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applies but doubtfully to over half and certainly not at ail to nearly 
40 per cent of this area. How long it takes to improve a territory, how 
much unproductive waste remains even in the older so-called ‘ well- 
settled ” counties, appears from the following concrete cases: 
Of old Sauk County not one-half is improved land; the five counties 
of Adams, Waushara, Juneau, Marquette, and Monroe, with an aggre- 
gate area of over 2,000,000 acres of uncommonly level land, have 30 per 
cent improved land, or over 1,500,000 acres of waste and brush land, 
most of which is not even serving the purpose of pasture. Adams, 
Marquette, and Waushara counties, with their 800,000 acres of waste 
land, instead of having for sale 80,000,000 feet of pine which might be 
erowing every year on its nonproductive area, supported in 1895 a wood 
industry whose product amounted to the pitiful sum of $13,000, and 
probably the material for this was imported. 
Even where the land is good and might all be farmed, it is doubtful 
whether the forest can entirely be dispensed with. Experience in older 
countries and in the Eastern States is against it; the farmers of the 
fertile prairies are planting trees, for the sake of the wood, on land of 
unexcelled fertility. Some of the farmers of Trempealeau and other 
counties, who have to go 20 and more miles into the Jack-Pine groves 
for their fuel, find that wood is both indispensable and too bulky to 
haul far; and, valuable as pasture land is to the thrifty farmer of south- 
ern Wisconsin, the great importance of a convenient wood supply has 
led to an actual increase in wooded area in most of the southern counties 
of the State. 
How soon the 17,000,000 acres of wild land of north Wisconsin will 
be settled no one can tell; the likelihood is that over 10,000,000 acres, 
comprising much of the best land, will still remain either woods or 
unproductive brush land for fifty years to come. The advantage to a 
county and to the State of having poor, unproductive sand lands set- 
tled by poor and ignorant people who support farms “without barns” 
can not here be discussed. Neither is it here contemplated to enter into 
the question of communal property, i. e., whether it might not be well 
for a county, which can get land for the mere taking, to hold a few 
townships in county forest and have these county forests at least defray 
the county expenses and give work to many people. Even if the coun- 
ties can not, certainly the State can afford to acquire and hold for the 
future all cut-over lands. Such communal properties bave been the 
mainstays of European States in all financial crises, and have been 
eagerly sought and guarded by all European governments as well as 
by towns, counties, and cities. With a county holding 100,000 acres 
of good forest land every citizen becomes part owner; his farm, his 
store, or shop is valued in proportion as it shares these advantages, 
and, instead of hindering the development of a county, as is so often 
claimed, such a forest property would stimulate immigration and help to 
develop, both directly and indirectly, all the resources of the county, 
