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HISTORY OF ALPENA COUNTY BY WILLIAM BOULTON IN 1876
Yet after it was sowed last fall you could 'scarcely see the land for the stones. ' Morse, Minor, Richardson, Campbell, Potter & Co., and many other prominent lumbermen have creditable improvements near town, and the feeling among the 'solid men' is earnest and in favor of encouraging agricultural development both by precept and example. But those fanning mills, —they have gone to the burnt lands, where there is a development of the farming interest, made within the past three years, which seems incredible. Fourteen miles in a direct course from Alpena, eighteen miles by the road, in town 32 north, of range 6 east, are located most of the farms I visited, but in several towns adjoining this are large tracts of what are known as 'burnt lands. ' Why they are so called, and why they have proved such a providential interposition in favor of Alpena is thus explained, which explanation is best introduced with the original remark that the face of all these lands is clay, the surface soil being light or dark loam, according to the situation and the previous growth of timber. Formerly this land was-heavily timbered, the best of it with beech and maple, and an occasional cork pine;. the lighter qualities with hemlock, some beech and maple, and pine in groves. Fires killed the timber many years ago; afterwards this was blown down, and still later it was burned up. root and branch, as clean in many instances as that which formerly stood upon the cleanest pine plains in any portion of the State.
ALPENA COUNTY MICHIGAN
Page 25
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