The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1893-04-28
HIGH WATER.
1t Has Always Been the FOrerunner
of BOuntiful Crops in
Dakota.
1t is to be Hoped That This Year Will
Prove no Exception to the
Rule.

GRAND FORKS, n. d., April 2l.-Al
North Dakota is luxuriating in tho
highest water since the memorable
spring of 1882, when the water in the
Red river rose so high that it left it's
banks and inundated the lower bottom
lands for miles. The weather conditions
this year are almost exactly similar to
the spring of 'S2 and old settlers predict
that before the present high water SUBJ
sides it will reach a point quite as high
or higher than IL years ago.
Today the water in the Red river is
quite 40 feet above low water mark and
is still rising slowly. The water is with
in four or five feet of the superstructures
OF the five railroad and wagon bridges.
but as the ice has apparently all passed
down tie river, they will all probably
stand. The shanties on the low ground
have either 1oated away or are nearly
submerged, but the water still lacks five
or six feet of reaching the level of the
main portion of the city and no one ex-
poets it to rise that much higher. This
general condition of wetness throughout
the state is in strong contrast to the dry
years succeeding 1882, when each season
following that memorable year Of high
water and big crops became successfully
dryer until tho cycle of the seasons
began to swing back to the more moist
conditions in 1891. 1t was during this
dry period that our streams shrank in
volume to mere threads and thousands
OF the smaller lakes disappeared and
their beds were placed under cultivation
while the larger ones were much reduced
III volume. Nevertheless there was al
ways enough rainfall to produce large
crops and maintain North Dakota's rep
utation as the granary of the union un-
til 1879 and 1880. when there were more
or less failures and short crops in the
central and western sections of the state,
Tut the great Red river valley still con-
tinued 10 grow those great crops of
wheat which each autumn taxed the
Northern Pacific AMI Great Northern
railways to their utmost to haul to mar
ket. Still SO progressive was the in
creasing dryness year by year. during
this time, and so persistent were the
predictions OF the weather wise that
''our climate had permanently changed
that everybody felt a vast increase of
confidence when the splendid rain of 81
matured a crop for the state of over G1,-
100000 bushels, a record unprecedented in
the annals of grain growing in the world.
The year Of '2 was still wetter and that
vast area Of black earth lying in waves
and rolls like swell of the sea, stretching
for two hundred miles west of the Red
river valley, again harvested a splendid
crop; the lakes commenced to assume
their old time level and North Dakota at
the present moment for the first time
since 1882 has attained it's normal condI-
ton of moisture and now the old-time
dry-weather crank has changed his note,
and in his opinion the climate of North
Dakota is permanently too wet"
The lesson derived is that North Da-
kota has cycles of dry alternating with
wet years. The central part of the state
has the best crops and in dry years the
level Red River valley has the superior
ity in that respect.
On account of the warm, dry autumn
last year the ground into winter was dry
and many farmers finished their fall
blowing in the dust. The present album
dance of moisture, therefore, though it
may delay seeding, can properly bo re-
garded as a benefit, for with the first
warm days the ground will thaw and the
thirsty earth will absorb the water rap
idly and bring about those favorable
conditions of moisture and filth which
conspired under the same conditions to
BRING about the great crop Of 1857.