St. Cloud Democrat. [volume] (Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minn.) 1858-1866, 1861-03-28

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spells Of three days each, aud the mercury was
often down to zero duringthe night, and some
times below it; but, for all purposes 81 living
and enjoyment it was superior to any Pennsyl-
vania winter have ever seen. Winter before
last Travelled 400 miles, always north fst.
Paul, and oil ways in open conveyances without
suffering any Inconvenience. The three cold
est days Of that winter I rode, every day. in
an open cutter, ~ miles without stopping;
and the coolest night, lectured in a school
house which had not'a shovelfull of plaster on
it, but was built Of inch boards SGT ON end;
with narrow strip nailed over the cracks.
do not think three more people could have rot
into the house, unless they had been hung up
on the rafters. Yet, after l had kept them
there for one hour and: quarter, they called
on gentleman for; speech, and after he had
talked hree-quarters Of an hour, they insisted
on his going, on. l slept that night in a board
shanty built like the school-house; and was
as comfortable as flea is supposed to be in a
blanket. know one family from lew Eng
land, who has lived five winters up there, in q
board shanty, that is, with an inch pine board
between them and q Northern Minnesota win.
ter-had child born there in the winter, who
Is now four years old; and never trouble them
selves about the best remedy for colds. We
Pennsylvanians, of st. Cloud often, during our
bright winters, look back with compassion on
the friends we left IN the land Of Penn, who
arc there dragging themselves around through
fathomless depths of mud, beneath weeping
skies, frozen up one day and thawed out the
next; and always more or less in SILVER with
the damp.
In the southern part Of the State there is
deep limestone ledge underlying the soil ; and
at st. Paul and St. Anthony they quarry lime
stone out Of the cellar to build the walls of the
house. This disappears before you get up to
St. Cloud, and the rocks are a hard, gray gran
ite. The soil west Of the Mississippi all the
way above the Minnesota river, and distance
below it, is a deep, black loan, mixed with
sand. In Stearns county this rests on sub
soil Of sand; and the drainage is perfect, SO that
we have no wheat rust or miasmas. This black
soil is from one to four feet deep, and varies
in richness. AS you go westward to the Red
River it deepens, and the suhsoil becomes clay,
until, in the Red River Valley, there is an al
luvial deposit in some places twenty feet deep.
This belt of land, two hundred miles wide,
lying between the Mississippi and Red River
is par excellence, the wheat growing region of
the U. 8. If the crop was safely harvested
there this year, as it was in fair way to be
when last heard, it will average 80 bushels
to the acre. AZ bushels have been raised on
one acre; and there is little danger of exhaust.
ing the soil without gross negligence, for the
land is rolling, with frequent indentations like
basins. In all these depressions are immense
deposits Of mari, loan as black as coal dust, or
peat, which will supply manure, and, fuel if
our wood should ever run short. The whole
face Of the country is singularly varied by clear
prairies, dense forests oak openings, thickets
of whitc-wood and wild plumb and halle brush
-tamarac swamps, cranberry marshes-natu
raj meadows, yielding from two to six tons of
hay to the acre-clear streams of water and
sparkling lakes. think there are thousands
of places in our county alone, where in lG0
acres, one could find a gentle knoll covered
with oak trees, on the bank Of stream or lake,
furnishing building site for nobleman, with
clean prairie ready for the plow, tamarac
swamp or pople grove to furnish fencing mate
rial, and oil the timber family would want
for fuel in century. The land once broken
up and the sod rotted, there are no clods to
breal, it turns over from the plow like an ash
heap. 1t never bakes; and after two weeks
of hot sun without rain, have gone out, and
scraping off the top, found the earth quite moist
less than two inches from the surface. The
highly improbable that Northern Minnesota
con ever suffer from droughts. The oldest in
habitant has none to record and the produc-
tiveness Of the soil is almost equal to that eff
the California Valleys. I had one turnip sent
me weighing u pounds. Wild grapes, black
berries, strawberries, raspberries, goosberries,
wild plumbs and cranberries arc abundant
1 have Isabella grape vines which lived thro'
last winter without any shelter, and are very
vigorous now and we expect to raise apples
cherries md plumbs in abundance. Peaches
are mathematical,
Well, this embryo State of which the build
ing materials are all agricultural, was taken
possession Of by set of spectators and polit-
ical wire workers, who undertook to put up