342 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
'proving. A straw stack is no longer considered all-sufficient 
for both food and sheds during our arctic winter. Good stab¬ 
ling, warm yards, with cut straw and grain, or good barn-se¬ 
cured hay, is thought to pay , particularly for milch cows. 
Improvements. —Improvements are being made as fast as the 
means can be procured to make them, and some faster, in quite 
too many instances. Good substantial dwellings are rapidly 
displacing the more primitive log ones in which we first shel¬ 
tered our wives and little ones. But kindly memories will 
long cluster around the site of the old log house. The recent 
low price of lumber has given a great impetus to improvements 
in dwellings, barns and fencing. The latter is and must con¬ 
tinue to be a heavy tax to the farmer, until the foolish practice 
is discarded of compelling every man by law to fence in his crops , 
when all that should be required of him is to fence in, each his 
own stock. The cost of unused fences, or those required only 
to prevent stray animals from trespassing on our crops, is 
greater than the total cost of toivn , county and State government; 
and the profits are found mainly in the privilege of a few lean 
kine to crop the dust-covered, lioof-beaten, herbage of the 
highways. It is to be hoped this worse than useless waste 
may be considered by our law makers—or rather our farmers, 
for the remedy rests with them—and this heavy burden be 
removed. 
INDUSTRY OF WAUKESHA COUNTY. 
BY GEO. C. PRATT, OF WAUKESHA. 
The territory comprising the county of Waukesha is twenty- 
four miles square, and was taken from the county of Milwau¬ 
kee in the year 1846. Its eastern boundary is eight miles 
from Lake Michigan. It is composed of sixteen townships, 
containing thirty-six sections each. The United States census, 
taken in 1860, gives us a population of 26,849, which is con¬ 
stantly on the increase, and is made up from nearly all the na¬ 
tions of the earth. The principal part, however, are the genu- 
