Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN The possessors of the land came into a rich inheritance of natural wealth—of forest life, of edible and medicinal plants, of aquatic animal and vegetable organisms, of valuable rocks, minerals, metals and fuels. The varied conditions of climate, topography, soil and geological structure favored a great variety of natural resources. This in turn has affected the distribution of population and of industries. The limitation of agriculture to restricted areas has perpetuated undeveloped regions still open to exploration and exploitation by the industrial pioneer. THE FORESTS To the first white settlers, the timber resources of Michigan appeared inexhaustible, and they fiercely assailed the forest as the chief hindrance to a livelihood from the soil it encumbered. Yet the pioneer was peculiarly dependent on the forest for the means of existence. It yielded building material of every sort and of a quality that today is scarcely to be obtained. It afforded shapes of every form and quality for implements and tools, furniture andequipage. Prostrate it served as fences, while its succulent twigs saved hungry live-stock from winter starvation. Erect it warded off the blasts of winter, and it bestowed upon the surface of the land its covering of humus which, of itself and through the organic life it housed, fertilized the soil and rendered sterile sands agriculturally productive, retained soil- moisture and retarded the run-off of rain and snow, withheld erosion while preserving an even flow of spring and stream. It sheltered bird and animal life useful to man. It furnished primitive road material in a land of swamps and marshes. It dripped delicious sweets and exuded essential gums and pitch. It hived the bee whose honey made a substitute for...