The Country Within
Fifty Miles Of Detroit Is A Pretty Alternation Of Prairie, Wood, Corn-
Fields, Peach And Apple Orchards.
The maize is the staple of the country;
you see it in the fields; you have corn-cobs for breakfast; corncobs,
mush, and hominy for dinner; johnny-cake for tea; and the very bread
contains a third part of Indian meal!
I thought the little I saw of Michigan very fertile and pretty. It is
another of the newly constituted States, and was known until recently
under the name of the "Michigan Territory." This State is a peninsula
between the Huron and Michigan Lakes, and borders in one part closely on
Canada. It has a salubrious climate and a fertile soil, and is rapidly
becoming a very productive State. Of late years the influx of emigrants of
a better class has been very great. The State has great capabilities for
saw and flour mills; the Grand Rapids alone have a fall of fifteen feet in
a mile, and afford immense water-power.
In Michigan, human beings have ceased to be "alligators" they are
"hosses." Thus one man says to another, "How do you do, old hoss?" or,
"What's the time o' day, old hoss?" When I reached Detroit I was amused
when a conductor said to me, "One o' them 'ere hosses will take your
trunks," pointing as he spoke to a group of porters.
On arriving at Detroit I met for the first time with tokens of British
enterprise and energy, and of the growing importance of Canada West.
Several persons in the cars were going to New York, and they took the
ferry at Detroit, and went down to Niagara Bridge by the Canada Great
Western Railway, as the most expeditious route.
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