History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 59

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298

USA > Wisconsin > Richland County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 59
USA > Wisconsin > Crawford County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 59

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Farming, at the present time, is almost en- tirely confined to the south half of the State, the northern half being still largely covered by forests. A notable exception to this statement is found in the counties on the western border, which are well settled by farmers much farther north. The surface of the agricultural portion of the State is for the most part gently undulat- ing, affording ready drainage, without being so

abruptly broken as to render cultivation diffi- cult. The soil is varied in character, and mostly very fertile. The southern portion of the State consists of undulating prairies of variable size al- ternating with oak openings. The prairies have the rich alluvial soil so characteristic of the western prairies, and are easily worked. The soil of the "openings" land is usually a sandy loam, readily tilled, fertile, but not as "strong" as soils having more clay. The pro- portion of timber to prairie increases passing north from the southern boundary of the State, and forests of maple, basswood and elm, replace, to some extent, the oak lands. In these locali- ties, the soil is more elayey, is strong and fertile, not as easily tilled, and not as quickly exhausted as are the more sandy soils of the oak lands. In that portion of the State known geologically as the"driftless" region, the soil is invariably good where the surface rock is limestone. In some of the valleys, however, where the lime-rock has been removed by erosion, leaving the underly- ing sandstone as the surface rock, the soil is sandy and unproductive, except in those locali- ties where a large amount of alluvial matter has been deposited by the stream. The soils of the pine lands of the north of the State, are gener- ally sandy and but slightly fertile. However, where pine is replaced by maple, oak, birch, elm and basswood, the soil is"heavier"and very fertile, even to the shores of Lake Superior.

The same natural conditions that make Wis- consin an agricultural State, determined that during its earlier years the main interest should be grain-growing. The fertile prairie cover-

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ing large portions of the southern part of the State had but to be plowed and sowed with grain to produce an abundant yield. From the raising of cereals the pioneer farmer could get the quickest returns for his labor.

There is the same struggle for existence, and the same desire for grain the world over, and hence the various phases of development of the same industry in different civilized countries is mainly the result of the widely varying eco- nomical conditions imposed upon that industry. Land is thoroughly cultivated in Europe, not because the Europeans have any inherent love for good cultivation, but because their land is searce and costly, while labor is superabundant aad cheap. In America, on the other hand,and especially in the newer States, land is abundant and cheap, while labor is scarce and costly. In its productive industries each country is alike economical in the use of the costly element in production, and more lavish in the use of that which is cheaper. Each is alike economically wise in following such a course, when it is not carried to too great extremes. With each the end sought is the greatest return for the ex- penditure of a given amount of capital. In ac- cordance with this law of economy, the early agriculture of Wisconsin was mere land-skim- ming. Good cultivation of the soil was never thought of. The same land was planted suc- cessively to one crop, as long as it yielded enough to pay for cultivation.

'The economical principle above stated was carried to an extreme. Farming, as then prac- ticed, was a quick method of land exhaustion. It was always taking out of the purse and never putting in. No attention was paid to sustain- ing the soil's fertility. The only aim was to se- enre the largest crop for the smallest outlay of capital, without regard to the future. Manures were never used, and such as unavoidably accu- mulated was regarded as a great nuisance, often rendering necessary the removal of stables and outbuildings. Straw-stacks were invariably burned as the most convenient means of dispos-

of them. Wheat, the principal product, brought a low price, often not more than fifty cents a bushel, and had to be marketed by teams at some point from which it could be carried by water, as this was, at an early day, the only means of transportation. On account of the sparse settlement of the country, roads were poor, and the farmer, after raising and thresh- his wheat, had to spend, with a team, from two to five days, marketing the few bushels that a team could draw. So that the farmer had every obstacle to contend with except cheap and fer- tile land, that with the poorest of cultivation gave a comparatively abundant yield of grain. Better tillage, accompanied with the use of manures and other fertilizers, would not, upon the virgin soils, have added sufficiently to the yield to pay the cost of applying them. Hence, to the first farmers of the State, poor farming was the only profitable farming, and conse- quently the only good farming, an agriculture- economical paradox from which there was no escape.

