2 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
mercantile pursuits, they nevertheless show us, if we will 
make the comparisons, which one of these great interests has 
advanced the most rapidly and yielded the most important re¬ 
sults. Furthermore, if any branch of industry, important in 
itself, has lagged or pined, statistics may aid, us in determining 
the cause, and appointing the remedy. At all events this is 
their office, and herein they constitute the basis of political 
science. 
To the newer states they not only serve the various pur¬ 
poses above named, but are also of great interest as showing 
to each of them in what ratio they have advanced toward the 
front rank, and whether they have kept pace with their com¬ 
petitors. 
For these reasons, we shall gladly avail ourselves of the 
opportunity afforded by the census of 1870 for so far enlarg¬ 
ing the scope of the report of the Wisconsin State AgricuF 
tural Society for that year, as to embrace such statistical com¬ 
parisons of the present with the past as appear to be import¬ 
ant to the industrial interests of the state. 
If Wisconsin has not made an unprecedented growth, it is 
not because of any lack in the natural advantages for which 
the state is so justly distinguished, but solely because there 
has been less than a just appreciation of the means elsewhere 
employed to increase immigration and to secure the capital 
requisite to the success of our several productive industries. 
Let us see. 
POPULATION. 
The first census in which Wisconsin figured was that of 
1840, when, as a territory, it had a population of 80,945. 
In 1850, two } T ears after its admission into the Union, it had 
305,391 inhabitants; having made a gain of 886.88 per cent. 
It then ranked the twenty-fifth state in point of population. 
In 1860, it numbered 775,881 inhabitants, and took rank as 
the fifteenth state ; the ratio of increase between 1850 and 
1860 having been 154.06 per cent. 
