The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-23 00:00:00

Irrn! STOCRMITDGE OBSERM.

FARMING IN NEBRASKA.

The Daily News of Monday published a communication
from a correspondent giving a graphic description of farm-
ing operations in Nebraska. The following extracts will be
found interesting :

. . . It was more by chance than by design that I
settled in this State • but I do not regret my choice.
We are still in our infancy as a community; but our
progress has been very rapid, civilization extends its
domain out here in a rough-and-ready fashion,
which covers a very large area in a very short time,
We are a go-ahead people, and hope to become a
highly reputable State, We do not, I should
explain, for a moment imagine that we are all going to
make our fortunes. What we produce cheaply we
sell cheaply, and are obliged to content ourselves with
a very modest profit. But we have no difficulty in
paying our way; nature is bountiful, "the climate's
delicate, the air most sweet," as in the insular Delphos
of the Winter's Tale. The life, though hard, is suffi-
ciently interesting and pleasant to those with
enough strength and pluck not to mind "roughing
it ; " and above all there is no terror of landlords or
rent days before our eyes.
"A few details of the way in which we till the land
and of the results of our labour, in the distant West,
may, think, prove under present circumstances
both interesting and useful to many English readers.
Up to the present time there has been no difficulty
in acquhing land here at a very moderate price; from
10 to 15 dollars an acre is what one pays for good
farming land, or about the same sum as the average
annual rental at home. . . • My own farm consists of 80
acres, all under cultivation. So far I have really had
no difficulty with the labour question, and have
managed to get on with very little of an article which
out here is even harder to come by than at home.
One man and a single team of horses can easily work
80 acres, with a little help in harvest time. The
average Nebraska farmer has 80 acres o fiend, two
horses, a cow, and half-a-dozen hogs. With sowing
and ploughing in the spring and fall and harvest in
the summer, his hands are generally pretty full; in
the winter he sits indoors all day, keeping himself
warm as well as he can, with very little in the way of
occupation, unless, like myself, he has stock to attend
to, For myself, with four horses, ten head of cattle,
and twenty-five hogs to look after, I can never find
the day long enough. In the summer every one puts
his cattle out into a herd; they are all collected
together and herded out on the prairie. The charge
for herding is from four to five shillings a head for the
five summer months—from May to October—which is
a great deal too cheap for the contractor to get any
appreciable profit for his trouble.
With regard to the price of live stock, one can buy
a good cow about to calve for from £6 to £B, two-
year-old steers cost £3, horses from £35 to £4O for a
team. Hogs are always varying; all last winter
they were worth a penny a pound, live weight; but
now the price has nearly doubled. Leans ones and
stock hogs are in comparison rather dearer. Fat
hogs generally average from 2001 b, to 3001 b. All fat
stock is sold by weight, beef being worth about five
farthings a pound live weight. Every town here is
well supplied with weighing machines. All the
grain is weighed in the waggon, and then they have
a " dump " and tip the waggon up without taking
the horses out. This of course saves time, and the
system is accurate enough. All waggons here are
much alike in shape, though not in wear. They are
made in three sizes, and the largest will carry, if neces-
sary, as much as three tons, but the usual load is
about a ton and a-half. Our ton, I should perhaps
mention, contains only 2,0001 b. At the same time,
these waggons run lightly, and, with a spring seat, are
quite comfortable to ride in. Those who can afford
such luxuries keep "buggies," which are made after
all patterns—some specimens of the more fashionable
kind may generally be seen in London during the
season—but are all very light. While our waggon
wheels are about the size of English carriage wheels—
but of very strong wood, and well made buggy
wheels are more like those of a bicycle, except of
course that they are made of wood. All horses here
are very slight when compared with those used for
similar purposes in England. My biggest team are
about the same build as a small English carriage pair,
and my others considerably smaller, in fact I call
them my ponies. The two horses will plough a couple
of acres a day with a walking plough in ordi-
nary weather, and at the same time are excellent
roadsters. I often drive them forty miles a day,
and I have driven my ponies eighty miles in a day and
a half. What I have said will Rive the reader some
Idea of the difference between our land and that in
most parts of England. The soil is not so very light,
but of a peculiar and extremely friable nature. The
ploughs, too, are made in an entirely different fashion.
They have steel-faced iron breasts, and turn over a
furrow of about twelve inches. The greatest recent
Improvement has been the introduction of riding
ploughs, which have not been in use for more than a
couple of years. They are splendid things made in
lots of different shapes and patterns, but all combining
to a greater or less extent ease of draught and good
work. They require three horses, turn a furrow of
from 15 to 18 inches, and will easily plough three acres
a day in good weather. On one cold day in October I
ploughed an acre with one of these ploughs in two
hours and twenty minutes, the ground being then as
hard as the road. To the farmer working single-
handed the riding-plough is an immense boon, since
if he had to walk behind a plough all day he would be
too tired to water and feed his stock in the evening;
while with one of these machines he can ride quietly
all day and be fresh for work at home in the evening.
Last fall I ploughed about 37 acres for wheat to sow
this spring. Most of the wheat is sown by hand here,
but there are a few drills and a good many "seeders,'
a seeder being merely a broadcast drill with a culti-
vating attachment behind, so that one can work it
single-handed. The great sowing time here is in the
snring, from February to April; there is generally a
little "fall" wheat, but this is rather a speculative
operation, attended by considerable risk of total loss,
