CHAPTER XV. 



McDOXOUGH COTJXTY. 



This county is bounded on the north by Warren and Henderson 

 counties, on tbe vast by Fulton, on the south by Schuyler, and on the 

 by Hancock. It contains a superficial area of sixteen townships, 

 or about five hundred and seventy-six square miles. The face of the 

 country is generally level or gently rolling, except in the immediate 

 vicinity of the streams, and consists of broad prairies covering the most 

 elevated portions of the county, with belts of timber along the valleys 

 of the streams and the broken land adjacent thereto. The prairies 

 have a general elevation of seventy-five or a hundred feet above the 

 valleys of the streams, and the soil upon them is a dark chocolate col- 

 ored, sandy loam, similar in general character to the prairie soils of the 

 adjoining counties, and is admirably adapted to the growth of the 

 cereals usually cultivated in this climate. 



Timber is not as abundant in this county as in those adjoining it on 

 the east and south, and covers less than one-third of its entire area. 

 The principal varieties observed here were white, red, post, pin, black 

 and Spanish oak, shell bark and pig nut hickory, red and slippery elm, 

 linden, buckeye, white and sugar maple, cottonwood, sycamore, red 

 birch, hackbeny, white and red ash, honey locust, wild plum, crab ap- 

 ple, sassafras, red bud and dogwood. 



The principal streams in this county are Crooked creek and its tribu- 

 taries. The east fork of this stream traverses the county from north- 

 east to south-west, while the main creek intersects diagonally only the 

 south-western township. In the early settlement of the State several 

 water mills were erected on this creek, and the inhabitants of this and 

 the adjoining counties were largely dependent for many years on the 

 water power it afforded for their milling facilities ; but as the country 

 was improved, and a considerable portion of its surface brought under 

 cultivation, the supply of water gradually diminished from year to 

 year, until many of the old mill sites have been abandoned, or else 

 have added steam power to supply the lack of water during the dry 

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