Notwithstanding the fact that farmers could economically follow no other system than that of land-exhaustion,as described, such a course was none the less injurious so the State, as it was undermining its foundation of future wealth,by destroying the fertility of the soil, that upon which the permanent wealth and prosperity of every agricultural community is first dependent. Besides this evil, and together with it, came the habit of loose and slovenly farming acquired by pioneers, which continued after the conditions making that method a necessity had passed away. With the rapid growth of the northwest came better home markets and increased facili- ties for transportation to foreign markets, bring- ing with them higher prices for all products of the farm. As a consequence of these better conditions, land in farms in the State increased rapidly in value. With this increase in the value of land, and the higher prices paid for grain, should have come an improved system of husbandry which would prevent the soil from

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

deteriorating in fertility. This could have been accomplished either by returning to the soil, in manures and fertilizers, those ingredients of which it was being rapidly drained by con- tinned grain-growing, or by the adoption of a system of mixed husbandry, which should in- clude the raising of stock and a judicious rotation of crops. Such a system is sure to come. Indeed, it is now slowly coming. Great progress upon the earlier methods of farming have already been made. But so radical and thorough a change in the habits of any class of people as that from the farming of pioneers to a rational method that will preserve the soil's fertility and pay for the labor it demands, requires many years for its full accomplishment. It will not even keep pace with changes in those economical condi- tions which favor it. In the rapid settlement of the northwestern States this change has come most rapidly with the replacement of the pioneer farmers by immigrants accustomed to

better methods of culture. In such cases the pioneers usually "go west" again, to begin anew their frontier farming upon virgin soil, as their peculiar method of cultivation fails to give them a livelihood. In Wisconsin as rapid progress is being made in the system of agri- culture as, all things considered, could reason- ably be expected. This change for the better has been quite rapid for the past ten years, and is gaining in velocity and momentum each year. It is partly the result of increased intelligence relating to farming, and partly the result of necessity, caused by the unprofitableness of the old method.

As has been before stated, Wisconsin is essen- tially a grain-growing State. This interest has been the principal one, not because the soil is better adapted to grain-growing than to general stock, or dairy farming, but rather because this course, which was at an early day most in- mediately profitable, has been since persistently followed from force of habit, even after it had failed to be remunerative.

The increase in the production of grain was very rapid up to 1870, while since that time it has been very slight. This rapid increase in grain raising is first attributable to the ease with which this branch of farming was carried on, upon the new and very rich soils of the State, while in the older States this branch of husbandry has been growing more difficult and expensive, and also to the fact that the war in our own country so increased the demand for grain from 1861 to 1866, as to make this course the most immediately profitable. But with the close of the war, came a diminished demand. Farmers were slow to recognize this fact, and change the character of their productions to accord with the wants of the market, but rather continued to produce the cereals in excess of the demand. The chinch bug and an occasional poor season seriously injured the crops, leaving those who relied principally upon the produc- tion of grain, little or nothing for their support. llard times resulted from these poor crops. More wheat and corn was the farmer's usual remedy for hard times. So that more wheat and corn were planted More crop failures, with low prices, brought harder times, until gradually the farmers of the State have opened their eyes to the truth that they can succeed in other branches of agriculture than grain grow- ing, and to the necessity of catering to the de- mands of the market.

EARLY FARMING IN CRAWFORD COUNTY.

For about sixty years after the first settlement within the present limits of the county, farming was wholly confined to the "prairie," and the methods employed to carry it on were very primitive. "There was not," says James II. Lockwood, "at the time I came to Prairie du Chien [Sept. 16, 1816], any Indian corn raised there. The traders for the upper Mississippi had to send down for their corn which they used, to the Sauks and the Foxes at Rock Island, and trade with them for it. It is be- lieved that the first field of corn raised at Prai- rie du Chien, was by Thomas McNair, an Ameri-

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can, who had married a French girl and settled down to farming.

