The following table shows the locality of some of these trees:

For lack of accurate records no doubt we have not given the measurements of the largest trees. In Oakland county, a tulip tree furnished 5,060 feet of lumber.

the Muskegon a white pine scaled nearly 9,000 feet.

On

GREAT VARIETY OF SPECIES.

Mich

Great Britain has about ten species of trees which are natives of her soil. igan, with much less territory, has about ninety species, nine times as great a variety. Michigan has six species of maple of tree size, a basswood, a whitewood, honey locust, Kentucky coffee tree, two cherries, a pepperidge, five ashes, a sassafras, three elms, a hackberry, a mulberry, a buttonwood, black walnut, butternut, six hickories, about twelve oaks, a chestnut, a beech, five tree birches, one larch, one arbor vitæ, and a red cedar. The flora of Michigan contains 1,634 species (and probably more will be found) including 165 trees and shrubs. At least 40 of the trees and shrubs are worthy of cultivation for ornament.

BEAUTY OF MICHIGAN WOODLANDS.

In the tropics of South America we should find 6,000 species on a territory where

we should find 60 species in Michigan. In the tropics a forest is seldom seen to compare with the grandeur of a forest of our white pines. The mixtures of evergreens and deciduous-leaved trees, the shrubs, the autumn tints, the streams, the hills and valleys, our beautiful lakes, with the different seasons of the year, and different phases of the weather, lend a perpetual charm and freshness to our Michigan woodlands.

THE GRASSES.

Many of

There are 139 species of grasses indigenous to Michigan and 176 species of sedges. The latter are often mistaken for grasses by those who are not botanists. these on plains and in marshes afford excellent pasture and hay for use by the pioThe State is remarkable for the excellent quality of its meadows and pastures which are seen in the older portions. These are made up of several wild and introduced species, the number of which can no doubt be largely increased with greater profit to the farmer.

neer.

INJURIOUS INSECTS.

While we have a good variety which are abundant enough for the scientist, and some kinds more abundant than is desired by farmers and fruit-growers, yet injurious insects are by no means so numerous as they are farther west and south. Entomologists assure us that we need have no fears of chintz bugs or the Rocky Mountain locust. The army worm is very seldom troublesome, and then only in limited local

ities.

HEALTH IN MICHIGAN.

BY HENRY B. BAKER, M. D., SECRETARY OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH AND SUPERINTENDENT OF VITAL STATISTICS.

Man makes most rapid and greatest progress in that belt or zone within which the average annual temperature does not much exceed 60° F. or fall much below 45° F. As regards productiveness of soil, and consequent prosperity in food-supplies, the warmer portion of the zone is believed to be favorable, but the evidence seems conclusive that for hardiness of constitution and general and special healthfulness the coldest portion excels. The average annual temperature in central Michigan is about 46.5° F. But Michigan is exceptionally well situated for climatic influences. Extreme heat and extreme cold endanger life and health. Michigan being surrounded except on the south by large bodies of water, the temperature in summer is not as high as it otherwise would be, and in winter it is not as low. How this is favorable to human health may perhaps be better appreciated by noticing how it affects tender plant life; it is well-known that peach trees are easily killed by extreme cold, yet western Michigan is remarkable for its peach crops, made possible in this latitude by the mildness of the winter climate, modified as it is by the large bodies of water in the great lakes which nearly surround the State. This modification of the winter climate in Michigan is undoubtedly favorable to human health, by lessening the danger from inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis, influenza, etc.; and the cooling of the air in summer by the water of the great lakes is favorable by lessening the danger from diarrhea, dysentery, and the other diseases which are usually coincident with high temperatures.

Many of the diseases which most commonly kill people are spread by ignorant and careless disregard of sanitary law. Safety from such diseases is impossible in States and in communities where such disregard is common. In Michigan the people are fast becoming active in efforts for the general promotion of the public health. It was one of the first States in the Union to establish a State Board of Health, and local boards of health are now quite generally organized throughout the State. The people seem to place a high estimate upon the value of human life and health; during the session of 1881 the State Legislature passed 48 acts bearing directly or indirectly upon this subject. No man can live to himself alone,-he is greatly dependent upon his surroundings and fellow-citizens for safety to life and health. One of the greatest recommendations for Michigan as a State to live in is the intelligent regard of its citizens for human life and health.

The conditions in Michigan being favorable for public health and happiness,-what is the positive evidence of the general result, as shown by the death-rate? Is it possible to compare the death-rate in Michigan with that in other States and countries? Unfortunately for our present purpose, governments have nowhere paid sufficient attention to this subject of life and health to enable one to make accurate and complete comparisons of different States or countries. Considering such masses of statistics as are supplied by the census of Great Britain and of the United States, etc., this may seem strange, but it is true. The actual death-rate in these countries has not yet been learned, though for many cities it is quite closely ascertained. Censuses of States and countries collect statements of deaths which occurred during the year

preceding the census, and many deaths are omitted because of movements of relatives and friends, and the forgetfulness of other people. The omissions are probably not the same in all States, because the movements of the inhabitants are not equal. According to the United States censuses preceding that of 1880 (the results of which are not yet published) Michigan has had a very low death-rate, lower than that of most other States. After the census of 1870, the writer undertook to ascertain, by means of statistics collected for the same time by another set of men than the census marshals, what proportion of the deaths in Michigan were omitted and what the actual death-rate was. A "Life Table," similar to those employed by insurance companies was then made, showing for Michigan the average years of life after each age, and for persons of each sex and at every age the probable duration of life in Michigan. Obviously it will not do to compare a death-rate thus obtained with the death-rate of any State ascertained directly from the United States Census, because, to make my Life Table for Michigan, the deaths by the census were nearly doubled-being multiplied by 1.86; but even then the death-rate was so small that it became desirable to compare it with an exceptionally low one. Dr. Wm. Farr, the most eminent vital statistician, has constructed a Life Table for the Healthy Districts of England, concerning which he has said:

