The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1879-10-17
An ulinolsIan in Southern Kansas.


An IllinOlsian in Southern Kansas.
page 574l, I was about to write of
the watermeIons now, having assisted
at from five,to ten day for four weeks,
can speak with an air of experience.
Melons planted in the sod grow here to
perfection, ripen evenly, and have not,
rs in illinois, any reputation of being
agueish. There arc all kinds-great
striped fellows (by estimate weighing
fifty pounds ,)golden cored black Span
ish, and cleaving3 orange varieties.
There are no fence corners here to loaf
together at noon or a moonlight even
ing, One division goes to the cellar
for what were left last night, couple
more to the patel, and fill the big trough
at the well with dozen more to cool.
Then, in fresh braeze, all get out their
jack-knives and whittle-not Yankee
shingless bBt Kansas fashion, whole
quarter sections Of the richest fruit ever
grown. The rinds are cooked up into
variety of sauces and pickles, in default
of other fruits; the pet antelope and
pointer come in for share, while old
moOlcy, eIdhcu Out poI tuC Dluc-JOlut,
and dreaming of her migration and
travel from Illinois, takes in a half
bushel of scraps as regular ration.
We see antelopes. nearly every day a
half mile of, but they are too shy, ex-
cept for professional hunters. The
young are common pets; like a fawn,
they will follow q person home from
the prairie, and become as familiar and
naf fl.f, mi
chickens arc plentiful, and snipe in
thousands, with their ribs half an inch
deep in fat. '
This country was few years ago
covered with buffalo grass alone, lit
tie soft grass grass only growing two to
four inches high, bnt bearing close crop
ping and dronth, and forming a close,
even sod; all stock cat this rather than
any other. Later the wire grass came
in tufts and punches some two feet high
but hard and unpalatable. Now the
blue-joint is gaining ground, the most
valuable of all three; it makes good
pasture and hay. on uplands the seed
stalks grow four feet high, on bottoms,
ten. Last years growth where unburn-
ed is stnbble of two to three feet of
wire anu blue joint mixed; this year
has been dryer, and it is only high
enough to cut in the hollows. That
vegetation is growing ranker every
year, is easily seen. l am astonished
at the weeds, which, as natural pro-
duct, show fertile soil. Turn up a
spadeful of earth, and big sunfower
will grow there. The corn fields, where
the breaking has been realowed, are
filled with euphOrbia, rag and tumbling
weeds, feather top grass waist high, and
acres of breaking are carpeted with
parslance and horseshoe. Many wheat
fields cut in May with heading ma
chine are forest of sunfowers whose
stems require an axe to cut them, all
should have been plowed long ago, and
those left now will scarcely be cleared
except by burning next winter.
A number of times ] started for a
hunt just before sunset, expecting q
good time in the twilight; would get a
fair start, down dropped the sun, and
then it was like snuffiDg ont candle
dark at once. So in the morning the
sun comes up and it is day without any
preliminaries. From Mid Lothian Cen
tire no native trees are in sight-flat
prairie, and nothing to make it differ
ent from an ocean view. Occasionally
the trees in o creek bottom eight miles
away rise in plain sight, an effect of the
mirages common here !; sometimes An.
thony, the country seat, is perfectly Wis.
ible, dozen miles off in the ordinary
atmosphere one sees nothing of it.
l have no very reliable figures as to
the height of these tracts but il must
be some 1880 feet, enough to make the
nights always cool and bracing, the
breezes keep the air moving and all
misasma and fever germs pass along, al
least not one of our settlement has been
attacked yet. The good wells of soft
water have much to do with that. No
running streams in half dozen miles,
except beneath the surface; this will be
fipe country for windmills when the
pasture hedges are grown and stock
must have a supply. Fuel is long way
on, most of it brought from the friDges
along the creeks in the Indian Terrific
ry, a trip taking two or three days; but
little is used, corncobs, sunfiowers and
short winters make great helps in econ
omizing until trees can be grown and
coal explored. Tree planting will be
business for winters, the cotton woods
spring up if fires are checked and grow
fast from planting. ! A patch of Usage
plants from Illinois seeds are in a
stones throw, at least $4,000, planted
as an experiment, and are extra strong
and vigorous. A neighb6r, Mr.. Thco.
Marsh, came out last spring on an ex-
ploring trip bringing a hundred each
of q variety of Seeding trees
Turning a single iufrow in the prai.
rie, he set these in the bottom, and cut
the sod and laid it across between them
topartially shade andprotect them from
the winds. Returning this summer we
yesterday examined them. OF arboi
Vita, at least three-fourths were in good
condition; balsam fir, all dead; catal
pa, all living other sorts have beer
partially destroyed, but make fair
show. Had they been planted in we'll
rotted sod the growth wonld have been
much better. This is the natural eli
mate for peaches, and, I should think
for plums. 1t is quite likely that large
plantations of peaches will pay for q
quick growth of fuel. Black walnut
and soft maple stand in high favor as
probable success.
Much of the crop growing Is, O
course, experimental, and will be fol-
y some years; but all Indications are thai
everything will improve as trees anc
cultivation modify the seasons. Soil II
sandy and mellow "a mineral s0il-no
black with vegetable matter as In oul
eastern prairies, nor SO hard and flinty
as the pebly plains of Colorado, bu
giving strength to the straw and tex
ture TO corn that makes it firm against
storms. Probably crops of the millcl
type will be best of all at present.
turned in and helped little in fifteen