"The farmers of Prairie du Chien appeared to be a more thrifty and industrious people than those of Green Bay; they raised a large quanti- ty of small grain, such as wheat, barley, oats, peas, and also some potatoes and onions. Every two or three farmers united and had a horse flouring-mill; the stones being eut from the granite rock found in the country. There they ground their wheat, and sifted the flour by hand. The surplus flour was sold to the Indian traders for goods, or exchanged with the In- dians for venison, ducks and geese, or dressed deer-skins, as there was no money in circulation in the country. Any purchase made was paya- ble in goods from the traders or flour from the inhabitants.

"The manner in which the traders dealt with the farmers was this; to let the farmer set his price on anything that he had to sell, without grumbling or saying anything about its being high, as it was payable in goods; the trader charging his price for the goods-so each party got all he asked, and neither had cause for com- plaint, but of course the trader was not the loser by the transaction. Mr. Michael Brisbois re- lated to me a transaction which took place between himself and a farmer by the name of Pierre Lariviere. This Lariviere was ambitious to pass with his neighbors for the best farmer in the country, and went to Mr. Brisbois to see what he was paying for flour, which I think was then six dollars per 100 pounds; but Lari- vere, desirous of the opportunity of boasting to his neighbors that he had gotten more for his flour than they did, expressed a wish that Mr. Brisbois would pay him more than the market value for his flour, which Mr. Brisbois told him he could not do. "Oh," said Mr. Lariviere, "you can make it up by charging more for the goods with which you pay me;" and so they closed the bargain, not to Mr. Brisbois' loss. The prices compared somewhat like this : When flour was worth $8 per 100 pounds, hyson or

young hyson tea was worth $8 per pound; if flour was worth only $6, tea would remain the same price; when the farmer got $9 per bushel for onions and §1 per dozen for eggs, he paid the above price for tea.

"The women of Prairie du Chien, mostly daughters of the Indian traders, had been raised in the habit of drinking a great deal of tea in the Indian country, where other beverage for children could not be procured, and it thus became, from long habit with them, almost a necessary of life, and they would make any sac- rifice to obtain their favorite beverage. When eggs were worth $1 per dozen, rosin soap was worth $1 per pound, and calico, that at this date would be sold at Prairie du Chien from twenty to twenty-five cents per yard, was then sold at 82 per yard; clay pipes at forty cents each, and common tobacco at about $2 per pound. So much flour was made at Prairie du Chien at this time, that, in 1820, Joseph Rolette con- tracted with the government for supplying the two companies of troops at Fort Crawford with it, they preferring the coarse flour of the prairie, which was sweet, to the fine flour transported in keel boats in the long voyage from Pitts- burg, which would be sour on its arrival.

"There were on the prairie about forty farms cultivated along under the bluffs where the soil was first rate, and enclosed in one common field, and the boundaries generally between them marked by a road that afforded them in- gress and egress to their fields; the plantations running from the bluff's to the Mississippi, or to the slough of St. Ferriole, and from three to five arpents wide. The owners did not gener- ally live immediately on their farms, but clus- tered together in little villages near their front, and were much the same description of inhabi- tants as those of Green Bay, except that there were anumber of families of French extraction, entirely unmixed with the natives who came from the French villages of Illinois. The farmers' wives, instead of being of the Indian tribes about, were generally of the mixed blood. They

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were living in Areadian simplicity, spending a great part of their time in fishing, hunting, horse racing or trotting, or in dancing or drink- ing. They had little or no ambition for pro- gress or improvement, or in any way bettering their condition, provided their necessities were supplied, and they could often collect together and dance and frolic. With these wants grati- fied, they were perfectly satisfied to continue in the same routine and habits of their forefathers before them. They had no aristoeraey among them except the traders, who were regarded as a privileged class.

