INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
445 
Its agricultural productions are of the usual variety, and excellent in 
quality. According to the census of 1870 the amount of wheat raised was 
97,90d bushels; rye, 4,774 bushels; corn, 109,485bushels; oats, 80,118 bush¬ 
els; barley, 7;409 bushels; wool, 7,950 pounds; potatoes, 26,917 bushels; 
butter, 127,535 pounds. The total value of its agricultural productions is 
estimated at $278,354. 
PIERCE COUNTY. 
BY J. M. BAILEY, PRESCOTT. 
Pierce county is the most western county in the state, lying in the south¬ 
ern portion of the St. Croix valley, immediately south of the fourth paral¬ 
lel of riortli latitude. It is bounded on the north by St. Croix county, east 
by Dunn, south by Dunn, Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river, and west 
by the Mississippi and Lake St. Croix. The general surface of the country 
is undulating, with no wide stretches of prairie, or high elevations of moun¬ 
tains. There is one peculiar feature in the make of the country not often 
found; there are interspersed over the prairies and timber portions, eleva¬ 
tions or mounds of various sizes and forms, nearly all of the same eleva¬ 
tion, from seventy to eighty feet, capped with lime rock. This rock is usu¬ 
ally covered with earth from four to six feet in depth, of equal fertility with 
the valleys. The county is about equally divided into prairie,, oak open¬ 
ings and timber. The west and north portion was, in its primitive state, 
mostly covered with scattering oak; the southern and eastern mostly heavy 
timbered with the usual varieties found in hard wood districts, with pome 
pine on the rivers. The soil, of the open country is a sandy loam, with 
magnesian lime stone foundations; of the timbered portion, a vegetable 
mould with a clay foundation. The superior fertility of the St. Croix val¬ 
ley is now’ quite generally known. Our soil being productive and easily 
worked, it is no wonder that the chief business of our people is agriculture. 
Like most new countries, the first immigration of settlers were a class in 
moderate means, having a fortune to make; their only capital strong hands 
and a future prospect of good health. Our population is about equally 
native Americans and foreigners, the latter largely German and Nor¬ 
wegian. The last census gives us a population of 10,003, having increased 
nearly 100 per cent, in the last decade. Our county is new, and it has been 
our misfortune to have selected in our fertile valleys too large a proportion 
of lands reserved for public uses. 
First, the state made large locations of university lands wdiich were 
appraised too high to induce a settler of limited means to make a purchase 
when he. can go further and find Uncle Sam’s generous offer of a “ home¬ 
stead.” A large tract was selected by the Fox and Wisconsin River Im- 
