156 WISCONSIN STATU AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
PROSPERITY OF WISCONSIN AND ITS TRIBUTARY TERRITORY. 
Having now finished what I intended to say on the subject of 
labor and capital, I will ask your attention for a few moments 
while I speak of our own state, of its growth and prosperity. 
Within my recollection, Wisconsin was not yet organized into 
a territory, and when I came here to reside, it had only a popula¬ 
tion of fifty thousand. It now has a population of one million 
and fifty-four thousand, and is the fifteenth state in point of popu¬ 
lation in the Union. The exhibition at this fair is the very best 
evidence of our wealth and prosperity as a people. 
Iowa and Minnesota were once a part of Wisconsin, and the 
southern portion of Dakota Territory was at one time a part of 
the county of St. Croix in this state. Iowa has now a population 
greater than that of Wisconsin, and Minnesota has a population 
of over four hundred thousand. Still west of these states is the 
young and thriving territory of Dakota. During the past summer 
I visited southern and central Dakota, going west from Chicago 
by the Northwestern railway and so on to Sioux City—a beauti¬ 
ful and prosperous place away on the western border of Iowa on 
the Missouri river, and from thence up the river a distance of 180 
miles by water (although but 66 miles by land) to Yankton, the 
delightful capital of Dakota. Returning, I came by land across 
the Missouri bottom lands back to Sioux City, over one of the 
richest and most beautiful sections of country that I have ever 
seen. Most of it was cultivated and bearing crops that it was a 
wonder to see. Again, in company with a party, I visited Dakota, 
passing through Minnesota on the Winona and St. Peters railroad, 
from Winona to New Ulm, a distance of 212 miles, and from there 
we took carriages, baggage wagons and camp equipment and went 
away to the west boundary of Minnesota, and still on forty miles 
into Dakota, far beyond the settlements. All the way we passed 
through a country of marvelous richness and beauty, well watered 
and lacking nothing except timber to make it almost a para¬ 
dise on earth. In going from New Ulm to the west line of 
Minnesota, we crossed the Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood, 
Red Wood, Yellow Medicine, Lac Que Parle and other streams, 
only a few miles distant from each other, which makes it one of 
