A Flight Across Michigan

B. P. Taylor writea to the Cbieago ' Journal thus wise : Michigan has a coat of aritis: and tho coot a Ieg;nd ; and the legend a pledge : " If you t-eek ív beautiful península, be liold it hore 1" Tako that breadth of landscape across the Sute, commanded by the wiudows of a Michigan Central truiu, as it swiugs through its grand aru, between Chicago and Detroit, a pendulurn with a beat a d;ty ; tike it uow, when nothing is dying and everythit'g alive, heed the epitaph of Sir Chris! o pher Wreu, - " look around." - nnd teil mo if the pledgo is now redeemad. Michigan, wheo I first eaw it - how many years ago ie will nevor do to teil - lockcd as if tho Lord had made man long enough before He made Michigan tbr the creature to ein, and then did a little clearing and plauting for him in the beginniag, and so helped him to bear the curse witb the beat possible graca : " by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread." The old orchard on the hillside yonder, that rnimieked New England with her "weetiogs" and "greeniugs," vvas an oak opening. Tho pasture, where you instiuctively listened for tbc tinkling of the bells, as " the milky mothers oí the herd" came filing home, was a little prairie. The rioh lowland meadow, which might have been "timothy" had it not been as wild as ihe hawk that awept circles above t, and seemed waviog ou the men of the sharp scythe and the broad swath, was a niariih ; and you eaught yourself looking about for the winding path, the log cabio and the brown faliows; for the slips of bluecalico giils by the roadside, that shut together like telescopes, or made " cheeses" of thcmselves in the profundity of courtesyiug as you rode by ; and you inclined your expeotant ear for the "baa" of the lanibs of the flook or the "uiaa" of the lambs of the household. And this plantation, with its fringes of woods, was about as fiesh from the tiand of the Maker as if He had just looked upou the work and seen " that it was very good." The winds will and ihe fowls of tho air had been its sowers, and its red harvester was fire. The slender Indiau trail truck across it, as il' the savage would score it out frorn the open book of human oivilizatioo. Granes diinced with awkward solemuity upon the rtuirsh ; partridges drummed in thd wood ; ''Bob White" called from the meadow; deer trooped through the orchard. Wbat dream so wouderful as üiat out of this wilderncss of yesterday ninety thousand men should have donned the Ftide'-al blue 1 And the tscorriing has grown real ; the' land is billowy with orchurds and richly laden with'iruit; tho ñillosvs are broad, aDd cihl hunclriïd thouand people are awaiting the harvest, The swift traiu works tho giain ñelds iulo a cheokerboard of green, witb here and there a suspicion of gold. Wh'jat never looked stouter or finer ; oats, that wero. a little tardv, are coming on under the rains, and corn is " catching up'1 in the race. The twin luxuries of high civiliaation are grumbling and the gallows, but there is nothiug in tho agricultural promise of Michigan to cali either for the heinp or the growl. What a panorama is the flight by rail in tho summer time. Tbe train goes east but the worlJ goesjwest. The ft' uces and the fields are off for Gretna Green together; gay gardens flicker by iike bulterflies ; acres of houses are scudding away, and ohuekle-headed orchards, like packs of beadles, are running them down ; great bioadths of grain are whisked about as if " the star of empire" were flourishing its pocket handkerchiefs What pictures of hayfiulds and breaths from the heaps of m own clover ; wbat marchiug regiments of corn ; what trees that bear cherries and boy; what meadows eprinklod with strawberries and girls. The doors of the wprld are wide open : what glimpses of a thousaudsweet homes iu a day. Now the tram bolts into a lumber yard, the very auibush oí saw milis and camp of the stump brigado ; now it slides int" h green grove in the woods, and theu out into broad bays of grass and grain, with liitlu villages asleep in the suu, and spiri'S fahng as it flies, liku lifted white fingers. And wbat wcjuhh of running rivera it fiuds - 8t. j Joseph, Grand and Kalamazoo, Huron, Riiitiin and Kouge. Here it creeps Bdttly across a bridged valley, and you look down, as upon a mnp, on the saintly river Joseph aud liles seated upou its bank?. Then Downgiac, a barbarou-s name for true Anglo-Saxon energy ; theu Kalamazoo, aud a glimpse of the embowered and beautiful city thatbt'ars its name, where the trtes and the houses dweil fraternnlly together and about the only place where Cooper ever made a blunder ; for it was here, wben Kalamazoo was just the wilderness for " Leathur-stockmg," " Hawkeye,'' and all the rest of them, that the novelist tells about the white clover, when the olover .ever plays couiier, but folloWi, like a dcig, liard at the hoels of civil'.aation. Then Albion without the white uiitls; then it wh'istl.s u) tbe vigorou ei!y of Jackrton ; then Anu Albor - Aim's Arbor ouo', but the Ana is deud and tl:e a:bor witbered and gODe - looks down upou it from a divan on the b-inkw of' the líurou, and glories in one of the noblest of utüvorsi'.ies in all the laúd, with a regiment of student almost a thousuud slruug Then Ypsilanli, beautitul enough lor a golden fraiue, with its Normal Soliool aud dUoroUgh oÜjcer drill, the West Poiut of Michigan teachers. All the route the pastures were spriukled with nuoh sheep as Slerne says tlio Lord teuipers the wind to - clean, white, and a Dniltitude, thi.it had gii'ec away tbeir o!d cloihes for the sake of mankind; and I began to understand how thu sbeara could huve clipped from Michigan flooks, seven aud a quarter tnillions of pounds in tpo year 'C4. How vaiied and rich thu vva urces of tho beaulinil Peninsila. Remembering tluit iu fishenos have crowdcd upun a million dollars a year, I think the 8! uto well clirisUMied when they oullod it " Michigan" - ;i vvcir of fish. With it? annual reveuue of' ten fliOUánhd toiiH of copper, and two huudred und BIty thousand tuns of' ron ; lts half mil liou barrels of salt, and it.s luightv foresl that have built oitieg, and could fonce au empire and bo inighiy forests still ; it broad rich aores wiiviog with harvnsts; ite noble nystuni of education, and ita bravo, true enen, Michigan is "a brighi particular star" in the sistarhooü of tho Northwest.