"After the timber shall have been removed in obedience to the pressing demands of a cash market and high prices, the value of northern Michigan will just begin to be developed. The soil possesses riches of which the heavy growth of timber is the outcropping. Rich as any prairie land, even more substantial in the elements of fertility, with a genial climate, southern Michigan, itself a garden, we predict will have to yield the palm of productive wealth to this portion of the State. Any one who will take the trouble to examine a map of this half of the State, projected on an extended scale, cannot fail to be struck with the superabundant water privileges that exist. It is literally covered with navigable rivers, and their tributaries, large streams, like the veins in the human system. These waters reach the remotest part and thread every portion, affording unfailing supplies and thousands of valuable sites for mills of every description and of all magnitudes. The State is divided near its geographical centre by a slight ridge, sufficient to divide the course of its streams. Two of the largest rivers of the State, the Manistee and the Eastern Au Sauble, rise within about three miles of each other, run parallel, southward, for twenty miles or more, approaching then within half a mile of each other, then turning abruptly almost due east and west, emptying into Lakes Michigan and Huron respectively on almost the same parallel of latitude. "The Grand Traverse region, embracing the valley of the Manistee, is also one of the finest agricultural regions of the State; lying in the northerly portion, this region still has a mild climate, and the finest grains and fruits are raised at the settlements, as far north as the bay. "Much might be said of other counties throughout this region. The whole slope of the peninsula embracing the courses of the Muskegon and Manistee Rivers, and from Grand River to Mackinaw, is a region of rich soil, excellent timber of all kinds, good climate, and of easy access. "The counties in the eastern part of the State, Alpena, Alcona, Iosco, Arrenac, and others north of Saginaw Bay, well situated, having a large extent of coast on Lake Huron, are not so well adapted for agricultural purposes, there is much good farming land in them all; but the forests of pine extending to within a few miles of the coast, render them very desirable. Alcona county, watered by Thunder Bay River, with some smaller streams emptying into Lake Huron, is almost wholly a pine region. Some of the finest specimens of yellow, or Norway pine, in the whole State are found in this country. The white and yellow pine is nearly equally distributed in this region, extending also into the counties south, and reaching Rifle River in Saginaw and Arrenac counties, having an outlet on Saginaw Bay. "This part of the State, upon whose advantages we have not space to particularize as we would like, will be very soon penetrated by railroads.