The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1859-05-12
The Crops.


EF The weather has leaped directly
from the lap of winter into the warm en-
brace of summer, scarcely stopping to
exchange salutations with spring. Part
of April was frosty, snowy, wintry, while
now, in early May, the suns brightness
and heat have nearly summers power.
The result has been that vegetation has
advanced with almost unparalleled rapid
ity, and in three weeks the prairies and
woods have thrown aside their gray and
sombre garbs, and have put on their pleas
ing green and flower bespangled dresses.
The farmers have gone to work cheerily,
and having been enabled to labor with
but little Interruption. have planted more
extensively than ever before. Seeds
have terminated rapidly. and wheat and
oats have never come up better. and new.
er looked better, thus early. than they do
now. We took short trip in the coun-
try the other day, and found every far
mer with whom we spoke in the most
sanguine mood, and doing his best to
raise large crop. One good effect of
the hard times has been to drive many
residents of our country, who were for
merly producers. living by specula-
ton, into the business of Agriculture, to
the benefit of themselves, the country,
and the community Many who had
been residents of villages, and whose
principal occupation, heretofore, had
been that of lounging about stores and
saloons, have been forced to go to work,
and as most of them own land, they have
generally gone to farming. Much prai-
RE, heretofore lying in its native state,
has been fenced and broken up since last
fall. and is now being planted, SO that
the amount of uncultivated land in this
county will be vastly less this year than
heretofore. With good yield, such as
is now universally promised, and with
market such as we, hope to have, Blu
chanan county will be nearly, if not
wholly, freed from debt, and will be in
much healthier and better condition
than ever before. From this time on
ward we shall have a considerable amount
of beef and pork to sell, and perhaps,
also, mutton and wool. These can al
ways be marketed, and will bring the
cash, even though we should have no
railroad. With few years of good crops,
and with the means of getting them to
market, who can realize the amount of
prosperity we shall enjoy, the extent of
the Improvements that will be made
When the log hut gives place to the COM
Portable farm house, and the rough straw
shed to the we'll built and roomy barn
when the locust and the cottonwood, now
planted, grows up to shade the door
step. and the gardens rival the prairies
in bloom when there is a comfortable
school house in every district, and a good
education free to every child who wishes
it when roads will be laid out with sys-
tenn, and graded and repaired with judg-
ment; when the ox-team is used solely |
for draft, and the farmer takes his family
to church in the carriage when luxu-
ries, and not privations, are the rule
when these changes are made, and we
realize that we have one Of the most pro-
ductive as well as one of the most health
full countries in the world, who will want
TO leave it? This prosperity, these
changes, would undoubtedly be brought
about by three or four good harvests, if
the products can be marketed, and GER
tainly we are not oyer sanguine in ex-
pecting that five years from this time
such a state of affairs will exist among h
us-that by that time the people of this
part OF Iowa will have realized that their
OF has been cast in pleasant places. II