present agricultural output by from 20 to 40 per cent. Upwards of
10,000,000 acres of glaciated land have already been developed in
the most populous parts of the State. If the average value of all
products on this area is reckoned at $15 per acre and if the
increased value of agricultural products due to glaciation
amounts to 30 per cent, then the net value of glaciation per year
to the farmers of Wisconsin is $45,000,000. This means about $300
for each farmer in the glaciated area.

* R. H. Whitbeck, "Economic Aspects of Glaciation in Wisconsin",
in "Annals of the Association of American Geographers," vol. III
in (1913), pp. 62-67.


Wisconsin is by no means unique. In Ohio, for instance, there is
also a driftless area.* It lies in the southeast along the Ohio
River. The difference in the value of the farm land there and in
the glaciated region is extraordinary. In the driftless area the
average value per acre in 1910 was less than $24, while in the
glaciated area it was nearly $64. Year by year the proportion of
the population of the State in the unglaciated area is steadily
decreasing. The difference between the two parts of the State is
not due to the underlying rock structure or to the rainfall
except to a slight degree. Some of the difference is due to the
fact that important cities such as Cleveland and Toledo lie on
the fertile level strip of land along the lake shore, but this
strip itself, as well as the lake, owes much of its character to
glaciation. It appears, therefore, that in Ohio, perhaps even
more than in Wisconsin, man prospers most in the parts where the
ice has done its work.