"Joseph Rolette, in connection with the In- dian trade, carried on farming, after the fashion of the country, pretty extensively. Michael Brisbois, besides being a trader, carried on the business of baking and farming to some extent, receiving of the inhabitants 100 pounds of flour and giving in return tickets for fifty loaves of bread, and these tickets made a convenient change to purchase trifles from the Indians. None of the inhabitants pretended to make their own bread, but depended entirely upon the bake house. Jean Baptiste Faribault did something in the line of Indian trade and ear ried on a small farm, but soon after left the prairie to reside on the St. Peter's river."

The following extract from a publication by the late Alfred Brunson, gives truthfully the first avocations of the "greater portion of the original settlers:"

"The greater portion of the original settlers here, eame to the country as hunters, traders or employes, and taking wives of the natives, commenced farming upon a small and primitive scale, while they also l.unted, trapped and voy- aged, as occasions occurred. They probably raised their bread, vegetables and some meat, while their skins and furs bought their cloth- ing, and what else they needed out of the store."

AGRICULTURE OF CRAWFORD COUNTY. [By Alfred Brunson, 1851.]

The general formation of the country is hilly. Some portions of our original county (including

what is now Crawford, Vernon, La Crosse, etc.,) is level, but more of it undulating. The level portions of it are at the heads of the largest streams, where it is apt to be swampy and marshy. Near the Mississippi the hills, or bluffs, rise in some places 500 feet above the river; but as you ascend the streams the hills lessen down to a gentle undulation on the small streams, and to a level or marsh and swamp on the larger ones. In the present limits of the county the land is generally hilly or rolling. The level or marshy portions are on the margins or bottoms of the great rivers. The whole of the original, as well as the present county, abounds in streams of pure water, and abundance of water power. The purity of the waters in the smaller streams and lakes-those that are fed entirely from springs-may be judged of from the fact that they abound with speekled trout. But those larger streams, which rise in swamps and marshes, many of them being tam- erack swamps, show the effects thereof in the highly colored state of the water.

The prairie region extends from the Wiscon- sin, north, by a width of from thirty to fifty miles from the Mississippi, to within ten miles of Lake Superior at its western extremity, with sufficient timber for farming purposes the most of the way. Between the Black and Chippewa rivers, on the present mail route, the timber is too searee to encourage a general settlement; but along the river hills, and also east of the mail route, timber is more abundant. East of the Kickapoo, and on the headwaters of the St. Croix, Chippewa and Black rivers, and on the western branches of the Wisconsin, all within the original county of Crawford, there is no laek of timber; indeed, it is generally a dense forest of pine, mixed with hard wood. Within the present limits of the county, except a dense forest on the east side of the Kickapoo, the county is divided between prairie and timber, and open woodland, so that no portion of it can suffer for want of timber; and except along the precipitous bluffs of the river, there is but little

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waste land. It can mostly be ploughed, grazed, or kept for timber, and is not more uneven than some of the best cultivated portions of western Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, along the Ohio river.

The general character of the soil is good; within the present limits of Crawford county, in Bad Ax, La Crosse, the western portions of Chippewa, and southern parts of St. Croix, it may be considered as first rate. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how it can be improved. Fur- ther east and north, when you reach the pine region, the soil becomes of less value, except in places where the pine does not grow.

The soil in that portion of the country first named is mostly a vegetable mould, formed from the decay of vegetable matter, or its ashes, when burnt over. It is mixed with sand suffi- ciently to give it warmth; and this seems to in- crease as we go north, showing that nature, or nature's God has provided against the vicissi- tudes of the climate. The poorer soils spoken of are, in the pines too sandy, and in the marhes too wet, and in a few instances a cold clay.

Of the crops and the general yield, it would be difficult for me to speak, because I have not sufficient data. Much depends on the mode of cultivation and the season; 50, 40, 30 and 20 bushels of wheat to an acre have been raised. So far as I know, 30 of wheat, 50 of corn and oats, and from 100 to 200 bushels of potatoes, are considered an average crop.

