came a generation later. Mining, 

 rather than agriculture, attracted the first settlers 

 after the fur traders; and mining awaited the elimi- 

 nation of the Indian title to the land and the geo- 

 logical and linear survey of the region by the State 

 and the United States. By 1845 mining was defi- 

 nitely under way on the copper range in what is 

 now Keweenaw County, and a year or so later on 

 the Marquette iron range about Negaunee and 

 Ishpeming. Then the immense forest resources of 

 the Peninsula attracted still other settlers. From 

 those who came to the district as miners and lum- 

 bermen, numbers eventually turned to agriculture, 

 notably so among the Finns. At last, steps are 

 being definitely taken to attract and place on the 

 undeveloped lands those who will be farmers from 

 the outset. Leverett estimates the tillable lands 

 of the Upper Peninsula at 65 per cent of the total. 

 Some regard this as over-optimistic; but in any 

 case, the great variation in the character of the soil 

 renders it important that great care should be taken 

 to select good agricultural lands, of which there are 

 an abundance, since the heavy snows maintained 

 for five or six months in the year represent a suffi- 

 cient handicap without adverse soil conditions to 

 contend with. Because of the ample amount of 



