Dowries — Development of Kenosha County. 561 



same jears. The figures in Table 4 show that the cash value 

 of the farms per capita is greater in Group 2 than in Group 1 

 for the years under consideration. The same is true of the 

 total valuation of personal property and real estate per capita, 

 except that in 1850 that of Group 2 is less than that of Group 1. 

 This exception may be partly accounted for by the fact that 

 there seems to have been a great demand and rush for the farms 

 in Wheatland and Brighton during the period from 1850 to 

 1860, due to the excellent quality and quantity of the wheat 

 gro\\Ti in this section/ The fact that these valuations per cap- 

 ita are greater in Group 2 than in Group 1 may be regarded as 

 an indication that the native bom were more thrifty and made 

 greater improvements on their farms than the foreign bom. 



This decline in the population in the towns of Group 1, and 

 the fact that the cash value of the farms per capita is lower on 

 the whole than that of Group 2, leads us to examine the prod- 

 ucts of the towns of the two groups. Chart II, Plate XLII, 

 shows graphically the fluctuation of the chief products of the 

 county, excluding the city of Kenosha, from 1850 to 1895. The 

 most striking fact shown is the steady decline of the number of 

 bushels of wheat per capita and the great increase in the number 

 of pounds of butter and bushels of oats per capita. The result 

 in Table 6 of the Appendix points out clearly that there was a 

 strong tendency in the towns of Group 1 to depend upon the 

 production of wheat, oats, and Indian corn, while the towns of 

 Group 2 went into the dairy industry. In the study of the soils 

 of the county it was pointed out that the prevailing soil in the 

 western area of these two groups of towns is the lighter marly 

 clay and in the eastern area, including the towns of Paris and 

 Bristol, there is a considerable amount of prairie loam, espe- 

 cially in Paris. This fact leads irresistibly to the conclusion 

 that the decline in the population and the smallness of the cash 

 value of the farms and the total valuation per capita of Group 1, 

 when compared with that of Group 2, is due not so much to the 

 soil as to the nativity of the people. The Germans, English, and 



iSee Table 6, Appendix. The census taker of 1850 in his remarks 

 on the town of Wheatland said that the town had a great reputation for 

 wheat. 



