154 RURAL MICHIGAN 



original maize commonly raised by the Indians in 

 this country." ^ Weissert was writing of Barry 

 County in 1911, and he remarks that "traces of their 

 garden-beds were visible until recent years." In- 

 deed, evidences of their primitive agriculture were 

 seen in many other points of the State before being 

 obliterated by the tillage of the whites. Even yet the 

 steel point of the plow sometimes turns up the primi- 

 tive stone hoe and other stone and copper implements 

 of these pioneer tillers of the soil in Michigan. Yet 

 contemporary opinions of the Indian's agricultural 

 importance do not seem to be flattering. One state- 

 ment reports that he is too much inclined to loaf, that 

 his methods remain primitive, ami that, even as a 

 farmer, he often produces less food than he consumes. 

 The national government has sought to do something 

 to correct these tendencies. In the first of the last 

 century, one Trombley is said to have been main- 

 tained as an agricultural instructor for the Indians 

 near the present site of Bay City.^ Various treaties 

 with the Indians entered into by the United States 

 had promised some provision for Indian education, 

 and at length, in 1891, an act of Congress established 

 an Indian school in Isabella County, which was 

 located on the property of an old Methodist mission 

 adjacent to Mt. Pleasant. Agriculture is included in 

 the course of study of this school, whose 320 acres 

 of land afford opportunity for its practical study. 



^"Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 

 662. 



="'Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," V, 275. 



