The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1890-01-31
UNION, will give your readers.my indiyid-

UNION, will give your readers.my indiyid
ual opinion on the subjects.
First, shall we lease our school lands
Am IN favor of selling school lands tina,
VIII sell at a high price. Would give state
board OF education power to decide the
ioWestprlce that any particular section can
De sold at and then sell at auction to the
INCEST bidder, also rent where possible and
pass equitable laws regarding improve
ments placed on school lands by renters.
Many communities are poor and settlers
are compelled to place many improve
ments on lands, are paying heavy taxes to
puiid roads, bridges, public buildings. etc,
and any measure that will relieve the terri
Die strain of excessive taxation, will be
very welcome. After the country is more
densely settled, many public improve
ments completed, land fenced and i'm
proved, we will be better able to pay taxes
than at present and will need less help
from school fund. Reserving all school
land from sale or rent may be of advan-
tage to future inhabitants of the state, yet
1t is but justice to the present generation
VINO are enduring the hardships and priva-
TONS OF developing a new country, that
they should receive a, little help in educat-
ing their children.
Second, what are our surest crops? A
rigid, unvarying rule as to particular
crops or rotation of crops can not be ap-
Piled to the Black Hills tract with its diver
slty of soil, rainfall and privileges of irriga-
ton. On the semi arid prairie lands, it is
an admitted fact that only those ranchers
who make the growing of cattle, horses or
sheep, principal factor of their business
and the growing of crops secondary, have
succeeded in making profit. I regard
;orn as one of the poorest Of the staple
crops tor this section. 1t has to few roots
and they are to near the surface ofground
and natures at time of year that drouths
generally prevail. Then, too, our native
weeds are difficult to repress. A man and
team cannot tend more than one half as
much ground here, as they can in the corn
belt, few hundred miles southeast of US.
Aided as they are with cheap transporta-
ton, we cannot compete with them in
producing corn. pork and grain fed beef
Wniie we would not abandon growing
corn entirely, would plant very limited
areas on each farm.
Crops that have strong roots that pene-
trate the ground a great distance, as peas,
tax, sorghum, buckwheat, pumpkins,
squashes, melons and potatoes, stand the
drouth best. Wheat promises to be the
most profitable of the staple crops, it is
sown early without danger of frost and
receives the benefit of the first rains. and
generally maturing before drouth begins
1t is necessity for food and can gener-
ally be sold for cash. Our experience, with
millet warrantsus in placing it 1st as for
age crop to raise on land not irrigated, and
is of great Importance to those who make
stock raising specially, also produces
large flow of rich milk when fed to mich
eows,-Mine5 cut wilhelm blossom averaged
three tons per acre. Domestic grasses are
a general failure without irrigation. Each
farmer must consider his own market
facilities and raise that which is wanted,
also If he lives at great distance should
raise produce that can be cheaply trans
ported to market. S, D, REED.
Cheyenne river.