224 SOILS IN MICHIGxVN. 



Then the central basin, in which the coal is found, is 

 encircled by a broad zone of those older rocks of which 

 I have spoken under the name of the Portage and 

 Chemung groups, as forming the upland and interior 

 portions of western New York. Among these, thick 

 sandstone rocks occur, which give sandy and stony soils, 

 and dark-coloured shaly rocks, poor in lime, which yield 

 soils on which an inferior forest vegetation naturally 

 springs up, and which, under the influence of culture, 

 yield poorly remunerating returns. 



In Michigan generally^ therefore, the soils ought to be 

 poor — the main exceptions being at its northern 

 extremity, towards the straits of Michilimackinac, which 

 connects Lake Huron with Lake Michigan, and on its 

 south-eastern extremity, where it adjoins the river and 

 lake of St Clair, and the rich lands of the south- 

 western limit of Upper Canada — and such, I believe, is 

 practically found to be the case. The Michigan Central 

 Kailroad passes over much poor sandy country. And 

 although extensive tracts of thin poor soil, sparsely 

 studded with open forests of stunted oak, appear to 

 invite the settler by the ease with which they can be 

 cleared, and the first crops put in, yet a few years' trial 

 warns him, at the first favourable opportunity, to shift 

 his location, — sell it, if he can, to a new-comer — and 

 to seek out for a permanent resting-place in a more 

 naturally favoured district. 



And yet, such a country as I have described — like 

 the interior uplands of western New York — will give 

 excellent first crops, even of wheat, and will supply, to 

 those who skim the first cream off the country, a large 

 surplus of this grain to send to market. 



The correctness of these remarks is proved by a 

 comparison of the actual average produce of the land in 

 this new State of Michigan, with the quantity of wheat 

 and flour it has of late years been able to export. Thus 