In the cranberry marshes, which are found at the head of the larger streams, the crops in good seasons are said to average several hundred bushels per acre.

Of the manner of cultivation, and of its de- fects, I can say but little. The old French set- tlers, when the Americans first came among them, wrought things as their fathers did 200 years before

To yoke oxen, they tied a pole across the backs of their horns. They had no wagons, and their one-horse carts were without tires,

boxes or skeins on the axles. They usually put in only spring crops. Their wheat, oats, barley and peas were sown on the ground with no other preparation than burning off the weeds, stubble and grass of the last years growth, and ploughed in-the ploughing being usually in the same direction-no crossing and no manuring.

The ground cultivated was in a narrow strip at the foot of the bluffs, where was the best soil, say from forty to eighty rods wide, and en- closed in one common field from five to seven miles long, having but one fence on the west side and across each end, the bluffs on the east answering for a fence on that side. The corn planted was of the early Indian variety, which ripens in the early part of September, yielding from thirty to fifty bushels per acre, according to the mode of cultivation. The wheat, oats, barley and peas being harvested in August, and the corn in September; the field was usually thrown open in October, as soon as the potatoes were gathered, as common pasture. If wood was scaree in the ensuing winter, or before the ice became good for procuring it from the islands and bottom lands of the river, most likely the fence would be used in their stores, being dry, and the place of the rails would be supplied before spring by new and green ones. These annual changes of the rails rendered it of little consequence whether they were made of oak, ash, maple or willow, the three latter being usually the easiest obtained, composed the most of the fencing material of the farm.

The grain cradle was not known here until the arrival of Americans, the seythe and sickle being the only instruments used for that purpose. The French bind their grain with willow withes to this day. In other respects, they have availed themselves of the improvements intro- duced by the American immigrants, and some of them are now among our best farmers.

Most of the new inventions for ploughs, harvesters and threshing machines are now in use.

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

The markets are good, and also the facilities for reaching them. From the earliest settle- ment of the country the military and Indian departments, including the fur trade, always furnished a good market for our surplus produce until a short time since, when the amount pro- duced has been greater than the demand from that source. To supply the deficiency, the lum- ber trade since 1838 has kept the demand more than equal to the supply; add to this the demand growing out of the immigration, so that hitherto the demand for every thing, except wheat, in the two last years, has much more than equalled the home supply. And our prospects for a market are good for a long time to come in our own country, and nearly at our own doors. The lumber trade, the Indian trade and annuities, the military posts at the north and west of us, together with the continued tide of emigration; to which may also be added the mining interests; all together bid fair to consume the most of our surplus produce, exeept, perhaps, wheat.

Within two or three years past, the produce of wheat has been larger than the demand in the country. But the facilities for transportation by steamboat on the Mississippi has supplied us with a market in St. Louis. Our merchants purchased the wheat, cleaned it thoroughly, had sacks made of eoarse domestic cotton, hold- ing over a bushel cach, and sent it to St. Louis, where its superior quality and clean state com- manded the highest price, making it profitable for both the producer and the merchant.

The opening of the navigation of the Wis- consin and Fox rivers, already gives us a choice of markets, between St. Louis and the lakes, for all we have to spare over and above the up river and home demand. And if, as is expected, the Milwaukee & Mississippi railroad should reach the river, we should have an additional facility for reaching an eastern market. Nor will it make much difference, if any, whether the road reaches that river at this point or not, so far as the surrounding country is concerned. The road must reach the river somewhere, but

if not, some other one will, within a short dis- tance, by steam ; so that before our surplus produce gluts the market on this great river, we shall have the double facility of steam-boat and railroad whereby to reach an eastern mar- ket, and that too at but a trifling expense. As it is well known that the average of our crops exceed that of the eastern part of our State, after deducting the expense of reaching the lake, we shall have equal, if not greater profit per acre than will our more castern neighbors.

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History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 59

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company Number of Pages: 1298

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298