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timber — the sugar tree, bass, oak, hickory, ash, &c. It is estimated that 

 about one-fifth of these forests is occupied by pine ; two-fifths with sugar, 

 oak, bass, hickory, &c., and two-fifths with tamarack, cedar, alder, black 

 ash, white maple, and aspen. 



The lumberinar business will doubtless take the lead, on and alonir these 

 rivers for many years ; but whenever the pine shall be exhausted, or 

 lumber cease to bear remunerative prices, the more arable lands will be 

 called into requisition, for agricultural purposes, and sustain a more dense 

 population than any country of prairie and openings can do. In fact, as 

 before remarked, the two pursuits are already thriving to some extent 

 side by side in immediate proximity ; many men finding it quite as profita- 

 ble to raise grain, grasses and potatoes, with which to furnish those felling 

 the pine forests, as to manufacture boards. Did time and space permit, 

 this position could be verified by facts in detail, by citing numerous instan- 

 ces of farms that have been opened in the heart of the lumbering dis- 

 tricts, on the Menomonee, Peshitigo, Oconto, Wolf, Wisconsin, Chippe- 

 wa and St. Croix Rivers, all of which have been attended with abundant 

 success. 



Much has been said about the " sand barrens " of Wisconsin. They 

 lie between the upper Fox and the Wisconsin, near Fort Winnebago, 

 and stretching ofi" north-westerly, parallel with the Mississippi and some 

 twenty miles from it, as far as the St. Croix. The district is generally 

 about twenty miles in width, and some one hundred miles in length, and 

 seems composed of what the geologists call drift, being the debris of sand 

 rock, decomposed by the action of the elements in former ages, and car- 

 ried down from the north-easterly regions by currents of Avater. This 

 kind of land has been supposed entirely worthless for all purposes of 

 agriculture. Of that part north-west of the river Wisconsin, little is 

 known or proved as to its soils. It may be as poor as the geologists 

 would have us believe. But it is to be remembered, that the portion of 

 it lying between the Wisconsin and the Fox rivers, constitutes a part o* 

 the famous "Indian Land" district, which has been sought with so 

 much avidity, during the past season, by experienced farmers from the 

 older States. 



I have, thus far, been commenting, in the main, on that portion of 

 northern Wisconsin watered by the several rivers before mentioned, and 

 lying below (south) of the "Region of the Lakes." The great " watex 



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