Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-09-14
NOTED EDITOR FISHES

FeSuSoIAAAS Was county s
Soil and Crops---An Inter
esting Talk by an Able Far.
mer,
Henry Wallace, editor Of Wal
lace's Farmer Of Des Moines. Ia
paper which has been publish
ed for the past thirty years and
has the reputation of being the
ablest farm journal in the coun-
try, writes lengthy article in
an issue of the Farmer, under
date OF Sept. End relative to Vi
las county and it's values as a
grass, grain and stock-raising
country.
Mr.. Wallace, who is thorough
" familiar with soil conditions
and relative values of crop rails
ing, visited this section the mid
die of August. His article which
IS published If part, will tell the
story better than we car
About the middle of August.
.duriEg the perio IS between
sleeping and waking. when " E
really did not know whether we
were asleep or awake, we began
to see a cork pulled under the
surface of the water, and feel a
thrill peculiar to old men who,
when they were boys, had hold
of a line spinning through the
water, and then we knew that it
was time to go fishing. We get
thai way about once a year,
and sometimes wake up, if, in
deed we were asleep. with every
muscle tense and rigid as if we
were pulling in one Of those
whoppers which fishermen tell
about but seldom bring home.
The big fish generally get away,
and those that do not get away
keep on growing-not regularly,
but bv intervals-the intervals
being the times the tale is told.
But where to go-that was
the next question. 1t was de
cided for us by an invitation
from cur old college friend. Tom
Ankery, with whom we gradua-
ted ffty-one years ago. This in
vitatjon was to go to the top OF
Wisconsin, up TO the cut-over
country in Villas county, where
there are lakes by the hundred,
OF all sorts and sizes, some large
and deep with sandy or gravelly
shores, and some small and shall
low, fringed this season of the
year with a growth of weeds,
linked together in chains, where
long ago the red Indian won his
duskv maid in the shadow of the
deep pine forests, and where IN
the time of floods the waters
were in doubt whether to seek
the ocean via the st. Lawrence
or to flow on to the Cult
through the Father of Waters.
We accepted the invitation OF
course.
Our first impression of this cut
over country, as we looked at
the jungles of forest growth
along the edge of the lakes, or at
the great pine stumps on the
higher levels and the great hard
wood forests on the higher lands
is. however strange it may seem
to the man from the black pra1r-
les, however much of sand there
NAV be in these soils, that 1t
must be rich land. The next inn
preston is that it must have
abundant rainfall, for forests do
not bring rain; 1T IS ram tlae
brings forests. Great pine trees
three feet across do not grow on
soil that is really poor. The
soil over that vast region OF
northern Minnesota and the up
per peninsula of Michigan and
much of Wisconsin ranges all the
way from sand in the south and
central portions to red clay as
Superior is approached-the lat
ter soil being stiff and tenacious,
hard to work but very rich.
The next impression IS that
this cut-over country has been
the scene of pillage and wanton
waste such as few states have
ever seen. Away back during
the Civil War, when the United
States captured the confederate e
ambassadors, Mason and Siideil
L Il,