402 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
RECAPITULATION IN PART. 
Value of real estate owned.$3, 395,184 
Value of personal property. 1,329,712 
Value of agricultural productions... 456,620 
Value of manufactured productions. 1,231,564 
$6,413,030 
FOND DU LAC COUNTY. 
BY G. DE NEYEU, FOND DU LAC. 
'The county of Fond du Lac includes within its limits twenty-one towns, 
v 'wMcli, deducting the area covered by the southern end of Lake Winnebago 
."and other lakes, are equivalent to twenty townships of thirty-six sections of 
solid land. In its natural state it was very equally divided into three parts 
of prairie, oak-openings or light timber, having from three to fifteen trees 
to the acre, and heavily timbered land covered with maple, oak, basswood, 
elm,i ash, iron-wood, etc.; the whole so admirably intermixed that hardly 
any place within the limits of the county was more than two or three miles 
distant from timber. Generally speaking, the western portion of the county 
> includes the prairie, and the eastern the timber land; the central portion 
being a sort of compromise between the two, viz: small prairies dotted all 
■ over by fine groves of oak and other timber. The soil is eminently fertile, 
as, indeed, is that of our state generally, with, perhaps, the exception of the 
. pine country of the north. 
The surface, of the county in the western and central portions is gently 
undulating, seldom rising higher than one hundred feet above the level of 
Lake Winnebago, with a general average of about seventy feet. Along the 
eastern shore of that lake, about three-quarters of a mile distant, and run¬ 
ning parallel to that shore, exists an abrupt ledge of lime-stone running in 
a general north and south direction, through the towns of Calumet, Tay- 
cheedah and Empire, where it ends, to begin again in a south-westerly 
. direction through th<3 town of Eden, Byron and Oakfield, where it passes 
into Dodge county. That ledge appears to have been, in ancient times, the 
eastern and southern boundary of a vast lake, of which lakes Winnebago, 
Butte des Morts, Pawegan, Green, Rush and other lakes are now the rem¬ 
nants; consequently the soil of that basin is of a rich alluvial character. 
The narrow belt included between Lake Winnebago and the ledge is supe¬ 
rior to any other portion of the county for the production of fruit, owing to 
' the modifying influence of the water against early and late frosts, and ex¬ 
cessive drought in summer. 
The limestone ledge is a striking feature in the scenery of this section, 
which, though lovely, would appear rather tame and monotonous without 
