215 • 



I have just had some conversation with a gentleman, Mr. Thomas, of the 

 town of Newark, who informs me that he has invented and patented a machine 

 for pulling flax, which he has no doubt will do the business to perfection. He 

 has some in process of building, and is so confident of their operating successfully, 

 that he intends to sow fifty acres to flax, this spring, himself, which he would not 

 do, of course, if he had to go through the old fashioned, back-aching operation of 

 pulling it by hand. If Mr. Thomas's expectations are realized, it, with the re- 

 cent improvements in the dressing and manufacturiug of flax, will work a great 

 revolution in the production of this article, and we may expect to see large quan- 

 tities of it grown in Rock County, as well as other parts of the great and 

 growing West. 



Hoping you may, yet fearing that you will not, find any thing in this commu- 

 nication that will be of service to you, I subscribe myself your friend, and wcU 



wisher to the cause of General Improvement. 



JAMES M. BURGESS. 



To Albert C. Ingham, Esq. 



Sec. of the W??. State Agr. Society. 



AGRICULTURE OF SAUK COUNTY. 



Pkaikie Du Sac, December 31st, 1851. 



Sir — You request to be fui-nished with some account of our county, Sauk, 

 with general information, is received. 



As to the early history of Sauk County little is known here. When I came 

 to this county, in 1840, it was inhabited by the Winnebago Indians, who said 

 that they had whipped the Sacs oft^ and that when they came here there was a 

 large settlement of the Sacs on the lower end of Sauk Prairie. I have often ex- 

 amined the remains of their tillage there, and should suppose they raised corn in 

 one lot of at least 400 acres ; the town of Westfield is laid out on part of this 

 ground, and the whole quantity of land, tho 400 a^^res, is covered M'ith well 

 formed, regular, corn hills. In the AMcinity are a number of iiregular Indian 

 mounds. 



In building the Sauk mills, four miles from the villages of Westfield and 

 Prairie du Sac, on the Honey Creek, I had occasion to haul oft" a few of the 

 largest Indian mounds found there for the purpose of making a dam, as I found 

 on opening one of them, that they were composed of a toTigh light colored clay, 

 the rest of the ground surface being sandy, I was surprised to find that the 

 mounds only Avore clay; as soon as I came to the level ground the clay disap- 



