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Show IN THESE UNITED STATES: Farmers Are Still Trading In Wisconsin's Small Towns By E. L. KIRKPATRICK WNU Ftaturei. Only one in four of Marathon county's (Wisconsin) 7,200 farmers buys lumber, cement and feed in Wausau (county seat and largest town, 27,000 population). Around 30 per cent buy farm supplies and groceries there, 50 per cent shoes and 60 per cent furniture and clothing. Others trade mostly in smaller towns or villages of which there are more than a dozen in the county. In spite of good roads to larger centers, rural dwellers still depend on the home town for many of their facilities and services, says a market mar-ket survey made by the local chamber cham-ber .of commerce in co-operation with the state chamber and the University Uni-versity of Wisconsin. Marathon county's farmers intended intend-ed to spend 7V4 million dollars within with-in two years after the war, largest amount going into autos and trucks, with farm machinery a close second and repair and remodeling of farm buildings next. Installation of water wa-ter systems is principal home repair re-pair item; refrigerators the most universally desired appliance. One in 12 farm families hoped to build new houses at an average cost of $2,300. More than half of the farmers plan to pay for purchases out of money saved, 12 per cent use farm credit, 18 per cent both. This is even more interesting, if one recalls that Marathon with more than 1,000,000 acres of land, ranks tops among all counties in production of American cheese and fifth in milk, with more than 182 million quarts annually. And more, it has the largest silver fox raising center in the United States. |