Charlevoix county herald., 1917-10-19
Superior Soil of
Northern Mich,
Writer Compares Crops OF
Oakland & Charlevoix Counties.
Pontiac, Mich, Oct. IL, 1917

Pontiac, Mich, Oct. IL, 1917.
Editor Of Charlevoix County Herald.
Dear Sir
Being a former East Jordanite"
both by birth and adoption and having
spent the greater part OF my gay young
life, until two years ago, in or near
East Jordan. take special interest
in anything affecting Charlevoix
County. While reading copy Of the
Herald sometime ago saw very able
article in which one OF your townsmen
compared the agricultural qualities Of
several Michigan counties with that of
Charlevoix> County.
Among others he mentioned this tier
of counties saying that southeastern
Michigan was so stony that it was
necessary to plant potatoes edgewise
between the stones, OF course this
should be taken with more than a
grain of salt and at the time imagined
the author to have prejudiced opin-
ion in writing as he did, but by the
light of later personal experience l see
now that he had the correct idea.
When two years ago left East Jor-
dan and came to Pontiac because of it's
greater industrial possibilities, friend
told me that Oakland County was the
best county in the state, in fact it was,
"the garden spot OF Michigan" This
interested me but little as | never have
been and have no immediate prospects
of becoming afarmer.
On arriving in Pontiac | found a
beautiful, thriving city, situated in one
of the most picturesque counties in the
state. As from scenic standpoint
nothing finer than the hills, dales and
scores OF clear lakes OF Oakland can be
imagined.
My first surprise came at what peo-
pie here consider a good quality Of
fruit and vegetables, potatoes, apples,
ETC., which had been accustomed to
seeing classed as ..'culls" or at best
seconds" were here magically trans
formed into "a fine grade Of apples or
excellent large potatoes" and so on.
One resident calmly informed me that
Michigan grown potatoes were always
of a low grade. After recovering from
this choice bit Of accurate (?) informa-
ton concluded that evidently he had
never seen a real Michigan potato.
Early last spring deciding to "do my
bit," help Hoover" start drive on
old II. C. OF L. and last but not least to
be able to get fresh garden produce, I
planted garden. Most OF the soil
here you may or may not know is q
gravelly-clay, so after blowing We tho't
it might help TO spade it over also.
This being done we planted our seed
and anxiously waited results, but nary
result. In the meantime a heavy rain
so thoroughly soaked the ground that
the clay ran together forming batter
like mass which upon drying became a
hard crust from one to two inches
thick thru which no vegetable, no
matter how hardy, could force sprout.
On advice from friend we purchas.
ed hand cultvator and proceeded to
break the crust. This II may be said
must be done after every rain else the
soil hardening around the plants re-
tards all growth.
had been used to seeing the pota.
toes in hill spread more or less but
on digging mine found what few
there we're, confined In q space not
larger than quart measure, the earth
being so hard that nothing less than
dynamite would cause them to spread.
Right here I will say that the garden
paid for itself charging no cost for
labor against il as II was tended in
spare time.
Now all the farms have seen are of
much the same soil and the crops in
most cases no better than our garden.
Taking this then as an example and
considering everything in direct pro-
portion for say an eighty acre farm 1t
would require the diligent efforts of q