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SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION IN GREAT LAKES STATES 11 
QUALITY OF LAND 
At least a third, possibly a half, of the 46 million acres of land not 
yet in farms would now be considered fair-to-good farming land if 
cleared of stumps and stones and brought under cultivation. But 
this third or half is so interspersed with land which is too sandy, too 
rocky, too swampy, or too rough for cultivation that it has not had 
a chance to stand upon its own merits. Of the remaining half or 
two-thirds, more is poor because it is sandy than for any other reason. 
There are extensive areas in all three States, but especially in Wis- 
consin and in the southern peninsula of Michigan, of light sandy 
loam soils. Minnesota, on the other hand, has large areas of muskeg 
swamps and rough, rocky land. It has a portion of sandy land be- 
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Fic. 11.—The solid black lines are drawn through points where the average number of 
days. without killing frost is approximately. the same. The importance of nearness to 
the Great Lakes in lengthening the growing season is indicated. The map is repro- 
duced from “Frost and the Growing Season,” by William Gardner Reed, in Part II, 
Section I of the Atlas. of American Agriculture, published by U. S. Department of 
Agriculture 
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sides. The upper peninsula of Michigan has its share of all four 
classes of poor lands. 
Of that part which has been classified as potentially fair-to-good 
farming land, a large proportion is rather stony. Some of the very 
best of these soils have belts stretching through them which are so 
thickly strewed with stones that it is hardly economical at present 
to use them for any purpose except for pasture. Land equally stony 
is usually still in pasture farther south. On most of the rest of it, 
the removing of the stones is one of the cost of clearing, in some cases 
as great a cost as for removing the brush and stumps. 
It must be said of all the region that the soils are essentially 
timberland soils, having possibly an abundance of potential mineral 
plant foods but very low in humus. In this latter respect they are the 
