GO RURAL MICHIGAN 



kinds: Walnut trees, white oaks, red, bastard ash, 

 ivy, white wood trees and cotton wood trees. But 

 these same trees are as straight as arrows without 

 knots, and almost without branches except near the 

 top, and of enormous size and height." 



Of the country about tlie headwaters of the 

 Eaisin, Grand, Huron, Kalamazoo and St. Joseph 

 rivers in the vicinity of Manchester, Jackson County, 

 L. D. Watkins has left a description, which states 

 that on the openings "the principal timber trees 

 were white, red, yellow pine, and burr oak, hickory, 

 and a few scrub oaks on the sand hills. On the 

 border of streams, on the bluffs, and on the north 

 side of lakes we found a great many trees that in 

 regular order of distribution would be far to the 

 north or south of us. These strangers form with 

 our indigenous forests, a regular conglomerate of 

 the forests of three sections, each with its peculiar 

 forest grove. From the southward we have the Buck- 

 eye, white wood, honey locust, Kentucky coffee-tree, 

 mulberry, black haw and many others. From the 

 north came hemlock, pine and spruce." 



Eaton County, says Edward W. Barber, "was a 

 region of great trees, beech and maple, elm and 

 ash, basswood and cherry, with scattered oak and 

 •black walnut, a thick undergrowth of saplings; and 

 where the land was low by some swamp or stream 

 wild grape-vines climbed to tall tree tops." ^ Harriet 

 Munro Longyear has described the forest growth of 

 Clinton County as she saw it in 1836. "Much to 



^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXII, 264. 



