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WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
CLARK COUNTY. 
BY HON. G. W. KING, nUMBIRD. 
Clark is one of the largest counties in the state, being thirty miles wide 
from east to west, and fifty-four miles long from north to south. It is well 
watered by the Black and Eau Claire rivers and their tributaries, and by 
some of the tributaries of the Chippewa river. Lumbering has been the 
principal business of the people in this county until within the last five 
years; now quite a large number are engaged in farming. There is a large 
amount of excellent farming land in the southern and eastern portions of 
the county, mostly heavily timbered with sugar maple, basswood, black and 
white oak, elm, black and white ash, butternut, birch and iron wood. The 
surface of the country in the hard timber is gently rolling, with a soil of 
rich, clay loam; there are very few swamps. The land is admirably adapt¬ 
ed for the raising of winter wheat, oats, grass and vegetables. It is the 
best grass land I ever saw, and will in a few years be one of the best dairy 
counties in the state. The county is but thinly settled, but is rapidly filling 
up with an industrious class of men, who are not afraid of the hard work 
that is inevitable, where farms are cleared up in a heavily timbered country. 
The greater portion of the settlers are from the eastern and middle states, 
with a few Germans, English, Scotch and Canadians. The population of 
the county in 1860 was 789; at the present time it is about 4,000, the greater 
portion of whom have settled here in the last four or five years. There is 
a vast amount of good land in this county still unsettled; part of it gov¬ 
ernment land, and some belongs to the state; some is owned by the Fox 
River Improvement Company, and some by non-residents, all of which can 
be bought on reasonable terms, most of it on time. 
Very few counties in the west offer greater inducements to settlers than 
this; the climate is healthy, bilious diseases are comparatively unknown; 
the water is good and abundant; ‘and the soil is unsurpassed for the pro¬ 
duction of all kinds of grain, especially winter wheat; for sixteen years I 
have not known a failure in the crop of winter wheat where the crop was 
put in, in anything like good order. We generally have good crops of corn, 
oats, rye and most kinds of vegetables. For a time it was thought that 
apple trees would not thrive here, but within the last three years, many 
young trees have come into bearing, and thousands more have been set out 
and are doing well. 
The lumbermen consume all the produce of this and the adjoining coun¬ 
ties, which makes a good home market for all we have to sell. They also 
give employment to every man who is able and willing to work, which is a 
great help to settlers who have but a small amount of capital to begin with, 
as it gives them plenty of work for themselves and teams in the winter, at 
good wages. On an average, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
