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pure water, and abundance of water power. The purity of the waters in the 

 smaller streams and lakes — those that are fed entirely from springs — may be 

 judged of from the fact that they abound with speckled trout. But those larger 

 streams which rise in swamps and marshes, many of them being tamerack swamps, 

 show the effects thereof in the highly colored state of the water. 



The Prairie region extends from the Wisconsin, north, by a width of from 

 thirty to fifty miles from the Mississippi, to within ten miles of Lake Superior at 

 its western extremity, with sufficient timber for farming purposes the most of the 

 way. Between the Black and Chippewa Rivers, on the present mail route, the 

 timber is too scarce to encourage a general settlement ; but along the river hills, 

 and also east of the mail route, timber is more abundant. East of the Kickapoo, 

 and on the head waters of the St. Croix, Chippewa, and Black Rivers, and on 

 the western branches of the Wisconsin — all within the original county of Craw- 

 ford — there is no lack of timber ; indeed it is generally a dense forest of pine, 

 mixed with hard wood. 



Within the present limits of the county, except a dense forest on the east side of 

 the Kickapoo, the country is divided between prairie and timber, and open wood 

 land, so that no portion of it can suffer for Avant of timber ; and except along the 

 precipitous bluffs of the river, there is but little waste land. It can mostly be 

 ploughed, gi-azed, or kept for timber ; and is not more uneven than S2!me of the 

 best cultivated portions of western Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, along the 

 Ohio River. 



" The general character of the soil" is good ; within the present limits of Crawford 

 County, in Bad Ax, La Crosse, the western portions of Chippewa, and southern 

 parts of St. Croix, it may be considered as first rate. Indeed, it is hard to imagine 

 how it can be improved. Further east and north, when you reach the pine region, 

 the soil becomes of less value, except in places where the pine does not grow. 



The soil in that portion of the country fii-st named, is mostly a vegetable 

 mould, formed from the decay of vegetable matter, or its ashes, Avhen burnt over. 

 It is mixed with sand sufficient to give it warmth ; and this seems to increase as 

 we go north, showing that nature, or nature's God has proAided against the vis- 

 cissitudes of the climate. The poorer soils spoken of are, in the pines too sandy, 

 and in the marshes too wet, and in a few instances a cold clay. 



" Of the crops and the general yield," it would be difBcult for me to speak, 

 because I have not sufiicient data. Much depends on the mode of cultivation 

 and the season ; fifty, forty, thirty, and twenty bushels of wheat to the acre have 

 been raised. So far as I know, thirty of wheat, fifty of corn and oats, and from 

 one to two hundred bushels of potatoes, are considered an average crop. 



In the cranberry marshes, which are found at the head of the larger streams, 

 the crops in good seasons are said to average several hundred bushels per acre. 



