The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1897-09-09
A TRIP ON THE BURLINGTON.

lieving such to be the case, I submit a
brief outline of my travels hurriedly
gathered and put together. Leaving
st. Paul over the Omaha railroad at
l:3O p. m. We arrived at Sioux City,
Iowa Monday morning at $50. Sioux
City is now recovering from the hard
times and is taking on a very lively
appearance. After a couple of hours
delay here we started for Norfolk,
Neb., at which place we arrived at
IL a. m.
Norfolk is a pleasant and lively city
of some 5000 inhabitants, situate at the
junction of the Omaha with the FIRE.
mont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley
railroad, in the famous Elkhorn val
ley in Madison county, Neb. The
Elkhorn valley is one of the most, If
not the most fertile valley in the great
state of Nebraska, and the crops are
this year as they are every year in
this valley, excellent. The principal
crops are corn, wheat oats, etc.a
AT Norfolk is located the Oxnard
beet sugar factory, which for three or
four months in the year employs some
two hundred men at wages ranging
from $45 to $75 per month. The sugar
beet is successfully cultivated for
more than seventy-6ve miles up and
down the valley on either side of Nor
folk, extending back from the Elkhorn
river ten to twenty-five miles, and
much of the crop is shipped to the
factory at Norfolk by rail. Inquiry
as to the success of raising sugar
beets shows that the industry is grow
ing and farmers and business men
here would part with almost any other
industry rather than the sugar factory
One farmer last >season on 80 acres of
land cleared $4,000 over and above all
expenses for seed and labor in Guilt
waiting and marketing the beets, and
this is only one of many similar in
stances.
Beet raising requires constant care
and vigilance to cultivate and keep
the soil free from weeds, the labor is
performed mostly by women and chill
dren and the increased labor and the
number of hands employed in the in
dustry and the wages paid, the distri-
button of money, and the consequent
increase inInercantile and other trades
amply compensates the country for
the expenditure.
Beets are brought to the factory,
there tested as to their saccharine
qualities, as milk is tested for cream
at the creamereis and are paid for &C
cording to the quality and guam
tity of sugar. Was told that the SUI
gar qualities of the beet varies each
year, as the season is favorable or
unfavorable, same as the yield of
other crops vary with the seasons.
The general impression here is that
Minneso ta soil and climate is we'll
adapted to beat raising.
Norfolk has excellent brick school
buildings, fine brick business blocks
has an insane asylum located there
and is a division town on the F. E.
& M. V. railroad.
Leaving Norfolk at 1870 in the even
ing we proceeded further up the Elk
horn Valley. Soon the soil becomes
sandy and the country less thickly
settled, but here and there a very good
town. We took breakfast at Buffalo
Gap, S. D., soon passed Rapid City
and other towns in the foot hills, and
arrived at Deadwood at IL o'clock a.
m. Deadwood. situate in the White
wood Canyon in the Northern Hills is
a bustling, busy city of some 5000 peo-
pie, the terminus of two great lines of
railroad, the Northwestern and Bur-
lington systems. Its location is pic
turesque, over 1900 feet above the sea
level, hemmed in by lofty hills. The
principal industry here is mining with
some manufacturing.
~. .
Here we find excellent hotels, brick
school buildings, churches and other
indications of a high civilization, a
busy people, and general contentment
and an air of prosperity. There are
several shelters and reduction works
located within the city limits and
many others. outside and tributary to
the city.
Leaving Deadwood, on the Burling-
ton railroad we went through the
heart of the wonderful Black Hills for
more than one hundred miles to Edge
mont. The scenery along this line is
grand and not unlike that of Northern
Maine. The railroad runs through
canyons, gulches, around mountains,
by swift running streams and beauti-
full springs, and one never tires of the
varied and beautiful panorama. There
are four tunnels on. the line from
Deadwood to Edgemont, and these
were utilized by the younger passen-
gers in the usual manner and an ordi-
nary observer could easily detect
many errors in Judgment, on the part
of the young people, as to the length