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Michigan Ancient Garden Beds
ANCIENT GARDEN BEDS OF MICHIGAN
BY BELA HUBBARD
(Read before the State Pioneer Society, February 7th, 1877.)
A class of works of the Mound-Builders exists in Michigan, of unknown age and origin, which have received the name of " Garden-beds."
An unusual importance attaches to these remains of a lost race, from the fact that they have been almost entirely overlooked by archaeologists, and that of those which were so numerous and prominent forty, or even thirty years ago, nearly every trace has disappeared. For any knowledge beyond the scanty details hitherto recorded we are forced to rely upon the recollections of the "oldest inhabitants." We know how uncertain this reliance often is, and were it otherwise, we cannot but recognize the rapidity with which we are losing our hold of this kind of testimony, and the very brief period at which it must cease altogether.
THE EARLIEST MENTION OP THESE RELICS,
which, I find, is by Haven, in his "Archaeology of the United States.'' It is the report of Verandrier, Who, with several French associates, explored this region before 1748. He found in the western wilderness " large tracts free from wood, many of which are everywhere covered with furrows, as if they had formerly been plowed and sown."
Farming
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