Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-12-22
A Buekeye Abroad,
JEsUP, Iowa, Dec. 7th, Isl

JESUP, IOWA, dec. ILn, 1908.
EDITOR CHRoNICLE:-In this great
State of Iowa, to a Buckeye, many
things are as different from what he
has been accustomed to as he could ex-
poet to find in China or the Moon
Fields as large as the farms he has
been wont to see; roads were tracks
across the prairie; for bridges, fords /;
for fences, wires; for barns, straw COW
cred stables only large enough TO hold
the farm horses; for corn cribs, pole
pens with no roof but the snow or
clouds; for wheat bins, pile of rails
and straw. The grain is all stacked
and threshed in the fields where
grown, the farmers sowing five or ten
times the amount, as seed, that is
raised in the Reserve as q crop, the
enclosed fields in grain instead of
grass. The wild fowls, ducks, prairie
chickens and quails are as plenty as
robins or blackbirds in Ohio; farms
without fences and = country almost
without timber, all show difference
of more than name between Iowa and
Ohio. In some things Iowa is much
the superior. The soil is a rich. black,
sandy loan, seldom less than two or
three feet in depth; only in one place
for few miles south of the Iowa riv-
or have / seen such clay roads as those
of the Reserve. But the richer land
is counter-balanced by the lower price
of farm products in this State than in
Ohio. Wheat, for instance, is only
selling at sixty cents for the best,
much of it not bringing more than
thirty-five or forty cents a bushel,
and other grain in proportion. 1t can
readily be seen that at this price there
is no profit but much loss in wheat
Kissing, for owing to the wet season
the crop will not average over sixteen
bushels to the acre. hear of one
farmer who offers his crop of a thous-
and or two bushels to any one who
will pay the expenses of the harvesting
and threshing; but the present low
price of grain cannot last. If the COM
bination which has raised the freights
on wheat between this place and Liv-
erpool, England, thirty-siX cents a
bushel within the last year, continues,
shippers will be forced to send down
the Mississippi instead of as now by
Chicago and New York. Opening
this route might awaken a healthy
competition and bring down the price
of forwarding the grain to Europe to
reasonable rates. The plentiful crops
east, which this year destroyed the
market there, may not be so abund-
ant next season. The contraction of
the currency and struggle to return to
specie payments may be over them
The poor yield and high price of labor,
three dollars and q half in harvest,
may be better. II something is not
better the farmers will abandon wheat
and turn to stock raising. Even with
prices as they were they would, doubt
less, make more raising cattle, for the
pasture on the open prairies costs
and the hay only the cut
ting.
Timber here is mostly confined to
the stream banks and but little there
on the uplands, nothing larger than a !
willow or hazle bush; there il little |
timber fit for saving. / have seen |
but one saw-mill since leaving the /
The lumber used is raft /
ed down from the upper tributaries of |
the Mississippi in Wisconsin and Min
nesota rs far as Dubuque and thence /
by rail. Even the wood for fuel is /
scarce and often has 70 be hauled a
distance; some find it cheaper to burn
coal, and the coal of the Mahoning
Valley, known here as Pittsburgh
coal, cheers many an Iowa home at
The rate of eight dollars ton.
Spring wheat is altogether grown
here, as the fall wheat winter kills.
We of the Reserve are accustomed to
associate spring wheat with dark, low
priced -four, and black, clammy
bread; only the Michigan winter
wheat makes white bread there, but
here find the best and whitest Of
bread made from this same spring
wheat. The Jerusalem Artichoke is
70 called, it is said, because it does not
yrow at Jerusalem, and because it is
lot an artichoke perhaps. Our hon.
,st millers could tell us that Michigan
winter wheat flour is so named on &C
,ount of its being made of wheat
,rown in Minnesota or Iowa, and
own in the spring, while that pur-
PORTING to be from spring wheat is the
.ullings Of every kind raised in the
country. A great part of the country
S yet unbrOksn and uninclosed, lying
covered with tall grass, as it has been
ince the creation. The prairie is not
he level plain that some who have
lever seen it imagine, but as rolling
. the land in old Trumbull, though
n few places too steep in slope to pre-
-ent plowing, for this loose soil will
lot. lay in as steep banks as the clay
'hardpan" of Ohio. The sub-soil is
'raveI and the rock limestone. This