213 RUh'AL MICHIGAN 



onions, cabbage and lettuce. Less than one-half 

 of one per cent of the total area of muck and 

 peat lands in Michigan is given over to intensive 

 farming. Not very much more than that is being 

 extensively farmed.'^ Levin believes that "the de- 

 velopment of swampy lands in Michigan will come 

 through extensive farming." The problem, then, is 

 to bring about a safe system of agriculture for these 

 swamp lands. He proceeds to point out that two 

 factors in relation to muck-lands must constantly 

 be kept in mind : frost and the quality of the soil. 

 The crop rotation for such lands "has to do with 

 cattle — either dairy or beef cattle — as a pivot, alsike 

 and timothy or white sweet-clover hay, corn or sun- 

 flower form silage, and sugar beets — the sugar beets 

 and hay as cash crops."^ 



Hay, Levin holds, constitutes an excellent cash 

 crop for muck-lands, since it removes nitrogenous 

 elements of which the soil already possesses an ex- 

 cess supply.- He points out, however, the value of 

 green-manure. While small grains are regarded by 

 Levin as subject to special risks as muck-land crops, 

 the order of preference among thom he gives as 

 follows : oats, spring barley, rye, winter barley and 

 wheat. Levin further recommends for grain cul- 

 ture on muck-lands: 1. "Heavy seeding, at least 

 one and a half times the amount of seed that the 

 highland farmers use in the vicinity; 2. Applying 

 acid phosphate or potash, or both; 3. Thoroughly 



'Letter of Oct. 25, 1920. 



^Journal of the Amer. Peat 8oc., No. 3, July, 1920, 297. 



