Although the land appraisers' reports found in Series 729 and 1957 are not related administratively to the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory, all six series provide a unique picture of rural Wisconsin in the 1920s and 1930s.
Series 729, Department of Agriculture, Immigration Division Records, consists of records from the defunct division. Of particular interest are two volumes of Appraisers' Reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture, regarding the application of the Wisconsin Colonization Company and the Chippewa Valley Colonization Company to sell mortgages on improved agricultural land to land mortgage associations. The volumes consist of typewritten reports showing owner and location of farm; local conditions; general topography; surface; character of soil and subsoil; cultivated land; growing crops; character of unimproved land; land, if any, unfit for cultivation and why; location and condition of roads; distance to towns; mil and telephone service, if any; schools and churches; native timber and amount standing; nationality and character of neighborhood; detailed description of buildings on the land; and date of approval to sell the mortgage. The volumes are arranged by colonization company and thereunder roughly by date of approval of the application. A township diagram accompanies each report with the location of the farm marked off.
Series 1957, Land Appraisers' Reports, 1920-1925, records the same information as Series 729, but it is handwritten on index cards which are mounted in albums. The information here is more accessible because there is an alphabetical index of the land owner's name with a corresponding page number at the front of each album. This series also supplements the written reports with the inclusion of photographs of the land and the dwellings.
