EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF LAND (FOR AGRICULTURE) IN SOUTHERN MICHIGAN

It has been generally assumed that early pioneers believed the best land for farming was beneath dense, large trees that also had thick undergrowth; thinly timbered or open land was viewed with disdain. Farmers evaluating land for possible settlement would, according to this logic, select heavily timbered land over sparsely timbered and open land. The following text is taken in large from a 1970 paper by B.C. Peters in the Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters.

The Pioneer Landscape
Settlers recognized four natural landscape types in Kalamazoo County: wetland, dense beech-maple forest, oak openings, and prairie. The wetlands were very close to the water table and therefore wet for a large part of the year. The growth on this type of land was usually described by such words: "swamp," "marsh" or "wet prairie," or "level and wet with heavy timber." Species commonly found on the timbered wet land were tamarack, ash, elm, and sycamore.
    Beech-maple forest differed from the lowland forests in that it was located in upland areas not subject to saturation during seasonal flooding of a stream or by fluctuations in the water table. Trees in these areas were primarily species with moderate moisture requirements such as beech, sugar maple, and basswood. Upland heavy timber was typically found on soils with a high clay content, or on land protected from fires. This vegetative landscape was sometimes called "timbered land," or, because of the predominance of beech and maple, "beech and maple grounds," or simply "maple lands."
    The landscape called by the pioneers "oak openings" was an open woodland in which the trees were sparsely scattered over a grassy surface. An 1834 account by a traveler going inland from Detroit well describes this landscape.

The monotonous landscape ceases near Ann Arbor; and here the country became more interesting as one approaches the high plateau. The dense forest disappear and lakes surrounded by pretty hills and parklike woods, which the Americans call ‘oak openings,’ meet the traveler’s eye... where the trees stand a few paces apart and where the ground is overgrown with luxurious grasses. Passage is obstructed neither by bushes nor by fallen trees.

Species typical of the oak openings were oaks of several types, with a scattering of hickories. This landscape covered approximately 2/3 of the county; its location corresponded very closely to the sandy soils of the outwash plains and low moraines. Other names used for this landscape were "barrens," "oak barrens," "oak land," or, if the dominant tree was the burr oak, "burr oak plains," or "burr oak openings."
    The prairies of Kalamazoo County (yellow areas below) were treeless grasslands. They, too, were located on coarse textured (sandy). The prairie surface was often described as being the highest ground in the vicinity.

Source: Peters, B.C. 1970. Pioneer evaluation of the Kalamazoo County landscape. Michigan Academician 3(2): 15-25.

One of the surveyors of Oshtemo Townships, for example, noted that the surface of one of its prairies was "located nearly 100 feet above [the] surrounding territory." The same idea was expressed by an 1833 visitor to the county, who, upon approaching the largest prairie in the county, reported that the ground became "higher and firmer"as he approached the "table land". Kalamazoo County’s pioneers recognized nine prairies within its borders. These grasslands varied in area from a few hundred to several thousand acres. Since they were easily identifiable landscape features, all were given names. These were, from largest to smallest: Prairie Ronde, Gourdneck Prairie, Gull Prairies, Grand Prairies, Climax Prairie, Genesee Prairies, Toland’s Prairie, Dry Prairie, and Indian Fields.

Evaluation of the Kalamazoo County Landscape: 1828-1831
The earliest arrivals in Kalamazoo County were farmers. The first family arrived in November, 1828, and was followed by several more during the winter of 1828-29. The rate of settlement accelerated so that by the spring of 1831 there were approximately 100 families in the county.
    Nearly all the land purchases made in the county by settlers as of June 20, 1831 included prairie land (see map below).

Source: Peters, B.C. 1970. Pioneer evaluation of the Kalamazoo County landscape. Michigan Academician 3(2): 15-25.

