1(U; RURAL MICHIGAN 



land suitable to stock-raising and forest industries. 

 The Finn is an excellent dairyman, aiid in northern 

 Michigan, as iji old Finland, \vhatever he does he is 

 very likely to own a milch cow or two and to care 

 for them A-ith what the Yankee would consider quite 

 absurd solicitude. Finland is a country of dense 

 forests and is extremely well watered; so is — or was 

 — the northern peninsula of Michigan, where the 

 Finn feels very much at home, a sentiment enhanced 

 by climate and topography. Most Finns here have 

 once worked in the mines; but many have come out 

 of the earth to earn a livelihood from its surface. 



The Finn is hardy, conservative and clannish. His 

 standard of living normally is not high. He is fit 

 for pioneering, and competent observers believe, 

 probably correctly, that the agricultural future of 

 the northern section of the State is chiefly in his 

 hands. He is of one of the least assimilable stocks 

 in rural Michigan, but he is educable, and such a 

 project as the Otter Lake Agricultural School in 

 Houghton County has effected an improvement in his 

 husbandry. He is by nature refractory and must be 

 handled tactfully. The Finn is very different from 

 some of the other elements in the rural population, 

 taciturn, unemotional, seemingly devoid of humor. 

 He represents the Asiatic Turanian type, with a 

 language wholly unrelated to the native tongues of 

 western Europe; and some of his presumed natural 

 uncommunicativeness and sullenness may be attrib- 

 uted to linguistic shortcomings rather than to a will- 

 ful resolve to say or do nothing pleasant. In the Old 



