Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-05-26


wall of detraction and lies that sur
rounded her, has been broken through
railroads laid through her forests and
across her marshes; factories are begin
ming to be planted on her water powers;
experiments have proven that even the
poorest of her soil will average to out
strip other lauded lands; the waste
places will spontaneously produce un-
told wealth in the shape of timber pulp
wood, &c; her rocks and clay beds can
be modelled into grand and durable i'm
proyements; her kaolin beds made to
do service in handling and rendering
useful the more precious and costly
metals and to adorn the tables and
houses of peoples and princes.
! Already observation and thought has
stimulated action, and caused an inva-
sion of the ancient homes of the beaver
and muskrat, and demonstrated that the
most forbidding looking country for the
residence of man can produce more for
| his pleasure and comfort than the rich
est delta of the Nile, and as inviting for
residences as far famed Vineland.
The resources of Wood county have
been here for ages; and are still here in
spite of all that man has been able to do
in carrying away or detracting from
them.
Development has just begun; just
enough to indicate the possibilities of
the future.
Just factories enough started to de-
monstrate that we have water power
enough to fill city extending clear
across the county on the banks of it's
largest river, and forest enough, when
supplemented with the natural yearly
growth in waste places, to furnish the
wood material for such manufacturing
for many years.
Just farming and gardening enough to
show that we have the best soils, of
great variety, adapted to the production
of all the varieties of food needed for
health and comfort, including the great
variety of small fruits which grow spon-
taneously.
Have worked our quarries and kaolin
beds just enough to demonstrate that
titles. Have experimental enough in
the culture of cranberries to convince
the most skeptical that five acres of
ground producing this kind of fruit,
properly handled, will yield more net
value than the best quarter section of
common farming land in the north
west
To fully develop and give value to
that portion of the county adapted to
cranberry growing, there should be
dams built across the Black, Yellow and
Hemlock rivers just above where they
enter the cranberry region, and sys-
tenn of main bitches or canals connected
with the ponds thus furnished, con-
structed in every direction through the
cranberry region, SO that the owners OF
small tracts as we'll as large ones, can
have a gate to open and set the water
in motion when needed.
This is not necessary for growth of
the fruit, for we generally get the
heaviest set and growth of fruit in our
driest seasons; but in dry seasons we
invariably get a few hard frosts which
destroy the crop. Last season was a
fair specimen. With plenty of water
in bitches and ponds properly distribu-
ted, there is nothing to fear from frosts,
and the crop becomes certainty. The
loss from frosts last season to the in
habitants of Wood county owning cram
berry lands, if saved, would have been
well nigh enough to pay for this i'm
provement. 1t is only question OF
time when this work will be done.
And when done, and few more
years shall have given to ambitious man
time in which to add to natures bounti-
full provisions the artificial surround
ings which he deems necessary for his
comfortable existence and pleasure
Wood county will ,all things considered,
be one of the most desirable spots on
the face of the earth to live in.
We old settlers, like Moses of old
have toiled and suffered in the wilder.
ness from thirty to forty years, and like
him, may not be permitted to live long
enough to enter into all the pleasures
afforded by the development of Wood
county's resources; but he saw the
promised land in all its beauty and rich
ness from the mountain top on the op
posite side of the Jordon; so we from
the mountain tops of our ambitions, see
the grand future of our chosen abiding
place.
Even now l imagine l hear the roal
of the gushing waters as they escape
from the wheels that do mans work
and the whir and clatter of the vas
amount of all kinds of machinery 1 sec
the busy eager throng crowding alons
the streets of the continuous city fol
eighteen miles upon the banks of the
|, Wisconsin; l see the smoke from the
kllns and feel the heat of the pottery
furnaces; hear the whistle of number
less locomotives and feel the jar of theil
ponderous trains; | see the beautiful
, strips of woodland, and beautiful field.
and rich, attractive gardens dotted here
and there and everywhere, over the
northern and eastern portions of the
county and herds of all kinds of stock
I roaming over green fields.
II