Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1917-10-18
THE SOUTHERN WISCONSIN
COUNTRY
One Of the Favored Spots of the
North American Continent.
From The Breeders Gazette

from me Breeders gazette
Where the trolley Car winds sim
uous path over the country as in many
sections tributary to the great centers
Of population, a rather accurate esti-
mate of agrarian conditions is possible.
Just as efficient a method Of getting on
speaking terms with the soil, its &C
cupants and its products, is by the
agency Of the motor car. Lying to the
north and northwest Of Chicago with
ir few hours ride is a picturesque,
progressive and populous region OF
vast producing capacity. A two hour
ride across the lake region OF northern
Illinois whisks the highway traveller
rich counties stretching from Lake
Michigan to the Mississippi River. 1t
is a we'll wooded and watered country,
carefully man tended even to its
streams and highways, a land Of com
Portable farmsteads and cities that put
on metropolitan airs, while the land
fhe middle couLties of England 1t is a
land Of black soils and perennial
streams, Of myriad industries furnish
ing local markets, and so interlaced
with rock roads and rail lines that
no transportation problem exists.
Wisconsin is essentially country Of
u,ocial cropC DairvinO ic 11n6OT1 htp6.
ly the main reliance of the southern
part Of the state and here the black
and white of the Holstein herds
predominates. There are many milk
condensing plants, the cheese factory
and creamery decorate the landscaIe
and the feedlot is not entirely absent,
Farms have been changing hands in
wholesale fashion all through this
section in recent years and the new
owners are as rule Improvement
makers. Wherever the eye turns new
barns or barns under construction
greet it. Such intensive farming as
Wisconsin practices produces large
gross returns to the acre and IN turn
necessitates facilities that require ex-
tenSiV6 investment. The modern
dairying plant is forcible illustration
of this fact
In the tobacco counties there is
marked disposition to reduce the
acreage in that crop, although the re-
venue frequently exceeds 500 an acre
in a single season. A Rock county
man who has been growing tobacco
since boyhood declared that while it
looks as though tobacco growers were
on an avenue to wealth, he did not know
a farmer in southern Wisconsin WHO
ever got rich at it. He called tobacco
growing slavery and a weatte gamble
pure and simple, with no end Of work
and worry in curing the crop.
Wisconsin boasts of its dairy herds
and no more picturesque sight can be
imagined than a herd of Holsteins
grazing afie,d or punched at noon in
the shade of the clumps Of timber that
impart a park like appearance to this
whole region. But the scrub cow is
conspicuOusly present. Surveying
Tuesday run of bawliDg calves at
whence they come, but motor ride
i
during the spring months furnishes an
answer Calves literally swarm every
where. Wisconsin is easily first among
the states in veal production and those
we'll -intentioned theorists who now
urge legal repression of calf slaughter
as a means of increasing beef supply
would abandon that campaign if able
to realize the utter worthlessness of 80
per cent of these calves for beef max
ing purposes
Southern Wisconsin is forging ahead.
It's lands are rapidly approaching in
value, although still available at much
lower prices than farms 100 to 200 miles
southwark in Illinois. There are mar
kets at every turn. High prices preva
lent for everything edible have had a
healthy influence on southern Wiscon-
sin agriculture and even the handicap
imposed by two droughy years in sue
cession had created no serious hard
ships Southern Wisconsin is one Ct
the favored spots of this North Ameri-
can continent.