INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
325 
INDUSTRY OF SAUK COUNTY. 
BY LEWIS N. WOOD, OF BARABOO. 
Sauk County contains, according to late surveys, about 850 
square miles. Its whole population is 18,971, by the present 
census; the census of 1850 gave 4372. 
No tract of land in the State of equal size seems to have a 
greater share of the natural elements of wealth, nor to have 
them so equally diversified and spread over the surface. Its 
rich and varied soil, its timber, its stone, its water and water 
power, its clays and limestone, its iron ore, its scenery 
of bluffs, mounds, natural meadows, rivers, lakes, prairies, 
are such that an unusual number of the industrial pursuits can 
be pursued here advantageously. 
Its topographical features are a very fair representation of 
those of the whole State at large, so far as timber and prawie, 
water courses and elevations, diversity of soil and natural pro¬ 
ductions are concerned; except that its soil for agricultural 
purposes is better than the general average of the State, and 
scarcely inferior to the prolific southern counties in the pro¬ 
duction of "wheat, corn and grass. So large a portion of its 
surface being that kind of soil which naturally produces the 
varieties of hard timber, wheat of the finest and heaviest 
quality, and, I may add, in large quantity, also, is readily 
grown. Up to the 10th day of January, (1861), the “Bara- 
boo Mills” alone, had received on purchase 55,415 bushels. 
In addition to this, the very great amount of pork fattened 
in this county this Fall, and the comparative low price of corn 
at present, shows the capability of the soil for raising corn. 
Poor fields of corn have been raised in this county from poor 
cultivation ; but never yet from a failure in the quality of the 
soil, or from want of natural adaptation to corn. 
Oats, too, grown in Sauk county, are known to be heavy, 
because they grow well in a soil adapted to wheat and corn. 
One fact, of which many at first felt doubtful, is now fully 
established; viz : That the grasses called tame grasses do well. 
Timothy, upon second sowing at least, comes to great perfection 
