THE INFLUENCE OF SOILS 59 



VEGETATION AX INDICATOR OF SOILS 



An idea of the natural productivity of the soil 

 is commonly trained from the character of the vege- 

 tation, especially forest growth, found naturally 

 upon it. The early settlers of Michigan have in 

 numerous instances left accounts of the primeval 

 vegetation which they encountered as they pressed 

 into the wilderness; and special studies have from 

 time to time appeared in the publications of the 

 State Geological and Biological Survey, the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan and elsewhere. How the fertile 

 clay soil about the site of Detroit brought forth 

 abundantly the native fruits of the earth is de- 

 scribed in glowing terms by the founder of the city. 

 Of the Detroit Eiver, "the banks," writes Cadillac, 

 "are so many vast meadows where the freshness 

 of these beautiful streams keeps the grass always 

 green. These same meadows are fringed with long 

 and broad avenues of fruit-trees which have never 

 felt the careful hand of the watchful gardener; and 

 fruit-trees, young and old, droop under the weight 

 and multitude of their fruit, and bend their 

 branches toward the fertile soil which has produced 

 them. In this soil so fertile, the ambitious vine 

 which has not yet wept under the knife of the in- 

 dustrious vine-dresser, forms a thick roof with its 

 broad leaves and its heavy clusters over the head of 

 whatever it twines round, whicli it often stifles by 

 embracing it too closely. The woods are of six 



