, 1880-05-06
Notes of a Trip to akota

tury, and until the old ideas of It's frigid
climate and sterile alkali deserts are
wiped out, and one learns something of
it's vast extent, its apparently Infinite
resources and the marvellous productive
ness OF its soil, its unparalleled rise and
rush forward in population, wealth and
power is simply inexplicable, Six years
ago its vast boundless eXpanse of noun
tain and valley and plain was almost as
much an unknown land as the iungles
Of the Niger or the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza Sioux Indians,
butfaloes and cinnamon bears were sole
monarchs of its mighty wildernesses,
and their savage dominion was only dis
puted by few hardy hunters and
half dozen struggling settlements under
the guns of frontier forts. Now, from
the Red River of the North to the
grand pampos of the Yellowstone it is
dotted all over with fourishing towns
and magnificent farms. Emigration is
pouring in with ceaseless tide from
every quarter Of the globe. You meet
on the streets of Dakotan cities men OF
every nationality, and many of them
representing magnitude OF moneyed
interests that would give them weight
in Wall or Lombard street. Dakotan
mining enterprises are among the most
gigantic on record, and Dakotan grain
and vegetables are becoming not in
conspicuous feature Of the market re-
ports of the world.
THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL
In many portions Of this immense do
main is absolutely beyond conception.
At Fargo L saw abundance of onions
and Irish potatoes that averaged from q
pound to pound and a half q piece in
weight turnips, beets and radishes that
weighed from ten to twelve pounds each,
and a. tobacco stalk twelve feet in
height At H. c. Fuller's, about mile
from the town, | was shown through
four acres oil cabbages, the heads in
which averaged from twenty to twenty
five pounds in weight, and one head
that Mr.. Fuller presented to our party
weighed forty pounds. Froa thirty to
sixty bushels of wheat and fifty to sixty
bushels of oats to the acre is common
yield, and there has never been crop
failure since the Territory was settled.
What wonder that, with such soil and
millions of acres yet to be had at Gov
ernment rates, Dakota is going ahead
with whoop and arush that is without
parallel or precedent
My trip from Fargo west was through
land of FIRE and smoke and blackness.
[ know now
WHERE THE INDIAN SUMMER SMOKE COMES
FROM.
Millions on millions of square miles Of
rank grass and weeds and woods, ablaze
night and day, from the Rocky Noun
tains to the great lakes, and from the
Saskatchewan to the Arkansas, furnish
smoke enough to hang drapery of blue
and lavender haze over our whole cont
nent for weeks at time, and it would
seem that such vast areas Of roaring
furnace fires would be sufficient to ac-
count for the warmer temperature that
always accompanies the Autumnal sea-
son Of atmospheric Grape and dreamy
languor. No one who has never seen
these limitless oceans Of conAagration
can form any conception Of their terrific
grandeur while ahame, or Of the gloomy
desolatedness of the swept region after
the lurid glow is gone The fires this
Fall have been more wide spread and
destructive than ever before in the men,
cries Of a score Of the Oldest inhabitants.
Millions Of tons Of hay, miles upon miles
Of railroad track, trestles, bridges, fences,
whole forests of pine, and in one instan ,e
nearly an entire town, have been swept
away by the resistless food Of fiery de-
vastation. The day before I left Fargo
a young Swede in the neighborhood,
though strong and feet Of foot, was
caught by the red hurricane and burned
to death within 100 yards of large
tract of plowed ground, where, if he had
reached it he would have been safe.
Sometimes, coming westward, our train
on the Northern Pacific Railroad ran for
miles between
TWO BoUNDLEss SEAS OF BILLowY FLAME;
And while was in Bismarck, though
the whole surrounding country had been
burnt over, and there was no fire within
fifty miles, the dense, overhanging cano-
py of dun colored smoke made dim
twilight of MONDAY, with all the ghastly
effects Of a total eclipse Of the SUM-
Corr. of Globe Democrat.