Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1911-03-08
NOTED EDITOR FISHES.
But Spends More Time In
vestigating Villas County
Soil and Crops-An Interest
ing Talk by an Able Farmer.
From the Villas County News,
Sept. Il, 1910.

- - SAAAASA VI l. 10
Moines, Ia, a paper which has
been published for the past
thirty years and has the repu-
tatlon Of being the ablest farm
journal in the country, writes
a lengthy article in an issue
of the Farmer, under date Of
Sept. md, relative to Villas
county and its value as a grass,
grain and stock-raising coun-
try.
Mr.. Wallace, who is
thoroughly familiar with soil
conditions and relative values
of crop raising, visited this
section the middle Of August.
His article, which is published
in part, will tell the story
better than we can:
" About the middle Of
August, during the periods be-
tween sleeping and waking,
when we 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
that way about once a year,
and sometimes wake up, if, in
deed we we're asleep, with
every muscle tense and rigid
as if we we're pulling in one Of
those whoppers which fisher
men 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
by intervals-the intervals be-
ing the times the tale is told.
But where to go-that was
the next question. It was de-
cided for us by an invitation
from our old college friend,
Tom Ankeny, with whom we
graduated ffty-one years ago.
This invitation was to go to
the top Of Wisconsin, up to the
cut-over country in Villas coun-
ty, 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 shallow,
fringed this season Of the year
with growth Of weeds, linked
together in chains, where long
ago the red Indian won his
dusky 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
Gulf through the Father of
waters. We accepted the in
vitation, Of course.
"Our first impression Of this
cut-over country, as we looked
at the jungles of forest growth
along the edges Of the lakes, or
at the great pine stumps on
the higher levels and the great
hardwood forests on the higher
lands is, however strange it
may seem to the man from the
black prairies, however much
of sand there may be in these
soils, that it must be rich land.
The next impression is that it
must have abundant rainfall,
for forests do not bring rain;
it is rain that 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 upper
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 latter 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 con-