6 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
which, since the date of the census of 1850 have been divided 
up into two or more counties, afterwards credited in their own 
name with quite large populations occupying the self-same ter¬ 
ritory formerly embraced in one county. 
Unfortunately we are without the means of determining ac¬ 
curately just what proportion of this large increase of popula¬ 
tion have taken part in the productive industries of this state 
during the past ten years, and how many have been added by 
birth within the state. But, judging from the fact that the 
natives of other states and countries have had a large prepon¬ 
derance over those bcrn within the state, at the date of the 
/ 
census of 1850 and that of 1860, it may be inferred that more 
than half of the 279,678 persons added to the population of 
1860 were immigrants from the states further east and from 
Europe. And since a large share of those who come to us 
from without are of such age as to enable them to engage in 
some branch of industry, the wealth-producing capacity of 
this increase may be safely estimated at $100,000,000 ; to 
vhich may be* added a large amount for the cash capital actu¬ 
ally brought to the state, and by them invested in various en¬ 
terprises that will further add to our rapidly increasing wealth. 
THE OCCUPATIONS OF OUR PEOPLE. 
If we inquire, in the next place, what motives have actuated 
the multitudes who have come among us during the last de¬ 
cade, and what industries have commanded the energies of the 
whole population ; what proportion have congregated in cities 
and villages; how many have sought for wealth in our mines ; 
how many have preferred the cultivation of the soil; the pro¬ 
portion devoted to the mechanic arts, to commerce, to the pro¬ 
fessions; and how many are properly classed as common 
laborers, doing the work assigned them by others, we shall 
obtain results of much interest. 
In the first place we shall find that the increase of popula¬ 
tion in the leading cities and villages has been greater than in 
the country districts; showing one of two things—either that 
