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AGRIC;ULTURE OF WALWORTH COUNTY. 



Geneva, December SOtli, 1851. 



Dear Sir — I received your letter at a time when other cares and duties were 

 occupying my attention, and have consequently delayed my response to a period 

 so late as to preclude the possibility of noticing m'any topics of interest to the 

 agi-iculturists of our county, or of suitably discussing those to which reference is 

 made. 



It is not to be denied that the agiicultural interests of our county are greatly 

 depressed. Our staple is wheat, and three successive failures of this crop have 

 deprived us of our chief resource. 



Another cause of the depression of this interest is the prevailing indebtedness 

 of the farmers. Most of those who settled in this county at an early day pos- 

 sessed but limited means, and good crops and high prices for the first few years 

 tempted them into this vortex. Pay-day finally came, and with it short crops 

 and low prices — -creditors became importunate, and debtors were forced into the 

 loan market at a time when an act of most impolitic legislation had left capital, 

 without restraint, to prey upon the vitals of labor. Homesteads were involved at 

 rates of interest varying from fifteen to fifty per cent. The desperation of hope, on 

 the part of the borrower, was only equalled by the exultation of avarice on the part 

 of the lender. So far from realizing the relief anticipated, the debtor now finds 

 himself less able to pay the usurer than he originally was to pay the merchant, 

 whose importunity, in most instances, forced them into the dilemma. The result 

 is a cheerless present and a hopeless future. California seems the only resource, 

 and to that gilded region many a Walworth county fai'mer is prej^aring to flee as 

 to a city of refuge. 



The formation of the county is undulating. It has no mountains and very few 

 rugged bluffs or steep hills. Probably no county in the State presents a more 

 fortunate combination of prairie and timber, interspersed with rivulets and spi'ings, 

 precisely suited to the convenience of the farmer. There is little low or wet land 

 in this county, and most of this, though rejected as refuse in the first settlement, 

 has since been found to be our most valuable land. Heretofore these sloughs 

 have been our exclusive resort for hay ; when suitably drained, they are found 

 arable in a high degree, and produce most crops in great abundance. 



Many of our farmers are determined to work out a new course for the future. 

 Wheat growing, as an exclusive crop, is abandoned, and large fields are being 

 sown with tame grasses preparatory to a more general reai'ing of stock. The ex- 

 periments thus far warrant the belief, that our soil will produce the grasses in as 



