STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN RURAL LIFE 451 



relatively small, 27,442 and 9,829 respectively. 

 Similarly Houghton County in the copper country 

 increased its farm area by 43.6 per cent, and its im- 

 proved farm lands 58.1 per cent, the acreage of 

 improved lands being 56,798. Chippewa County, 

 relatively well developed agriculturally, had in 1920, 

 185,202 acres in farms and increased in the decade 

 5.1 per cent; while its 105,870 improved acres showed 

 an increase of 33.4 per cent. Marquette Covmty, 

 with 88,450 acres in farms, increased 30.4 per cent; 

 and Menominee County, Avith 222,353 acres in farms, 

 increased 32.8 per cent. Delta County's 142,137 

 acres in farms increased 26 per cent, while its 53,021 

 acres of improved farm land had increased 23.5 per 

 cent. These figures confirm the opinion that the 

 cut-over lands of the northern counties are witnessing 

 the most definite agricultural advance; for here are 

 good as well as poor soils at moderate prices avail- 

 able to the farmer, often of foreign parentage, lack- 

 ing capital but willing to labor and sustain the pri- 

 vations of pioneering in a new country. 



If one compares representative counties in the 

 three sections of the State having distinctive agri- 

 cultural features, one perceives to what extent the 

 northern counties lag behind the southern in agri- 

 cultural development. Thus in the Upper Peninsula, 

 Marquette County with an aggregate area, as 

 reported by the census, of 1.196,800 acres, has only 

 88,450 acres in farms; Menominee Coimty, with 

 675,840 acres, has less than one-third of this area 

 in farms; Delta County, with 748,160 acres, has less 



