LANDOLOGY 15 



the limit of sustaining capacity would be reached in the year 2200, 

 this being based on our present rate of increase in population. The 

 limit of our capacity for production lies not in the land, however, 

 but in the supply of water on which all life depends, for without 

 water there are no plants, no soil, no people, no lower animals. 

 This means that the limit of sustaining capacity in this county must 

 be reached long before the year 2200. 



PRAIRIE LANDS OR TIMBER LANDS. Practically all of 



the present $100 and 



$200 per acre land in Wisconsin was heavily timbered, and 

 most of the early settlers of this state who located on this land are 

 rich today, and yet none of them had the facilities for making 

 money that are offered now. The early settler in Wisconsin had 

 no market for the timber that remained on his land. He had none 

 of the modern machinery, and did not know the modern and 

 inexpensive methods of clearing land. The settler on timbered 

 land today has a ready cash market for every stick of timber that 

 he takes off his land, and instances are by no means rare in which 

 farmers after building their houses, barns and fences have sold 

 enough wood products from their land to pay for it. 



A LEADER IN FARMING. The only states which equal Wiscon- 



sin in production are those that use 



a large amount of commercial fertilizer, and states where irrigation 

 must be practiced in order to get a suitable amount of moisture. 

 The cost per acre for irrigation is often more than the entire cost 

 per acre of the land in Marinette County. 



In Wisconsin, practically no commercial fertilizers are used or 

 needed, and no irrigation is ever needed. The average annual 

 rainfall of the state is thirty-three inches, and a study of the rainfall 

 records of ten years would disclose the fact that a large part of this 

 moisture falls shortly before and during the crop seasons. 



HOW SETTLERS MAKE MODEST FORTUNES. 



Take an average farmer who locates on 160 acres of new land 

 in Marinette County. Suppose, for instance, that he makes only a 

 good living during the first two years. By the end of that time he 

 usually has a fairly well improved farm which is at least half 

 cleared and which is easily worth from $50 to $80 per acre. When 

 a farmer can buy a tract of land at from $20 to $30 per acre and 

 ,an, with his own labor and only the returns from the money made 

 off of the land, double the value of the land through improving it 

 in the course of two years, he has not only made $4000 more or less 

 on a 160 acre tract, but also owns a farm which will thereafter bring 

 him in a good annual cash income and will steadily continue to 

 increase in value. 



