The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-07-03
ACROSS THE CONTINENT.
Through IOWa-The Country, Its APP
Dearance, its Products, and It's
Prairles-WalI Lake-ExplanatlOn
or the WaIl-AppearanCe OF Grass
hOppers - Sod Houses, how Con-
structed, &c, DC.

some Inconvenience, such as falls to |
the lot Of any man who . tramps " in |
this Western country. 1t is incon-
venient to drink nine kinds of water
In day-one drastic, another aperl-
ent. and a third sedative. 1t is in
convenient to be caught on All open
stretch of prairie at shutdown, and
journey hours into the night before
finding a resting place; and again 1t
is Uery inconvenient to occupy n
doubtful looking bed with a strange
partner who makes decidedly suspi-
eious use of his finger nails. We
must all eat our peck of dirt in life
time, says the proverb, but it is de-
cidedly announcement to eat it all this
Summer and die in the Fall
left the northeast corner of the
State on the 18th, and travelled w. 5.
W. over a high rolling prairie, in
terspersed with narrow belts of
timber. The timber is always found
along the steams, and grows thinner
and more rare as we go West. The
largest timber / have seen was on the
big Wapsie bottom in Bremen
County. They called it five miles
wide, but it seemed to me ten, for l
almost melted in walking through it.
The change from the high rolling
prairie to this low " bottom timber
is awful. 1t seems like going at once
from early May to sultry July. On
the prairie a balmy wind, laden with
| the perfume of flowers, blows strong
| " from the southwest, but IN this low
| timber there is a dead calm, the air is
perfectly stagnant and hOt-Well, If
| Shadruch's furnace was any hotter,
that was the greatest of all the mira
cles L spent Sunday at Martinsburg,
and on Monday journeyed on towards
| Waverly; was overtaken by a storm
on the open prairie, and had to put it
through nine miles in a heavy rain to
the first house. Found the owner,
Mr.. Ferrin, an old school teacher,
and a graduate of Dartmouth college,
who had settled here eight years ago
for his health. He had paid 500 for
/ hundred and sixty acres of land In
the open prairie. He broke half of
it the first year, put wire fence
around it and sowed it in Spring
wheat, which yielded him twenty-five
bushels per acre. He showed me his
book of accounts, which demonstrated
that, charging his fence at seventy-fve
cents per rod, including labor, and
sod breaking at So 80 per acre, his
first crop had paid for the land and
fence and fifteen per cent. clear profit!
These wire fences are in general use
in all this section In counties where
hogs are not allowed to run at large,
III I II. :
strands, but perfect fence requires
FIVE strands, which will make it horse
high, bull strong and pig tight" The
materials, including stout posts every
rod, will cost from fifty to sixty cents
per rod, according to locality; but
new plan is now coming into use. A
row of cottonwood slips is planted at
suitable distances, and in three years
they are large enough to furnish a
strong support to the wire. Some
farmers put on one plank lust
to let the cattle know there is a fence
there, otherwise green cattle some
times run against the wire. The
same animal never runs against it
twice. These eottonwoods grow very
rapidly when a little protected.
Mr.. Ferrin had, also, splen-
did grove of soft maple, cover
ing two acres, near his house.
Whatever be the true theory In
regard to the origin of these prairies,
it is certain the soil will produce trees,
plentifully and rapidly, too, whenever
= the annual fires are kept off With a
| little pains, any farmer can have tim
Der enough to supply him with fire.
wood, In six or eight years. My host
) showed a rather promising young or
= chard, and told me that was the third
set of trees he had planted on that
ground, and he purpOsed to keep on
planting till Northern Iowa was a
7 fruit growing country. The first set
3 grew two years finely enough, but the
: third Spring, when the ground began
to get dry, he noticed peculiar lean
ing among bis trees, and digging by
them, found that the pocket go
piers had eaten off every root,
, clear to the trunk He planted an
other set, which grew, in ike manner,
: two years, when the rabbits stripped
| them! He planted third set, aud
taking pains to guard against both
RABBITS and gophers, has got them well
into the third year, and If some other
animal don't Ego for" his trees, |
think he will make it a success. 1t
must be confessed that so far this re-
gion has not produced half enough
fruit for home consumption, but
lately they are doing much
better with native nurseries
and CRAFTS introduced from the South
ern part of the State From Bremen
County, my course took me through
: Butler County, to Petersburg, on
the Dubuqe q Sioux City Railroad,
where | took the cars to Iowa CITY.
: the present terminus of that road.
From there, on the morning OF the
18th, L rode twenty two miles west with
a,settler, then took it afoot straight
north for ten miles to visit the ceie-
brated g Wall Lake, in Wright
County. 1t is quite a curiosity, but
description would be tedious here.
Suffice it to say that the wall" or
more properly embankment, is not the
work OF the Red Man, nor yet of his
predecessors the Mound Builders, but
was caused simply by the expansive
force of ice. There are at least fif-
teen Of these lakes in northern Iowa,
, all of similar formation, though this
one is most celebrated. They are on
the summit level between the waters
which flow south and those which flow
north into the rivers Of Minnesota
and Dekotah, hence in the formative
; period of the present water system
there was no accumulation Of water
on higher ground to force it's way
through them and drain them.
ana they remain as at first, simple
expressions IN the drift " which
forms the basis OF our soil and was
, deposlted at the close of the ella