THE STATE-GROWTH, POPULATION, AND WEALTH.

As shown by the geographer of the tenth census the area of Michigan is 58,915 square miles, 605 square miles more than the area of England and Wales. When it was admitted into the Union, in 1837, its population was 174,467, and at the next federal census, taken in 1840, out of twenty-seven States then belonging to the republic it ranked in the number of its inhabitants the twenty-third.

OBSTACLES TO EARLY DEVELOPMENT.

The early development of the territory which forms the State was slow, and in the face of depressing influences. Ignorant and shiftless surveyors, avoiding the labors, and possibly the hazards, of personal explorations, had given false reports of its topography and its resources. Calumnies thus originated, dating as far back as 1815, survived in tradition until a comparatively recent period. Kindred reports concerning the insalubrity of the climate helped to impede the progress of the State. When railroads began to absorb the carrying trade of the country they naturally sought eastern and western connections, uniting the valley of the Mississippi with the Atlantic, and such facilities as the State possessed carried the current of travel through its territory rather than into the recesses of its interior. The great trunk lines have always been united in a common policy to secure the greatest amount of travel to the farthest possible points. Their agents, in the eastern States and abroad, however widely they may diverge in other respects, combine in labors to send those who are seeking western homes beyond Chicago.

ITS VALUE DISCOVERED.

It is only within a very few years that the northern counties of the lower peninsula have been known and understood, except by a few enterprising men, even among Michigan people. The extension of the lumber interests, seeking fresh material for the mills, led to their first thorough exploration, and it was not until those interests had acquired enormous magnitude that the now undoubted fact was realized that, great as had been their profits, the discoveries they had made and the great wilderness they had partially cleared promised more to agriculture than it had yielded to the axe. Immense tracts of hard-wood timber were found containing no pine, and it was found, too, that large portions of our northern territory which produce the best pine produce also the best crops. There are pine barrens bearing an inferior and scraggy wood, which the fastidious lumberman utterly neglects, but these occupy only limited areas in what are known as the pine regions of the State, and cover only a comparatively small portion of its territory. Most of the great trees which constitute the pride of our lumber forests, and have made Michigan pine famous at home and abroad, grow largely among beeches and hard maple and other valuable wood, which only flourish on soils capable of yielding good crops. A few of these noble pines, standing among scores of hard timber, give character to the discoveries of the "land-looker" for the saw-mills, while in no wise detracting from the value of the soil on which they grow. Of course there are different degrees of value in these lands, as in all others, and the settler will exercise the same discretion in his choice as he does in determining other accessories to a home. But there are thousands of acres in Michigan from which pine trees have been cut, as well as many other

thousands which have never borne pine, into the soil of which no ploughshare has ever penetrated, which will well repay the labors of the husbandman, and the fee simple of which can be bought for less than a year's rental of many of the lands of Europe.

ROAD BUILDING.

The policy of the State in constructing public wagon roads in advance of the settlements out of land cessions made by the General Government for purposes of reclamation has been wise and liberal, and has aided largely in opening up the northern counties. Generous land grants were made several years ago by congressional enactment to promote the building of railroads to the Straits of Mackinac, but for a long time some of these grants only retarded settlement by withholding lands from sale, while little progress was made in the work they were designed to advance. This delay is now ended. A line has been for some time in operation connecting Grand and Little Traverse bays with all the great thoroughfares of the country, which has lately been extended to the Straits, while the Mackinac division of the Michigan Central has reached that point since the first edition of this pamphlet was printed. A glance at the map which accompanies this publication will reveal the importance of these lines to the territory they intersect as well as to the State at large, and the magnitude of the great net-work of communications with which they form connections. Across the Straits, and separated only by five miles of ferriage, is the eastern terminus of the recently completed Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad, which traverses the upper peninsula to points where links will be formed with the great regions of the northwest. A more detailed description of the railroad system of the State is given elsewhere.

AN UNSTIMULATED GROWTH.

No organized effort has been made by the State to promote general immigration. Whatever means have been employed to invite population from abroad have been isolated and fragmentary. The growth of the State has been entirely natural and unstimulated. The result has been to make its people peculiarly homogeneous in character. New elements have been assimilated with marked success and rapidity. The natural resources and attractions of the State, however, have continued to draw people hitherward from other States and from Europe, until the population of fortysix years ago has increased nearly ten-fold. The territory which entered the Union in 1837, with 174,467 inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, sent to its defense less than thirty years later more than 90,000 soldiers. The State which stood twentythird in rank in 1840 had advanced to the ninth in 1880. A table based upon the returns of the United States census in each succeeding decade tells the whole story:

Table Showing the population of Michigan at each Federal Enumeration since the Admission of the State in 1837, with the Progressive Increase and Rank.

THE STATES IT HAS OVERTAKEN.

In this stately march of forty years, Michigan has moved steadily past the older States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee. In 1860 it was outranked slightly by Wisconsin, and in 1870 by Iowa, but the census of 1880 showed that neither of those great and thriving States was then its equal in population. No State equals it now that did not, forty years ago, contain 80 per cent more in the number of its inhabitants.

The distribution of the population of the State in 1880 over the several counties thereof, is shown in the table which is printed on the face of the map at the beginning of this pamphlet.

WHERE THEY CAME FROM.

