Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-01-16
BUYS A HOME IN AUDRAIN.
Mr.. Rogers, Late of Wisconsin, Locates
Here and Writes q Commendatory
Letter to His Old Home.

Mr.. d. L. Rogers, of Wyoming,
Wis, who purchased a farm in Au-
drain last week, is very much pleased
with this part of the country ana
writes as follows to his home paper,
the Weekly Home Neps, of Wyoming,
Wis.,:
MEXICO, Mo-, Dec II, 1s95.-Editor
Home Neaos: / will now try to give you
a description of this section of the
country, as / promised You to do. L
have been quite busy since arrived
here, and have not found time to write
you before. Have been over a great
or portion of this county and am well
pleased with it generally. Audrain
county lies in the northeastern por-
ton of the State about 100 miles from
st. Louis, twenty-five miles from the
State University and fifty miles from
the State capital. So much for loca-
ton. The county has both timbered
and prairie land, and both seem very
productive. The prairie land is gent
ly rolling, and lies very pretty, with
plenty of slope for natural drainage.
The timbered portion, although not
30 smooth as the prairie, is all tillable
| when cleared off las there are no steep
hillsides nor stony lands here except
along Salt River, where good stone
for building purposes can be had.
This section of the country is very
rich in coal, nearly the whole of Au-
drain county being underlaid with a
layer of bitumenous coal, which lies
very near the surface, and in many
places along the streams can be dug
out of the banks in large quantities,
consequently fuel is very cheap. Goal
| can be bought at the mines from 3 to
81 cents a bushel, and allowing %
bushels to the ton you a make your
own estimate as to the cost of a years
fuel.
There are quite a number of saw
mills throughout this county, and
nearly all of the lumber used for
fencing, outbuildings, ETC., is sawed
here at home, and can be bought for
SLIGO per hundred.
The weather here is very pleasant
now. Although there was an inch or
two of snow when l arrived here, it
soon vanished and since then the
weather has been very mild. l think
that this is an excellent place for
stock raising, as it is well adapted to
grass, and the farmers here say that
if the aftermath be left uncut and I'M
pastured through the fall stock a be
wintered on it fully as well as on hay
cut and put up in the ordinary way.
Blue grass is king of grasses here, and
on some of the pastures that were not
closely fed is matted over the ground
several inches thick.
There is always plenty of grain for
stock feeding here, and | am told that
it is the custom of many Illinois cat
tleman to drive their stock over here
to winter them. Corn is making an
average of about twelve barrels per
acre, as the M~issourians express it,
which means sixty bushels-a barrel
being five bushels-and other crops in
proportion.
There is an abundance of fruit here,
every farm having a good orchard at
tached. Peaches and pears + grown
here, but not extensively. Apples
have been selling here at 20 and 25
cents a bushel until lately, and are now
worth from so to so cents.
Mexico, the county seat of Audrain
county, has a population of 1000, with
two railroads, and is a very enterpris-
ing; has an electric light plant,a large
female seminary accommodating two
hundred students, and military acad-
envy for boys.
The people here seem to be, taken
as a whole, a very good class of peo-
pie, open-hearted and hospitable, and
seem to be quite anxious to have peo-
pie from the north settle among them.
The population was made up originally
of people from Kentucky and Vir-
ginia, but there r quite a number of
Iowa and Illinois people here at pres
emit.
have bought some land and expect
to make my future home here.
d. L. ROGERS.