Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/354

 From time to time the inquiries have been enlarged until the census of 1900 gives a vast amount of valuable information as to the population of towns, cities, country, education, productions of almost every description and a variety of subjects which make a very comprehensive history of the people and their industries at the close of the Nineteenth Century.

The steady progress of Iowa in population and development can be seen by giving a few of the general items from the successive Federal enumerations during the period which has elapsed since Iowa has had civil government extended over its domain.

The first teams of the immigrants were mostly oxen and the increase of these animals up to 1860 shows the period of the greatest amount of breaking up of the wild prairies which, in those years, was largely done by teams, usually consisting of from three to six yoke of oxen to one plow. Oxen for many years also made the teams for drawing produce to market, as well as for cultivating the soil. The last enumeration of oxen we find in the census, is in 1895, when in all of Iowa but four hundred and sixty of the slow, patient and reliable cattle teams survived.

FEDERAL CENSUS STATISTICS