BOGS AND SWAMPS IN MICHIGAN. 227 



wheat and flour exported from these north-western 

 States may continue to increase for a certain .limited 

 number of years, it will by-and-by begin to diminish, 

 and will finally in a great measure cease. The reasons 

 for this opinion will be given when I come to review the 

 agricultural changes which the last twenty years have 

 introduced into the husbandry of Lower Canada. 



I may however, as a special fact affecting the capabi- 

 lities of Michigan, here mention, that the long peninsular 

 character of this State, surrounded on all sides by water, 

 mollifies much and equalises its climate, but at the same 

 time makes it exceedingly moist. This, with the 

 peculiar impermeable character of many of its rocks, 

 cover large portions of surface — as is the case in parts 

 of New Brunswick — with bogs and swamps. The whole 

 area of the State is about 36,000,000 acres, and of 

 these 4,500,000, or one-eighth of the whole, are untill- 

 able swamps. With an indifferent soil, and a humid 

 climate, this vast extent of constantly cold and exhaling 

 surface must co-operate to diminish the agricultural 

 capabilities of the State as a whole. 



In connection with the growth of grain in these new 

 countries, I may advert to a circumstance which is 

 closely related to the subject of a discussion which has 

 for some time interested the agricultural body in Great 

 Britain — that of thick or thin sowing. I have already 

 alluded, in the case of buckwheat, to the very small 

 quantity of seed — one-half to one bushel an acre — which 

 is found sufficient to secure a good crop of this grain in 

 New Brunswick. In the State of Vermont, from a 

 quarter to a half bushel is the usual quantity of seed 

 sown for this crop ; and in Tennessee one bushel. 



I was at first inclined to attribute the success of these 

 small quantities of seed, in the case of buckwheat, to 

 the protection against the attacks of insects which this 

 seed derives from the hard triangular shell with which 



