HISTORY OF WOOD COUNTY



Wood County. The Dancy Drainage District, organized in the Circuit Court
of
Marathon County, has about 3,000 acres in Wood County.
   Under the Town Drains Law, repealed in 1919, several town drains were
con-
structed, but these drainages were usually too small to be of much use.
   After the passage of the "Farm Drainage Law" in 1919, three
farm drainages
were put in under that larv,-one in the towns of Seneca and Hansen, one east
of
the city of Marshfield and one in the village of Vesper, the three aggregating
about
6,500 acres.
   Altogether the public drainage projects in Wood County include approximately
61,500 acres and in them have been dug something over 165 miles of open ditches,
most of which were originally dug from seven to nine feet deep, with a bottom
width
of from 4 to 36 feet. Besides these open drains, something over seven miles
of
tile have been laid in these public projects.
   Before these drains were constructed, most of the lands now served by
them,
were so wet that they contained no settlers and practically no public roads.
The
few private roads that entered them were so near impassable that they were
seldom
used, except in winter and at cranberry harvest time. They followed no definite
lines but wound from island to island, with corduroys between the islands
to make
them passable at all. Much of this marsh area, not covered with floating
bog,
had peat so soft and deep that it was dangerous for man or animal to try
to cross
it. Some of the peat had a depth of 18 or more feet.
   Now over 40 miles of good highways run through or on the border of the
drained
areas. Several of these highways are patrolled, trunk highways. Many fine
farms, with commodious farm buildings, are within the drained districts.
   The lands in these drainage districts and farm drainages are not yet all
suffi-
ciently dry for general farming. Some require more drains. But most of them
are
drained enough for successful dairying, and probably two-thirds of them enough
for general farming. They produce, when properly drained and intelligently
worked, very satisfactory crops of tame hay, alsike clover, Sudan grass,
ensilage
corn, soy beans, oats, rye, flax, buckwheat, cabbage, sugar-beets, onions,
parsnips,
carrots, tomatoes and small fruits. Acre-yields of 40 to 70 bushels of oats,
18 to
25 bushels of rye, 10 to 20 tons of cabbage, 175 to 400 bushels of potatoes,
400
bushels of onions, 112 to 212 tons of tame hay and 18 to 26 bushels of buckwheat
are not unusual on these soils. High grade and pure bred cattle do well upon
the
drained lands,-both dairy and beef breeds.
   At the Wisconsin State Fair, for 1922, the exhibit of produce grown on
drained
marsh land, rivaled in excellence the exhibits of most of the older counties
of the
state, and nearly one-half of that exhibit was grown on Wood County drained
marsh. Seeing the improvement of these publicly drained areas, has encouraged
many land owners, who have outlets available, to start private drainage.
Most
of this private drainage is tile. The Gault farm in Hansen Town, has many
miles
of tile drain. There are altogether something like 56 miles of private tile
drain
and many miles of private open ditch in the county. These drained lands are
not
gold mines, but when sufficiently drained and properly farmed, they can be
relied
on to produce more and better crops, and fully as good net cash returns,
as the best
surrounding high lands.



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