Michigan also surpasses, in this respect, the seaboard States of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Oregon, and all the cotton and Gulf States, while it far outstrips in tonnage both Virginia and Maryland, although surpassed by them in the number of vessels. It exceeds California in the number of its vessels but not in the tonnage total. The coast line of Michigan is only surpassed by that of Florida, and it has ports upon four of the great lakes. Its coasting trade is exceedingly valuable, and its vessel interest represents much capital and enterprise and deserves an important place in a catalogue of its sources of employment for labor. In this connection the fact should be mentioned that ship-yards are located at Detroit, Wyandotte, Port Huron, Bay City, Marine City, St. Clair, Grand Haven, and other shore towns and ports.

GENERAL MANUFACTURING.

The miscellaneous manufacturing interests of the State are numerous, extensive and in thriving condition, but until the figures gathered at the census of 1880 shall be made public it is not possible to give their statistics. The great industrial development of Michigan since 1874 would make any present use of conclusions drawn from the State census of that year utterly misleading, and all that can be done now is to deal with the subject generally and not in details. Treating it in that way it can be said that the State especially excels in its manufactures of railroad cars of all grades; of agricultural implements, from the cheapest hoe to the most costly threshing machine; of furniture, both in soft and hard woods; of stoves, wooden-ware, paper and paper pulp, wagons and carriages, matches and cut tobacco. The annual product of its flouring-mills, planing-mills, sash and door factories, foundries, machineshops, cigar factories, tanneries, breweries, bakeries, boot and shoe factories, and clothing establishments, must in each case be estimated by millions, Other important items in its list of manufactures are confectionery, saddlery and harness, safes, woolen goods, dried fruits, cider and vinegar, butter and cheese, chemicals, picture frames and essential oils. The leading towns of Michigan are, with few exceptions, important manufacturing centers. This is especially true of Detroit, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Bay City and West Bay City, East Saginaw and Saginaw, Battle Creek, Niles, Flint, Kalamazoo, Adrian, Allegan, Big Rapids, Buchanan, Holland, Jonesville, Lansing, Manistee, Muskegon, Grand Haven, Monroe, Owosso, Three Rivers, Lapeer, Ludington, Charlotte, Alpena, Cadillac, Cheboygan, Greenville, Hastings, Ionia, Marquette, Ishpeming, Negaunee, Hancock, Houghton, and Wyandotte.

The growth of the manufacturing interest in Michigan has been healthy and rapid. The State is rich in natural resources, and by reason of its situation commands, through the impulse of active competition, the advantages of cheap transportation. Its industries are unusually diversified in their character, and skilled labor will never be at a loss, under the ordinary conditions of business, to find ready employment and good wages. It adds to the openings of a steadily advancing material civilization the attractions of a settled society and the security of wholesome laws. Its active and governing citizens are working men; its climate is favorable to labor; and that thrift will follow well-directed industry is proved by the experience of its people.

MICHIGAN AS A FARMING STATE.

Notwithstanding the enormous wealth of Michigan in other resources, it is in agriculture, in which at least half of its active population are employed, that it develops its greatest eminence. This eminence, of which ample proof will be given, has for its foundations natural advantages of which the State cannot be divested, and which ensure to its prosperity a permanent and enduring character.

I. The fertility and diversity of the soil. A separate chapter on this subject, prepared by an authority which is recognized in this State and elsewhere as entitled to the highest consideration, both for scientific and practical knowledge, is printed on subsequent pages.

II. The geographical position of Michigan, altogether unique in its character, affecting both its climate and its markets. Lake Superior, more than 400 miles long and the largest fresh water sea in the world, washes its northern shores; Lake Michigan, 345 miles in length, second in size, and the largest lying wholly within the United States, forms the greater portion of its western boundary; and Lakes Huron, St. Clair and Erie, with their connecting rivers, mark its limits on the east. Excepting about 170 miles of its southern extremity the entire lower peninsula is surrounded by water; and excepting a similar distance on its southern and southwestern boundary the same is true of its upper peninsula. With this enormous expanse, varying in depth from a hundred to a thousand feet, and defining a coast line of more than 1,600 miles-half the breadth of the Atlantic-eternally operating upon the soil and atmosphere of a territory, every farm on which lies less than a hundred miles from its touch, and affording during a large part of every year the cheapest transportation known to commerce, the simplest imagination must realize the existence of peculiar geographical conditions unknown elsewhere in the agricultural States. The effect of these conditions on the climate of the State is treated more at large in future pages.

III. The accessibility and nearness to the great markets of the world, taken in connection with the comparatively small capital needed, constitute another and very important reason for the profitableness of farming in Michigan. Every hundred miles saved in transportation to the seaboard adds to the value of the staple agricultural productions. No State or territory in the union has so many cheap and fertile lands within so easy reach of the leading markets.

IV. The wonderful diversity of natural resources in Michigan, and the manufacturing interests to which they contribute, create a constant and increasing home market for the products of the soil. Vast quantities of the yield of the farm and garden go to the mills, lumber camps, furnaces and mines, and find ready and profitable sale. There are few neighborhoods where some of these markets are not found, and the wagons of the farmers of the vicinity bringing hay, oats, potatoes, butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, fresh meat, and fruit are always welcomed and rewarded with good prices.

COMPILATION OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

The United States Department of Agriculture has organized a system of information which is of great value both to the people of this country and to those who may contemplate settling here. It is based upon the reports of special correspondents, consisting, as the Department explains, of four in each settled county, and numbering

several thousand in the aggregate, who are selected for their familiarity with the local agricultural interests of their respective counties. These men become trained observers of the sections they are appointed to inspect, and make periodical reports which are compiled at Washington, the results, arranged and classified, being then made public. The comparative statistics thus collected and handled are not exposed to the suspicion of prejudice or partiality, and conclusions drawn from them must command respect.

