410 RURAL MICHIGAN 



tern was established by Act 254 of the legislative 

 session of 1897. The Miller and Simons report on 

 drainage of 1918 gave the number of county drain 

 commissioners in the State as seventy, of whom 

 sixty-three were serving in the southern peninsula 

 and seven in the northern. Thirteen counties had 

 no drain commissioiiers, namely Antrim, Crawford, 

 Kalkaska, Oscoda and Otsego in the Lower Penin- 

 sula; and Baraga, Dickinson, Houghton, Gogebic, 

 Iron, Keweenaw, Mackinac and Schoolcraft in the 

 Upper Peninsula. The report states that during the 

 twenty years, 1898-1917, expenditures on county 

 drains were made in sixty-three of the eighty-three 

 counties of the State, while Alcona, Antrim, Craw- 

 ford, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Montmorency, Ogemaw, 

 Otsego and Oscoda in the Lower Peninsula, and 

 Alger, Baraga, Delta, Dickinson, Gogebic, Hough+on 

 Iron, Keweenaw, Luce, Marquette and Schoolciaft 

 in the Upper Peninsula, had spent nothing for this 

 purpose. 



Miller and Simons criticize the Michigan drain- 

 age system as "piece-meal"' in design and execution, 

 . lacking a well-planned outlet with a network of 

 laterals. "Too often small drains," they observe, 

 "constructed independently, without following any 

 general plan have resulted in discharging the water 

 from the individual drains into existing natural or 

 artificial water-courses which already may be over- 

 taxed; resulting in the flooding of the lower lying 

 lands, thus aggregating the necessity for improve- 



