INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
879 
fertility of soil, husbandry displayed in fields and gardens, but also in the 
quality and costliness of the buildings, the number of schools and churches, 
and the intelligence of the inhabitants. The level summits of the bluffs and 
ridges are also crowned with continuous fields, and better soil for grain 
never was turned by the plow than the high table-land offers. The rough¬ 
ness of the exterior of our county wears down the further you leave the 
Mississippi behind. The bluffs become hills, and the hills decrease until 
you find yourself in an undulating open country, quite different in charac¬ 
ter, soil, and even in population. The territory within about twenty miles 
of the river is mainly settled by Germans and Scotchmen, but the towns of 
Gilmanton, Naples, and the northwest part of the county are principally 
settled by eastern families, attracted by the open country, which promised 
a cheerful home and speedy returns with little labor. The soil in the 
northeastern part of the county is remarkably varied. It is for the most 
part a light black loam, common to the black oak openings, but it changes 
from this to the richest black soil, then to a worthless sand, and again 
to good clay land within the same section, without and perceptible cause. 
Since the passage of the homestead law, every nook and corner in the 
valleys, within fifteen to twenty miles of the river, and the greatest part of 
the table-land have been entered; but many homesteads may yet be 
selected upon government land in the interior. The grant of lands to the 
Green Bay Railroad, extending over a strip of land in the Beef river valley 
twelve miles broad, seems to have retarded the settlement of that valley, in 
the northeastern part of the county. The high price, the feeling of inse¬ 
curity, and the fear that their improvements will only raise the purchase 
price of land for themselves, has either kept settlers away, or deprived 
them of the energy and perseverance which are required to sustain the 
hardy pioneer. 
Sixteen or seventeen years ago, the whole of Buffalo county was a vast 
wilderness, the interior known only to the Chippewa Indians. Holme’s 
Landing and Twelve Mile Bluff, were the only points on the river known 
to the white man. The first, is to-day, a well built village, of some nine 
hundred inhabitants, known as Fountain City; the latter is named Alma, 
the county seat, a smart village of about six hundred inhabitants. The 
growth of our villages depends upon, and corresponds with the growth and 
development of the agricultural interests in the interior. 
Although wealth untold may be hidden in the mountains,—although iron 
ore is found everywhere, and washings of lead have been found in several 
locations, and a white metal similar to zinc has been dug out of crevices 
in our rocks, yet our quiet settlers have hardly looked deeper for tlieir earn¬ 
ings than the plowshare or spade will expose. Of both saw and grist mills 
we have a goodly share, and there is no lack of water power in the interior. 
All our manufactured articles, necessities in a farming community, have to 
be imported, although their manufacture at home would be a paying busi 
ness. No county could be better adapted for the'manufacture of woolen goods 