The smaller prairies, where timber and open land could be easily incorporated by one purchase (if not reserved as public school or university lands, or Indian Reservation) were most rapidly acquired.
    The large Prairie Ronde, with considerable grassland at some distance from timber, was taken up first around its margin. Viewers of the Prairie Ronde landscape during these initial years of occupation usually commented on its encirclement by the pioneers. One early resident reported that when he arrived, in May of 1830, "nearly all the Prairie Ronde, except the west and south sides, was unoccupied." Later in 1830, two Yankees looking over the prairie as a potential site for a store said they found "about 60 families settled on the border, between prairie and timber on the Big Prairie and Gourdneck Prairie". Another early arrival recollected that in November, 1831, the landscape of Prairie Ronde had "no roads, no fences, no houses; for the log cabins of the settlers were all at the edge of the timber, and I think not one of them could be seen from the old store at Schoolcraft."
    The prairie edge location favored by the early settlers was obviously an attempt to combine the advantage of having on the one hand timber for buildings, fences, and fires, and on other, rich land which could be immediately cultivated. That the pioneers thought the prairie soil fertile is shown by the remarks about the settlement of Kalamazoo County by an 1836 visitor. He reported that the prairies "are the first lands taken up from the facility with which they are cultivated and their great fertility."
    The settlement pattern that appeared on Prairie Ronde and Gourdneck Prairie was also found on the other prairies of the county. The townships which had prairies were the first settled, and in those townships nearly all the initial settlers took up a prairie-timber (edge) location.

Agricultural Settlements: 1832 - 1834
Although the most desirable farm land--the prairies--had been largely taken up by settlers or speculators by the end of 1831, the oak openings and beech-maple forest remained essentially unoccupied and unpurchased at that time.
    Oak openings were perceived early on as being nearly as valuable as the prairies, and much preferred to the dense forest. Several pioneers in Richland Township, for example, who arrived early enough to obtain prairie land selected instead oak openings near Gull Prairie. One of these settlers, who lived on the road from Bronson (later Kalamazoo) to Gull Prairie, told an 1836 traveller the reason he had not taken up prairie land.

A settler near the edge [of Gull Prairie] at whose house we dined, stated to me that from his own experience her preferred openings to prairie, that the old farmers on the latter think they begin to perceive a slight deterioration of soil by cultivation, whereas in Washtenaw County, for instance, some parts of which have been settled 12 years the openings have continued to improve with every crop to the present time.

The agricultural settlers who purchased land between 1832 and 1834 favored the oak openings over the beech-maple forest. The two largest areas of this upland forest, in the southeastern and southwestern corners of the county, were essentially unoccupied in 1834.
    Thus, it is obvious that settlers favored the oak openings over heavily timbered land. As soon as the prairie land in the county was all taken, settlement began in those townships dominated by oak openings. For example, in 1832 the first settler in Ross Township occupied an oak opening in section 18. The first settler in Cooper Township, in 1833, selected an oak opening in sections 2 and 11. And the initial settler in Pavilion Township in 1834 took up residence in an oak opening in section 2. That the occupation of the county spread from the prairies into the oak openings was recognized by an early historian who reported that in Oshtemo Township by 1836, the settlements were being "pushed" into the oak openings west of Grand Prairie.
    In fact, if they had the money, the settlers preferred to buy land in prairie or oak opening from speculators rather than beech-maple timbered land from the government. This was the case, even though in 1836 the prairie land was selling at prices of $10 to $15 per acre and the oak openings at about $5 per acre.
    The lack of interest in settling the heavy timber is revealed by the general absence of early information about Wakeshma Township, which was covered by that type growth. The 1869-70 Kalamazoo County Directory reported that the township "has been looked upon as a wilderness and forsaken place umbrageous and ambiguous with here and there a squatter," and was "just now [1869] getting itself out of the woods." Wakeshma Township did not receive its first settler until 1842 (14 years after the first settler had arrived in the county) and he probably would have taken up prairie or oak openings if he could have afforded them. By this time the farmers on Prairie Ronde had been exporting wheat for 11 years, and one farmer on Genesee Prairie was producing 1000 bushels of wheat a year. The reluctance of the pioneers to locate in the forested land in Wakeshma Township is understandable since it took five or six months of hard labor to clear a 20 acre plot.

Conclusions
It does not appear that the pioneers of Kalamazoo County were any more willing to spend five to ten years chopping out a farm from heavy timber, than was the Englishman who, in 1830, summarized his impressions about Michigan in these words:

[The interior of Michigan is] for the most part, a thinly timbered country interspersed with forests and prairie, thereby saving a great part of the immense labor and expense of clearing, which is felt to be a serious obstacle to the English settler in America; whilst at the same time, there is an ample sufficiency of wood for all useful purposes, as building, fuel, etc.

Settlers in the vicinity of Marshall in Calhoun County expressed the same idea to an 1833 visitor. They pointed out that oak openings could be brought into agricultural production at once, and not, as with forested land, "wear out one generation in subduing it."
    It is evident that, in Kalamazoo County at least, the forested land was valued less than the thinly timbered or open land. The more open the land, the earlier it was settled. This pattern of site selection was probably also typical of the other counties in the southern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

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