Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/112

 system of regular valleys perfectly drained and bounded by symmetrically sculptured hills or bluffs, which exhibit a level sky line and decrease in altitude steadily till at the heads of the streams they merge in the great plateau or "prairie" of southern Wisconsin. The valleys make natural and not ill-graded highways from the prairie to the Wisconsin River, while the ranges of bluffs separating them appear like promontories running out fingerwise from the main plateau and terminating either where two smaller streams converge or at the edge of the lower plain laid down by the Wisconsin.

The principal stream entering the Wisconsin from the south, in the neighborhood of Muscoda, is Blue River—the "Riviere Bleu" of the French traders. It has several head streams rising in township 6-1 E, and a large affluent named the Fennimore rising in 6-1 W, the Six Mile Creek, rising in 7-1 E and Sandy Branch which heads in 8-1 E. There are also several small branches entering the Fennimore from 7-2 W. In its lower course the Blue River swerves to the west, entering the Wisconsin near Blue River Station, in Township 8-2 W, but its rich upper valleys and those of its tributaries have always been mainly within the trade area of Muscoda. North of the Wisconsin the valleys most intimately associated with Muscoda are Indian Creek, Eagle Creek, and Knapp's Creek in Richland County. The "Sand Prairie," by which name the sandy plain along the Wisconsin on the south side has long been known, and a narrow tract of shelving land between the river and the hills on the north are also within the Muscoda area.

Since the bluffs are mostly rough land, with only limited areas on their summits where the soil is deep, free from stones, and sufficiently even for cultivation, and the sand prairie comparatively infertile, Muscoda as a trade center suffers from the low average productivity of her territory. Still, from pioneer days the long valleys beyond the sand