Of the total number of inhabitants of Michigan at the enumeration of 1880, there were of native birth 1,248,429, and of foreign birth 388,508. The nativities represented were as follows:

THE FORMATION OF STATE CHARACTER, AND WHO FORMED IT.

The formative period in the character of the people of this State as a political community, and of their institutions, legislation, and habits of action, was the decade between 1830 and 1840. It was during that time that they emerged from a territorial pupilage, to assume the duties and responsibilities of an independent State. It was then they formed their first constitution, adopted their axioms, and founded their traditions. The first convention which met to organize their fundamental laws was composed of pioneers who, in the language of one of their few surviving members, were trying to work out the problem which continues to this day to be exemplified in the financial policy of the State, "earn your money before you spend it." The population of the territory at the beginning of this period was 31,639. When the ten

years had elapsed it was found to have increased nearly seven-fold, its inhabitants numbering 212,267. The rate of increase had been 570 per cent. In no subsequent decade has it exceeded 92 per cent. This enormous accession was the element which stamped the civilization of the State. A large portion of it came from New England -most of it from the rural counties of New York-all of it bore the impress of genuine American thought and character. The institutions of the State, the nature of its laws, the ideas which control popular expressions and the tendency of sentiment which generally prevails, modified in their actual application by the enlarged conditions of a fresh and advancing society, as well as many of the names of its towns and villages, betray the origin of the element which is paramount in Michigan. The characteristics it introduced have never been lost. There have been large and welcome additions to the population of the State from many parts of this country and from most of the countries of Europe. They came to Michigan expecting to find a moral, intelligent, and industrious American State, and they have not been disappointed. The process of assimilation has gone harmoniously forward, and no sectional or national distinctions disturb its citizens of either native or foreign birth. The prizes of business and political success are open alike to both, and even differences of language are lost after the lapse of a generation. But the fundamental sentiments and ideas which formed Michigan character nearly fifty years ago are respected still, and there are few among its people who desire a change.

GROWTH OF THE MANUFACTURING INTEREST.

The expansion of the manufacturing interest of the State is exhibited in the subjoined figures. They are taken from the Census Reports of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. All kinds of manufactures are included except gas in the returns for 1880: Statistics of Manufacturing in Michigan.

There were 34,089 farms in the State in 1850, in which were included 1,929,110 acres of improved land. "Compared with 1870," the Secretary of State said in his report of December 14, 1880, "the total area in farms has increased 866,974 acres, or 8.58 per cent. Of this increase 785,304 acres are in the counties north of the southern four tiers. The area of improved land in farms is 1,128,252 acres greater than in 1870, of which 552,460 acres are in the northern counties. In other words, in that portion of the State known as Northern Michigan, which is here taken to include all counties north of the southern four tiers, where ten years ago the total area in farms was only 1,923,550 acres, and the improved lands in farms only 411,217 acres, there is to-day an aggregate acreage in farms of 2,708,854 acres, and the improved land amounts to 963,677 acres." This was said more than two years ago. The number of farms in 1882 was 124,684, containing 11,531,604 acres, of which 6,694,059 were improved. This increase is steadily going forward. A very considerable amount of land has been taken up for agricultural purposes in the upper peninsula, and the

indications point to a more rapid settlement of all the northern portions of the State than ever before.

There were assessed for taxes in 1861, 15,160,710 acres. In 1871 the number of acres assessed was 20,515,388; in 1881 it was 29,306,820. The rate of increase during that decade was more than 42 per cent. The total number of acres in the State, including the large extent of mineral lands on Lake Superior and 784,000 acres covered by inland lakes, is 37,705,600.

AVERAGE SIZE OF FARMS.

The average size of the farms in Michigan is a fraction over 92 acres. The significance of this showing will be better appreciated in those countries of Europe where large land-holders engross most of the soil and the actual farmers are only tenants. Here tenant-farming is little known. Instances in which the use of land is paid by dividing its yield are not infrequent, but leases of any considerable area under a fixed money rental are rarely made. Whether large or small, in the general rule, the farmer's fields are his own.

THE PRODUCTS OF A YEAR.

The natural products of the State in 1879 were estimated by Governor Jerome in his message to the Legislature at the beginning of 1881 to amount to a valuation of nearly one hundred and seventy millions of dollars, made up of the following items: Agricultural products....

Timber..
Copper..

Iron

Salt
Fish

$88,500,000

60,000,000

8,000,000

10,000,000

2,000,000 1,000,000

THE REALIZED WEALTH OF THE STATE.

The constitution of 1850 required the Legislature to provide "for an equalization by a State Board in the year 1851, and every fifth year thereafter, of assessments on all taxable property except that paying specific taxes." The statements made by this board at each successive meeting indicate the progressive increase in the amount of taxable property. The valuations it has established during the thirty years of its existence have been as follows, the figures representing both real and personal estate. An extra session was held in 1853 to revise the action of 1851 :

The general depression prevailing throughout the business of the country between 1873 and 1876 caused large depreciation in the values of many kinds of property, and left the valuation of 1876 the same as that of 1871. During the last five years the mining and navigation interests have revived, pine lands have increased in value, manufacturers have largely extended their scope, real estate has enhanced its prices, and business of all kinds has attained an unprecedented prosperity. The advance of nearly 30 per cent in the valuation of taxable property in that period fairly represents a legitimate growth.