Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-10-18
FUEL FOR PRAIRIE
FARMERS.
Solution of the Problem in Dakota by the
Russian Immigrants.
How the Fuel is Gathered-The Curious
Stove and It's Various Uses.

Mr.. Amherst w. Barber, residing
of late years at Yankton, d. t., tells
the New York Tribune readers some
thing that is new and also valuable
relating to the use of prairie grass as
fuel. We copy from the Tribune:
"Throughout the immense areas of
the prairie portion of the Union, the
fuel question is one of paramount
Importance. The scanty supply of
fuel derived by the first settlers from
the fringes of forests along the
streams as been or soon will be ex.
hausted and the question how to
warm the farmers kitchen and boil
the pot for years to come, is in a
great many localities traught with
anxious thought. There struggling
to win a home and its commonest
adornments, hardly like to pay out
their hard cash for coal, with its
enormous freight charges and rails
ing timber to burn is slow process
especially whore, as in these far
western wilds, the annual prairie fire
will now and then invade the best
protected timber patch, and kill off
at one breath the growth of years.
Cord-wood is growing more expen-
sive and the loss of the settlers time
and labor in hauling it distance of
from five to forty miles, as has often
been done, is too great tax to bear.
The true solution of the problem
came to Dakota with the swarms of
Russian immigrants, or German col
onists born and bred in Russia.
They have all, and their ancestors
before them, inhabited grassy prai-
ries or "steppes," as immense in ex.
tent, as treeless and bare of timber,
and as bleak in winter, as those of
the Northwest. They come here
and know how to go to work to
make snug and comfortable homes
by their own practical industry and
economy. They say they don't care
for the grasshoppers they had the
Asiatic breed in immense swarms at
home, each hopper two or three
times as large as our little species.
They know how to resist and cir
cumvent them as well as any people
do. Neither do they seem TO care
| if there is no frewood within fifty
miles of their "claims." Logs and
lum Der to build the walls OF their
houses are of no great Importance to
them either. What is their substi-
tute? 1t is what they find on every
acre of land-prairie grass and prai-
rie soil.
| have seen q young Russian
couple, newly arrived on their claim,
working like beavers in the fine aut-
umn weather, to build their humble
home. They had bought COW, q
yoke of oxen, wagon, provisions,
some boards, doors and windows,and
q pillow, at Yankton, on their arrival
from Russia; then hauled the load to
their claim and lived in their wagon
till the house was built. Peter Sc
lects a house site by low swale
where the tall grass shows the rich
black soil below cuts the turf off an
area of twenty feet square with his
plow, and removes it; digs water
hole near by, then Jokes his oxen to
the wagon and goes around on the
higher swells gathering boulders of
convenient size for his walls. Mean
while Katrina is not idle. She
throws pals of water on the bare
turfess spots, cuts armfuls OF long
tough grass to scatter over vt, then
leads her COW by the rope around
and around and across it till their
feet have made mass of thick deep
mud. Fresh quantities of water are
added, and grass enough to give