326 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of quality and quantity upon the heavier soils, while clover 
does equally well upon the lighter soils. These lighter soils 
generally, whether of prairie or timbered land, abound in a 
calcareous composition, rendering them far more productive 
than the sandy soils in the Eastern States in their natural 
condition. 
Early reports of this county represent it better adapted to 
dairy and stock than to grain, on account of the natural mead¬ 
ows, technically called “swamp lands.” These occupy about 
one-seventh of the surface, and are found, by ditching and 
draining, likely to become the most arable land in the county, 
notwithstanding the hill lands, on account of the calcareous 
matter in them, are found to be highly productive of the grains 
and grasses; and the breadth of lands now cultivated 
shows that the agricultural resources of the county are 
far better appreciated. The surface of this county was pow¬ 
erfully wrought upon by geological forces during the drift 
period, though its surface is not mountainous, nor scarcely rug¬ 
gedly hilly, nor monotonously level; yet many steep bluffs occur, 
furnishing plenty of good building stone of a silicious character. 
The geological position of the county is in the Silurian sys¬ 
tem, and judging from the fact that fossils are rarely found, if 
at all, in the underlying sand rock, it is probably low in that 
system. This rock exhibits evidence in many places of having 
been acted upon by upheaving forces and heat from below, 
which have hardened and rendered it vitreous and brittle; yet 
during the drift epoch many erratic boulders and much calca¬ 
reous matter was left upon the surface, and this is one great 
cause of its productiveness in the grains and grassess. Lime¬ 
stone outliers containing fossils, are found in some of the hills; 
these outliers are the out-cropping points remaining of th.e 
abundant limestone rocks in the w T est part of this State.— 
Around Spirit Lake (sometimes called Lake of the Hills) the 
sandstone is finer grained, more colored, and harder than the 
common sandstone. The rocks are much vitrified by the action 
of heat at some period, and abound in seggregate veins of 
quartz, and beautiful quartz crystals have been found* 