COMPARATIVE RESULTS IN TEN WESTERN FARMING STATES FOR SIX YEARS.

The reports of the Department of Agriculture for the years 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879 and 1880 present a series of figures which when placed in juxtaposition form this table, showing the average cash value per acre of eight leading productions of the farm, taken together, in the ten chief farming States of the West during a term of six years. These crops are wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes and hay. The States are arranged in the order of precedence.

Average Cash Value Per Acre of Eight Principal Crops of Ten Western Farming States During Six Years.

Without the combination of a fertile soil and convenient markets the precedence which the foregoing table awards to Michigan could not have been obtained. That general farming was more profitable here than in the other great States included in the comparison during the six years covered by it was due to nature and not to art.

PROFITS OF GRAIN GROWING IN THE WEST AND NORTHWEST IN 1879.

The principal cereals which seek markets out of the State are wheat, corn, oats, and barley. The same grains are raised also in the other western and northwestern States and territories in which cheap farming lands are to be had, and those who carefully examine the comparative yield per acre and value per bushel of these products in the States and territory named for 1879 will the more readily comprehend the results exhibited above, and cannot fail to be impressed, not only with the bounty of its soil, but with the advantages which nearness to the great markets of the conti-nent affords to the farmers of Michigan.

Average Yield per Acre, Price per Bushel, and Value per Acre, of the four Principal Cereals of the Western and Northwestern States holding Cheap Lands, and of Dakota Territory, for the Year 1879.*

*The yield of bushels per acre as given in this table is taken from U. S. Census Bulletin 175, of May 30, 1881. The average prices per bushel are taken from the Report of the Agricultural Department for 1879, except those for the Territory of Dakota, which were furnished by the Statistician of that Department, at the request of the compiler of this pamphlet, in a letter dated August 8, 1881. The third column under each head, giving the value of each crop per acre, is the product of the other two.

It is not necessary to speculate upon the conclusions to be drawn from these figures. They speak for themselves. In the average productiveness of its soil, the average cash values of its crops, and the extent and cheapness of the new farming lands it offers for agricultural purposes,-taking all these considerations togetherMichigan is unequaled among either the States or the territories in the advantages it offers to farmers of small means.

MICHIGAN WHEAT.

The great crop of Michigan is wheat. Its exports bring more money into the State than all its other surplus crops. The census figures show that its aggregate production has about doubled in every ten years since 1840, and that the average yield per acre has increased from 10 bushels in 1849 to 19.49 bushels in 1879, and, according to the "Farm Statistics," compiled at Lansing, to 17.30 bushels in 1880.

FOURTH IN VOLUME AND FIRST IN CAPACITY OF PRODUCTION.

The total area devoted to wheat culture in the United States in 1879, as shown in the census of the following year, was 35,430,052 acres, and the yield in bushels was 459,479,505. The acreage of Michigan was 1,822,749, and the product 35,532,543 bushels, about one-thirteenth of the whole crop. Illinois, with a yield of fifty-one millions, Indiana, with a yield of forty-seven millions, and Ohio, with a yield of fortysix millions of bushels, were the only States that produced as much wheat as Michigan. The product of this State was nearly four and a half millions of bushels greater than that of New York and Pennsylvania combined.

The wheat crop of the State in 1879, according to the same authority, exhibited the largest average yield per acre of any distinctively wheat-producing State or territory. Out of a national product, as stated above, of about 460,000,000 of bushels, nearly 400,000,000 were grown in fourteen States, and their acreage and total and average yield are shown in these figures:

Comparative Productiveness of the Principal Wheat-Growing States.

Every State whose product reached ten millions of bushels is included in this table. The acreage of Dakota territory was 265,298, and its crop was 2,830,289 bushels, an average of nine bushels and four tenths to the acre. The average yield of the States which surpassed Michigan in extent of production, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, was seventeen bushels and one-fifth, that of this State being nineteen bushels and a half.

SPRING AND WINTER WHEAT.

The States of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, and the territory of Dakota, constitute a section of country known as a spring wheat belt, and the number of acres of wheat sown therein in 1879 was not quite 10,000,000, and the product a little over 107,000,000 of bushels, or an average of less than 11 bushels to the acre. During the ten years preceding the census the yield in the leading States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, was increased about 78,000,000 of bushels. The increase in the spring wheat belt during the same period, which included the development of the large fields of Dakota, was about 34,000,000 of bushels.

WHITE WINTER THE PRINCIPAL MICHIGAN CROP.

The wheat raised in this State is almost exclusively that which is known as white winter. There is some spring wheat sown, producing excellent crops, but the practice is not common, and Michigan spring wheat is almost unknown in the market. It is the influence of the surrounding water upon the climate that makes this general culture possible in these latitudes. The growth of winter wheat in the other northwestern States and in the territories lying east of the Rocky Mountains is almost as rare as that of spring wheat in Michigan. Nearly all that reaches the market from those sections is of spring sowing. The wheat of this State holds a very high rank in the market, and has a standard of its own. Michigan white winter flour is known in nearly every European grain exchange.

SEED TIME AND HARVEST.

Wheat in Michigan is put into the ground between the 10th of September and the 5th of October, according to the forwardness of the season and the condition of the weather. Ordinarily the 10th to the 20th of September is the seeding time. The wheat usually gets a growth of three to four inches before the snows of winter come upon it. In the average Michigan winter the wheat is protected throughout by the snow, and comes out in the spring looking fresh and green. Especially is this the case in the northern portion of the State. There is very little heaving of the soil by frost in winter, even where it is unprotected by snow, so that open winters are usually not injurious to the crop if the spring weather be favorable.

The harvest generally begins in the southern portion of the State in the first week