Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/29

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COl N'I'Y 5 and some of it passed northeastward to the Mississippi at Etter, the same place, where the Vermilion waters entered it. The descent of this northeastern flat to Etter is about one hundred feet for the uplands, but three or four hundred feet for the valley in which the waters were collected. The greatest recorded elevation in Goodhue county is on the line of the Chicago and Great Western, on Section 23, Kenyon, being 1,250 feet above the sea level; but large areas of several other townships, notably Cherry Grove, Roscoe, Holden, Wana- mingo, Leon and Belle Creek, would doubtless, if subjected to careful measurement, prove to have nearly, if not quite, the same elevation. The average elevation of the county, estimated from contour lines, taken by railroad officials, would be as follows : Central point. 725 feet above the sea; Florence, 975; Wacouta, 925; Red Wing, 800; Hay Creek, 975; Belvidere, 1,100; Burnside, 825; Featherstone, 1,000; Goodhue. 1,100; Zumbrota, 1,075; Pine Isl- land, 1,075; Welch, 925; Vasa, 975; Belle Creek, 1,050; Minneola, 1.075; Roscoe, 1.125; Cannon Falls, 925; Leon, 1,080; Wana- mingo. 1.150; Cherry Grove, 1.200; Stanton, 925; Warsaw, 1,050; Holden, 1,150; Kenyon. 1,210. Florence and Central Point in these estimates are considered equal to one town, their areas being as 7 to 1 ; Wacouta, Red Wing and Burnside make another, their areas being as the figures 1, 2, 8; Welch and Stanton together make two towns. The figures give an estimated average eleva- tion for the county of about 1.015 feet above the sea. The soil of Goodhue county is based on a clayey sub-soil, in all places except on the terrace plains that skirt the main streams. This clay is generally fine and loamy; but in the high prairies of the western towns it is mingled with some pebbles, and even foreign boulders of a foot or more in diameter. Yet, how- ever frequent the stones on the surface, or in the immediate sub- soil, the real soil, which sustains the crops of the farmer, is invariably of a fine grain, and usually of a black color, with a thickness from a few inches to several feet. The stones in the sub-soil, which appear in the western part of the county, gradu- ally disappear tow r ard the east, and are wholly wanting in the extreme eastern part of the co'unty. The sub-soil in the rolling towns of the eastern tiers is a fine yellowish loam, in some cases a compact clay. Goodhue county abounds in lumber along the rivers, and also in several other portions. The following list has been compiled, giving the trees native to this county, together with a short description of each variety. In addition to those found in the list there are a few smaller trees, like the plum, crab apple and thorn apple, which are of little consequence. Among the eulti-