Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-02-14

ounty contains 54s square miles. The soil
aken as whole, was fairly good.
MARATHON COUNTY.
MslrathOn county is located in the geo
graphical center of the state and was nearly
all covered with heavy growth of timber
LIT was one of the later settled counties OF
the state, very little farming having been
done until about 1874. After that year the
land was rapidly taken by farmers and
cleared and fitted for growing crops The
soil, for the most part, is remarkably good,
and especially adapted to the growth of all
the cultivated grasses and other forage
crops. 1t IS the largest county in the state,
containing l,532 square miles: nearly three
times as much as Jefferson county.
SOME CENSUS RETURNS.
In 1870 the population of jefferson county
was "a ,040, and that of Marathon 1886:
about half being in the city of WauSau and
the rest scattered around at the different
lumber mills and nearly all engaged in
numbering, and practically none were farm
ing In l900-the last U. ). cansus-there
were in Jefferson county 81, 4,7S9 inhabitants.
an increase OF only 749 in thirty years.
Marathon county had 43, $50 inhabitants, an
increase during the same period of 37,371
jefferson county had !, ,453 farms and Mara
th0H 1926. jefferson county had 1854
dairy cows, or one t. each man, woman and
child in the county, and 2055 cows besides
Marathon county had $3.50 dairy COWS, or
a trifie more than one to each three of its
Inhabitants. That year, 1900, Jefferson
county raised 1886 tons of clover and
timothy hay, and Marathon county raised
of the same kinds of hay, though mostly
timothy, 44S tons.
SOME FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF
JEFFERSON COUNTY.
The early farmers of the county seemed
to have the idea that all there was to farm
ing was to plow up the ground, sow it to
wheat and sometimes other grains: when
the crop was ripe, harvest and thresh it and
take it to market, and the next year do the
same thing. Thus they went ON year after
year. They never seemed to think that
with every load of grain sold off there went
part of the fertility of the farm, and if
this process was kept up long enough, the
fertility would be so reduced that no one
could get living from it. Occasionally,
indeed, there was man who could see that
this was not the right way to farm, and
stocked up his farm with cattle or sheep.
and thereby aYerted the ruin toward which
he was tending.
/ have in mind man for whom worked
when boy. He knew he was not doing
just the right way, for ! heard him say
once: II know this isn't the right way to
..i III rvs ouPPOSC IL Will luC Idllu
poor after awhile, but it will last as long as
live and l don't care rap what becomes
of it then. Let the next generation look
out for themselves; | had to look out for
myself" But he either lived longer than
he calculated, or else the land got poor
quicker than he expected, for when he died
he left a rundown, impoverished farm
which was covered, for all it was worth,
with mortgage that cost his sons, with the
best methods of live stock farming, a long
hard struggle to lift.
But the most Of the farmers kept on in
the same old ruinous way; the crops of
grain growing less and the partial, and
sometimes total, failures coming oftener.
When the farmer had failure of his wheat
crop, and the debts he had incurred for ex-
penses in running his farm, and his store
and grocery bills for the year, became due,
and which he had vainly hoped to pay from
the proceeds of his crop latter harvest"
then he had to put mortgage on his farm,
which mortgage could never be lifted by
the old way of doing things.
A CHANGE TO DAIRYING WAS MADE.
As general thing, farming went on in
the way have been describing until 1870.
1t is known that at that time more than half
the value of the farm lands of Jefferson
county were under mortgage and their pro-
ductiveneSs greatly reduced. Things could
different had to be done. Farmers turned
their attention. TO dairying. They were
driven to it by force of circumstances. They
had to do it, or quit and go west and find
new fields to devastate. If their lands had
been richer they would have held out longer,
but this would only have delayed, for a few
years, the final disaster. 1t is fortunate
circumstance that the farm lands of Jetfer-
son county were more easily exhausted
than are the lands of some parts of the
country, because the farmers were sooner
driven to better methods.
Since dairying has been adopted by almost
every farmer, the fertility of the soil has
gradually been restored, and ON many farms
made richer than it was in the state of
nature, because what has been raised upon
the farm has been fed to cows and The
fertility in the feed put back on the land;
and, besides, the fertility from the fields of
Minnesota and Dakota, in the form of bran
and oil-meal, has been bought by the car
load and fed to cows to still further enrich
the land.
And now the farmer is prosperous; his
land will sell for four times what it would
when dairying was commenced; the crops
of grain and forage are very much larger,
and the COW pays big price for them.
Most of the mortgages are lifted and the
farmers have good houses and fine, com
mcdious barns; besides having money in
most farms the fertility has been fully re-
stored so that when we are done with it, we
will not leave to those who come after us
barren waste.
The seventy-eight creameries and eight
cheese factories and 1854 dairy cows in
the little county of Jefferson have turned
into the pockets of her farmers about
81, 100000 annually; why should they not be
prosperous
WARNING TO MARATHON COUNTY.
Now don't think am saying any of these
things to boast; for / am not have told
you of our sins, and have not tried to cover
anything up: of our just and inevitable
punishment; of our repentance and our re-
demption. The main object of this paper
is to make emphatic warning to all farm
ers who are tempted to do as we OF Jeffer-
son county did in early days. The warm
ing is not needed by every Marathon county
farmer, for you have cheese factories and
creamerieS and there are many very fine
dairy herds and prosperous dairymen.
Still. | think there are many who need the
warning, and if they do not heed 1t, will
find themselves in the condition that the
majority of Jefferson county farmers were
in before l870-impoyeriShed, with heavy
mortgages.
| find some things in the census returns
which have read to you that make me fear
for some of you. / find that Marathon
county, compared with Jefferson, has one
quarter more farms, one quarter more in
habitants only three-seventS as many dairy
cows, but raises 2l5 times as much tame
hay, mostly timothy. Now what are you