INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
447 
which have fruited excellently. All of the crabs produce abundantly. The 
strawberry, raspberry and plum are at home here; wild plums of several va¬ 
rieties are found all over the county. A few are engaged in the cultivation 
of the grape. 
Aside from the manufacture of flour and lumber, we do but little. The 
county is well watered and divided by seven rapid flowing rivers running 
the whole length of the county, and all emptying into the lakes and rivers 
within our western boundary except one, the Eau Galleu. All of these rivers 
have good mill sites at short intervals, their whole length. The aggregate 
length of these rivers within the county, is one hundred and fifty miles, 
beside the navigable streams. There are also numerous brooks and creeks 
which discharge into the rivers, some of which have sufficient fall for mill 
sites. 
There are in the county twenty-six saw mills, the greater number of 
which are employed in cutting hard wood lumber. Also several stave, fur¬ 
niture, blind and sash factories, which furnish Minnesota largely with their 
productions. The flouring mills of the county have an aggregate of 
thirty-three run of stone. A large quantity of flour is sent to eastern mar¬ 
kets. 
Much interest is manifested in the opening and working of public high¬ 
ways. In school and church accommodations the county is not behind her 
neighbors. Each town is well divided into school districts, and many have 
erected neat and commodious school houses. We have no railroads con¬ 
structed within our bounds at the present writing, but the towns on the 
Mississippi can easily reach the roads of Minnesota. Our western and 
southern boundary, as before stated, being the St. Croix Lake and Missis¬ 
sippi river and Lake Pepin, gives us a water front of fifty-seven miles. Du¬ 
ring the season, steamboats from Pittsburg and all intermediate points, are 
almost hourly arriving at Prescott, the chief town in the county. At this 
place steamboats that run the St. Croix for sixty miles above, make con¬ 
nection with the Mississippi boats. The facilities for shipping all of our 
surplus products, as can be seen, are not often surpassed in a new country, 
or indeed in sections long settled. 
POLK COUNTY. 
BY SAMUEL S. FIFIELD, OSCEOLA MILLS. 
This county may properly be termed the northern agricultural county of 
the state, for its soil is of the best, producing crops that cannot be excelled; 
spring wheat yields from ten to forty bushels to the acre, oats from forty to 
eighty; corn’from fifty to one hundred, and vegetables as good as can be pro¬ 
duced on this continent. 