as the roots get frozen right up and entirely killed.
However, when the crop does survive the winter,
it makes half as much again in quantity as the
spring wheat. Next to wheat comes barley, which
sometimes, as in England, pays better than wheat;
but I should not be inclined to raise it myself
except for feed, as our stock of barley is really worn
out, and not fit to sow. We have only one kind
here, a two-rowed barley, which we get of beautiful
colour, and more per acre than wheat; but it is so
light and small-grained as to be, in my judgment, not
worth sowing. The chief peculiarity of the crop is
that it takes only two months to grow here. They
sow it some time in May, and it is generally ripe early
in July. What we want is to import a little good
chevalier barley—none so good as in England—and
"cross the breed," a process which I am sure, in the
course of a year or two, would be amply repaid. Oats
produce very well here, but as the average market
price is only from 63. to 83. a bushel no one rabes
them except for his own use. Barley is worth from
Is. Bd. to 2s. 6d., and wheat from 2e. to 3s. a bushel.
The next crop is maize, which is in fact the crop of
the country. Tabs is nearly the northern limit of
maize cultivation, but at the same time our maize is
about the best raised in the States, and the agricul-
tural reader has probably had lots of Nebraska maize
without knowing it, Maize is a wonderful thing, and
I could expatiate on its remarkable properties
ad infinitum. I should mention in the first place that
in America it is not called maize, but " corn ; " while
wheat, barley, &c., are known here, not as corn, but
as "small grain." Every bit of the maize plant is
used. We often feed our animals upon it exclusively.
The English farmer would probably be rather horrified
at the idea of feeding horses and fattening bullocks on
nothing but whole and ground maize • but here they
all do it, and the beasts thrive exceedingly, although
horses are rather subject to eripes, especially when fed
heavily and worked hard Maize has been worth
here all the winter sicl. a buehel, now it is 6d. to 7d., and
will probably go up to is. It is generally reckoned
that it costs about 7d. a bushel to raise, while wheat
costs about double the sum, so much more seed being
required per acre. Maize generally yields from 35 to
70 bushels an acre. I hope never to sell a bushel of
It, as it is always worth to me over a shilling a bushel
for feeding and other purposes. The stalks made
capital kindling wood for lighting fires, the husks the
cattle eat, the cobs we burn instead of wood, and when
prices are too low for it to be worth sending to market
we burn the cobs with the maize on it, and it makes as
good a fire as coal. I have burnt nothing this winter
except maize cobs and a little maize on the cob,
and only about a quarter of a bushel a day of that.
This property of maize may perhaps afford some com-
fort to those tender-hearted and imaginative people
who afflict themselves with the woes of our shivering
posterity in the days—l believe they are expected to
come in about 700 years—when the supply of coal is ex-
hausted. As long as maize flourishes I do not think
the glacial period will return. Here, too, an I have
already mentioned, our animals live on the plant, and
we ourselves find it very nice to eat for a change some-
times, prepared in various ways.
Cattle are the things that pay best here, They
can be bought cheap when two years old, and
be fatted cheap, principally on maize, and then sent
direct into Chicago market, about 700 miles from
here, whence they are shipped to Europe. The Eng-
lish market is now practically closed to American
live stock, but the system of exporting fresh meat has
been so much developed of late, and the meat seems
to be so much better appreciated than it used to be,
that the exclusion does not make any groat difference.
We compete directly with the butcher instead of with
the farmer, and whichever form our rivalry takes, the
English consumer, if he keeps his eyes open, ought to
gain in the end. There are very few sheep about hereyet,
but I hope to get some soon. They do very well, and
cost from Bs. to 10s. a head. As I have said before,
the country is not one which to make a large fortune
"off the reel," since although our stock is cheap all our
produce is cheap also. Still everyone who chooses to
stick to it ought to make an honest living, and there
will never I think be any distress here such as there is
from time to time in England, since food and the other
necessaries of life will be always °heap. Some of our
best farmers occasionally make very large profits. One
man in Butler County recently raised 2,218 bushels of
wheat from 78 acres, or almost 28i bushels an acre,
and sold it for 80 cents, or 3s. 4d. a bushel. Besides
this, he raised a large crop of "corn " (that is, maize)
600 bushels of oats, and other grain in smaller quanti-
ties. In fact, farming must pay out here with ordi-
nary crops and ordinary steadiness. . •
The climate, as I have; said, is on the whole an excel-
lent one, though we have to endure extremes both of
heat and cold seldom experienced at home, Besides
the heat and cold there are occasionally terrible hurri-
canes, which do much mischief. The air' however,
seems to render one less sensitive out here to changes
In temperature than in England. Binding wheat
sheaves last harvest with the thermometer at 104 deg.
in the shade was pretty hot work; but I have walked
ten or twelve miles, with my gun over my shoulder,
and the thermometer ranging from 92 deg. to 100 deg.,
without getting tired, which I certainly could not have
done at home. . .

I have said epotigh to give the reader a general idea
of what farming in Nebraska is like, Whether its ad-
vantages or its disadvantages preponderate must in the
long run depend on the temperament of the farmer
himself. My own opinion is that an emigrant, with a
little money and some knowledge of the businerp, if he
possesses energy, good health, and steadiness, might do
much worse than pitch his tent in this little-known
region. Although Nebraska is only a few years old,
it is considered rather a high-class farming State.
There are many Englishmen round here; my nearest

neighbour is the son of a large Berkshire farmer, anti a
Norfolk farmer who came out in the same vessel as I
did ix now Fettled within ten miles of me. My readers
will be glad to hear that the beat farmers in the
Western States are almost always Englishmen.