Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-06-15

were immense corn cribs hlled with corn
on the ear which will first be shelled and
then sent to eastern markets.
There we're in all this stretch Of country
substantially no fences to be seen. for
Nebraska has a herd law which does away
with the necessity of fencing, and thus
relieves the farmer of very heavy ex-
pense, which otherwise he would be forced
bear when first commencing to till his land
"a time when he could i'll afford it. The
great lack of the country so far as could
be seen from the cars is timber. They
have plenty of land, water and air, but
wood. except in very limited quantity and
Of usually poor quality, there is none.
There was an occasionally pretty house
within its cluster of willows and cotton
woods, but as a rule the houses were still
as first built, small, cheap and unattractive.
some framed and some of logs. some shin
gled and some thatched. Orchards of
plum. apple, peach and cherry are fire.
quently seen. though but few have yet
become large enough to bear, for it must
be borne in mind that the "ancient mari
ner " of this country cannot number more
than ten years as the limit of bis residence
while by far the greater portion of these
houses have been reared within the last
five years. And emigration never came
into Nebraska since its existence as a state
as it has this spring. This company has
sold as much land in the past four months
as in all the ten years before.
There seemed to be no land between
Lincoln and the Missouri bluffs that was
not tillable and valuable. No waste land
from sloughs, for the small streams take
the place of these and thus furnish nat
ural drainage, for while the streams are
dark and rich With the soil through which
they run, still the current is always plainly
discernible and they are in no sense slug
gish. But what high banks each little
stream has made by cutting down into the
soft soil. Ten to twenty feet right down
you have to look to find at the bottom a
small brook which in Vermont would
content itself with grass for its banks and
turf for its bed. Long before we reached
the Missouri I'VE were warned that we
were approaching it by the damaged
condition of prairie and Of field through
the high water of but short time
previous, square miles of land COW
cred with sand from the river bed so deep
that the grass was completely hidden from
view. On this was strewn logs, boards,
old doors, corn stalks, barrels and all the
different parts of the different kind of
wrecks which this river had wrought dur
ing the high water period of but short
time previous. But the river is reached at
last, though we run with caution and at
a snail's pace, for we are on new road
bed and above US at our right is new
cut out, the banks of which are soft and
crumbling, and occasionally we stop to
shovel off the dirt from the track or roll
off the rocks which have rolled on since
the trackman went past. On the left ua.der
the Missouri river and quite out in the
centre of its present channel is the old
road bed as it was the first of last April,
of the Burlington and Missouri river in
Nebraska" which is here written the
" Burlington and Missouri River IN the
River" p.