"We have no means of ascertaining what the rate of mortality would be among men living in the most favorable sanitary conditions; otherwise observations for a term of years on a considerable number of such persons would supply a standard rate with which other rates could be compared. In the absence of such a standard, the districts of England in which the mortality rate did not exceed 17 annual deaths in 1,000 living have been selected as the basis of a new Life Table."

Comparing my Life Table for Michigan with Dr. Farr's Life Table of the Healthy Districts of England it is found that they are almost identical, for all ages except under five years and over eighty years, the exception under five years being explained in part by the fact that for the Michigan table the still-births were counted as deaths, while in England they were not; the exception over eighty years being that among both males and females the death-rate seemed to be less in Michigan than in England. The total annual death-rate in all England is about 22 per thousand inhabitants. The total annual death-rate in Michigan was, according to my Life Table, about 17.4 per thousand inhabitants. The inhabitants of Michigan now number nearly 1,700,000. In that number of people the difference between a death-rate of 22 and one of 17.4 per thousand amounts to over 7,500 lives; and, according to the Michigan Life Table, this number of persons are saved in each year over what would die if the death-rate in Michigan equaled that in all England.

THE STATE WITH REFERENCE TO MALARIOUS DISEASES.

BY HENRY F. LYSTER, A. M., M. D., PROF. OF THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, MEMBER STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, ETC.

Is there an exceptional prevalence of malarious diseases in Michigan? It can be truthfully answered that there is not. This statement may be verified by a review of the statistics of disease in this and in the neighboring States, and by studying the well observed laws which govern the development of malaria. Lorin Blodgett, in his valuable work, The Climatology of the United States, 1857, says: "Malarious fevers are found where the temperature is elevated in a moist atmosphere, and where a comparatively rapid decomposition of organic matter is as a consequence taking place."

The temperature of the atmosphere in Michigan is not so elevated as it is in the neighboring States, and the amount of moisture is less than in any State lying east of the Mississippi river, and as a consequence the decay of vegetable matter is not so rapid as in districts lying south of us, so that the climatological conditions are not so favorable for the production of malaria.

Malarious diseases, such as intermittent fever, agues, malarial dysentery, autumnal fevers, typho-malarial fevers, are more prevalent as we approach the tropics, and diminish in importance as we go north. Diseases of the above types are decidedly limited both in amount and severity in the northern two-thirds of the State on account of its climatology, and in the remaining third, containing nine-tenths of the population, they have been in a great degree removed, and largely mitigated in their effect, by the general improvement of the country, and particularly by drainage. It has been estimated that malarious diseases have diminished seventy-five per cent from these causes in the last twenty years.

Lorin Blodgett, in the work above cited, states that "while a few cases will be found in the vicinity of the lakes from which the Mississippi river rises in lat. 47° and in the east in the vicinity of Montreal, it becomes an unimportant factor in disease north of lat. 45°. In the Lake region, in elevated parts of New York and New England, intermittent fevers are excluded from all districts of 1,200 to 1,500 feet elevation above the sea level, but the average limit would be nearly at the 45th parallel.” Michigan lies between parallel 41°50′ and 48° north latitude, and has a central elevation of from 660 to 1,700 feet above the sea level. While the littoral margins of the State gradually fall to the lakes, which are 581 feet above the sea, the average elevation of the interior portion of the State would reach between 400 and 600 feet above the lakes in the Lower Peninsula, the extremes varying in the meridian center between seventy-five feet in a limited spot and ten or eleven hundred feet, showing an average elevation of eight hundred to one thousand one hundred feet above the tide water level.

Malarious fevers were formerly common in New England and in New York, and may now be found in alluvial lands and in the vicinity of marshes, particularly near the sea level. Climatologically malaria would now be endemic in that section, and the reasons for its removal are found in the cultivation of the country. When local conditions favor its origin in Michigan, the same conditions would generate malaria much more effectively in any locality lying between Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. If malarial poison increases in quantity and virulence from lat. 45° north toward the south, it can be well understood, and the fact must be accepted as proven, that malaria in southern Michigan is not so general or so destructive as it is south of the southern boundary of the State, in localities similarly situated with regard to water and drainage.

The natural surface configuration of the State favors the removal of malaria, as the country is drained and cultivated. With the exception of a narrow depression between Saginaw bay and the mouth of Grand River, the central portion of the Lower Peninsula rises in the interior to a hight of from 400 to 1,100 feet above the lakes, giving complete water sheds to the rainfall. The natural drainage by the rivers which find their way to the great lakes is very complete. The whole State has an abundance of pure water for drinking purposes which may be obtained from wells and springs. In the Upper Peninsula and in the upper half of the Lower Peninsula the clearness and purity of the water of the lakes and rivers is a matter of general remark. The drift formation, rolling in its surface configuration, composed of clay and gravelly loam, is particularly favorable for affording water of excellent quality.

With all the natural advantages of climate and location which Michigan possesses it has had in former years its malarial history, for reasons similar to those which have