CHAPTER III. 



STEPHEXSOX COUNTY. 



This county is bounded on the east by Winnebago, on the south by 

 Ogle and Carroll, on the west by Jo Daviess. and on the north by Green 

 county, in the State of Wisconsin. It thus lies in the northern tier of 

 comities in the State, and is the second county eastward from the Mis- 

 sissippi river. It is twenty-seven miles wide, from east to west, and 

 about twenty-one and a quarter miles from its northern to its southern 

 boundary line: and contains about five hundred and seventy-three 

 square miles. The northern part of the county, according to surveys 

 made by the Illinois Central Eailroad Company, averages about seven 

 hundred and twenty-three feet above the level of the Mississippi river 

 at Cairo, about four hundred and fifteen feet above the level of Lake 

 Michigan, and about one thousand feet above the level of the sea. The 

 southern part of the county averages some two hundred and fifty feet 

 lower than these figures. The general level of the county, it will thus 

 be seen, presents a gentle slope to Southern, sunny skies. The general 

 surface or face of the county is composed of gently undulating and 

 rather rolling prairie land, interspersed with small groves, and narrow 

 belts of timber land skirting the streams. A small portion of the county 

 is made up of barrens and oak orchards or openings. The prairie soil 

 is of unsurpassed fertility, and under a high state of cultivation and 

 improvement. It is not so black and deep as the prairie soil further 

 south ; but is drier, sandier, lighter or more chocolate colored, produc- 

 ing in great perfection all the staple crops of the northern part of the 

 State. The oak openings and other poorer portions of the county pro- 

 duce the best wheat and other cereal grains, the best potatoes raised in 

 the State, very excellent apples, and pears of the hardier varieties, and 

 with proper care and cultivation will nourish the vine and ripen its 

 fruitage to a greater extent than is now dreamed of by the grape 

 growers and wine makers of the West. Indeed, the day is coming, in 

 our opinion, when its gravelly hills and loess clays will not only blush 

 with the purple clusters of such vines as best endure our cold climate. 



