The Grand River Times, July, 1851

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The Northern Part of the State

THE NORTHERN PART OF THE STATE.—An intelligent citizen of Wisconsin informs us that the State is rapidly settling and such is undoubtedly the case. He came to this city from MIlwaukee, via Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, and up the river to Ionia, Lyons and the counties east. This region he represents as altogether superior to any other portion of the new West he has seen. Its promise for present crop is prodigious, while it unites and combines numerous advantages, such as are not found in any other new country. Its soil is of the richest and most productive kind, sustained through the whole North by a subsoil of clay. Lumber, timber, water, and plaster, are also found in great abundance. It is already sufficiently advanced to be redeemed from the disadvantages of a new settlement. It has a navigable river extending into the the country, and now, bearing on its currents, three or four fine steamboats. Beautiful villages are dotted over its surface ; schools for educating the young, and churches teaching moral lessons so necessary in an active business community. It is a delightful and interesting country, and holds out inducements for settlement and improvement over almost any other. The whole Northern tier of counties extending from the outlet of Lake Huron to the shore of Lake Michigan, are destined before many years to present a combination of advantages such as cannot be found. Already there is shipping from the mouth of the Grand River alone near thirty million feet of lumber a year, besides immense quantities of shooks, staves, bark and fur. The persons employed in the production of these several articles are consumers of agricultural products, thus rearing up a domestic or home market for those products. We have taken some pains to measure these several interests in the line of Northern counties, and as nearly as we can ascertain the facts of the case, the manufacturing capital and labor are equal, at least, to that employed in agriculture. Any one who desires to cultivate and improve a new place, will readily see the advantages which such a division of labor must secure to him if within its reach. These interests are mutually advantageous to each other, as diversity of pursuits always are, when brought into harmonious bearings upon one another. The materials for building and improvements are offered to the farmer at cheap rates, while a market is made at the same time for coarse grains—grains that will not bear a land transportation to distant markets, but which are necessary to the success of the farmer. These views are applicable to the whole Northern part of the State, and for the benefit of that rapidly inflowing immigration, they should be held up to settlers in the West. We hazard nothing in saying that Michigan offers greater advantageous for settlement than any other State in the Union. There are no parts of her settled domain, where every variety of fruit is not grown. Even this year, peaches are quite abundant in the extreme North. In crops she never fails—while Wisconsin has not born a fair crop in four years.                    [Free Press.