Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1896-07-16
MIR. CaIvln.s Travels

seen might be interesting to the HER
AID readers.
Brave men and women true we're they.
/ Who early came and settled here
| And made the desert. bleak and drear.
/ To blossom as the rose so dear.
This land was once desert drear
OF bowling wind and drifting sand.
But thanks to each brave pioneer
| It's now beauteous FARMLAND.
| Their coy farms and homes we find
Their cities towns and hamlets fair
| Are products all of hands or minds
OF labor, thought and skillful care.
I have never seen such immense
crops as they have in Nebraska.
| There was a great deal of winter wheat
sown last fall and it is the finest /
have seen. They tell me it will yield
| from 25 to As bushels to the acre and
is about all harvested now. July Z.
Spring wheat is not so good on ac-
count of the wet weather. which
caused it to rust very badly. but will
be fair crop. The white Russian
oats are good and will yield from so
to IS bushels to the acre and seem to
be rust proof. Some other varieties
are badly rusted and will not yield 20
bushels to the acre. Farmers say
they do not know what they are going
to do with their new crop. as their
granaries are full of the old oats,
which they have been holding for
higher prices. In Hastings. mixed
oats are but 8 cents and clear oats 10
cents per bushel. | asked the BUYER
at the elevator what he thought the
new crop would be worth and he said.
81 would not engage them for 5
cents.' The corr varies in size. The
wet weather kept them from planting
on the low and flat lands until the up
land was ready to plow. But it is all
doing well and will be a big crop if
| there are no hot winds to come and
cook it, Good, number one shelled
corn is only worth 10 cents in Hast
ings, so you see when farmer comes
to town to sell his grain and take a
drink of whiskey, it costs him the
price of bushel of corn and peck of
oats. as whiskey is selling at Is cents
drink. Nine-tenths of the farmers
seem to be in debt and it is no won
der. Droughts, hot winds, high prices
for everything you buy and low prices
for everything you sell. Three-fourths
of their machinery are never under
cover and every farmer buys all the
new improvements going. In one
day while at York, one firm sold As
binders and another, 81. Would not
such sales tickle Knapp and Hyde?
Alafalfa does splendidlv here and
when the season is good, fine crops
are harvested. They are now harvest
ing their second crop. A good many
sow sugar-cane for feed and when
cured make six tons to the acre.
Raising sugar-cane for molasses
around Hastings is quite an industry.
One man who owns the factory has in
600 acres of his own. The same fact
DRY works up cane for other parties on
shares. The sugar-beet seems to do
well and have seen a great many
fields of from 5 to 40 acres. They
say there is no trouble to get II per
cent. sugar. But what surprises me
most was to see thousands of bushels
of corn shoveled into openings without
even floor or cover over them. /
was talking to one man yesterday who
had about 5000 bushels in this way |
asked him if he was not afraid of it
spelling this wet weather and he said
there was about one-third OF it dam
aged, and if he had made cribs with
cover, it would have cost him half
what the corn was worth. So you
see by his figuring he was ahead. This
year this same man has in 800 acres.
A great deal of the timber planted
on the timber claims is dead on ac-
count of the hot winds and drouth.
The Fourth of July we celebrated
at Junletta, town about the size of
Lancaster; had splendid time with
some of the old coffee-coolers In
going there we crossed the old Cali
fornia trail, the place where q men
on their way home from California
were surrounded by Indians and all
murdered except one man who es-
capped. The place Of the massacre
was in a little draw near small
creek. When they we're fighting some
of the.party buried their money which
amounted to s16O 600 in gold. The