Frontier /Igricnlfnre in Northern Minnesota 21 
cleared land to make a fairly open landscape ; forested wild land 
IS still present, but lies in disconnected patches, and does not domi- 
nate the scene (Fig. 7). The pattern of rural settlement in one 
area of this sort is shown on the map of wild land and cleared 
land in Long Lake Township (Fig. 8). 
In sharp contrast are the areas which are almost without 
farms; this is the case in almost the whole northeast quarter of 
the community, and in smaller but extensive areas elsewhere (Fig. 
2). In these sections the dots representing agricultural land are 
arranged in curious linear patterns. One might suspect that 
farms were concentrated along the roads, and a detailed map of 
Emily Township, typical of areas of this sort, indicates that this 
is indeed the case (Fig. 9). The farms are of the primitive type; 
cleared areas are small, forming only a narrow fringe along the 
roads, and wild land everywhere dominates the landscape. 
The division between the areas of fairly dense, dispersed 
settlement, and sparse, road-oriented settlement is usually quite 
sharp (Fig. 10), and transitional areas of intermediate density 
are almost wanting. 
In part, differences in the fundament — in landforms, soils, 
and drainage conditions — seem to account for these differences 
in density and type of settlement. A comparison of the maps of 
land in farms (Fig. 2) and glacial geology (Fig. 11) indicates 
that this is particularly true in the southern and western halves 
of the community. Areas of fairly dense settlement and maturely- 
developed farms He on the gently rolling till plain (ground mor- 
aine) and on some of the outwash plains. The ground moraine 
along the w^est edge of the community, identified on the map as 
Keewatin, seems especially favored; this drift, deposited by an 
ice invasion from the northwest, has a much higher lime content 
than the Patrician material, laid down by an earlier tongue of 
ice which moved from the northeast and brought mostly igneous 
and metamorphic rocks. As a result the soils derived from the 
