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"Sac County contains sixteen congressional
townships, west of the Des Moines River. It contains 369,640 acres,
nearly a1l, of which is desirable land for either grain or stock
farms, and the larger part available for either or both combined.
The larger part of these lands are railway property and these can be
purchased by home-seekers, who will occupy them at once, on the most
liberal terms. Many of the private holders are also selling on
nearly if not quite as easy terms as the railway land company. And
as to the grasshopper an tornado bugbears, it is perfectly safe to
say that the farmers of Ohio and Indiana are as much annoyed by
them, and have as much prospect for annoyance from them, as the Sac
County grower of grain and stock. Sum up these advantages, and the
reader will readily see why the population has been rapidly on the
increase ever since the opening of railway communication. Let those
who have doubts give the county a visit and they will hesitate no
longer. Sac County has not even the drawback so
common to these fertile counties of Northwestern Iowa. What this is,
too well understood by the early settlers who located in
Northwestern Iowa before there were railways to deliver coal at
every man's door. Many counties in this section had little or no
timber, Ida County, for instance, had less than a thousand acres
within its borders. Sac County had many thousands of acres of oak,
black walnut, hickory, ash, elm, maple, box alder, cottonwood, linn
(basswood), and many other varieties native to the soil. The Coon
River, which traverses the east part of the county, lies buried in
woods for almost its entire course. Cordwood is delivered in Sac
City at from $4 to $5 per cord according to quality. The timber
culture laws of the State relieving land from tax for ten years in
consideration of the culture of a certain portion of forest trees
have also caused so extensive a growth of forest that there is
probably more timber now in the county than before the first axe was
struck on the banks of the classic Coon. |
