Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1907-09-03

and the empty wagon box and drop
ping his hands, quietly remarked, boy
sorry to disappoint you, but I can't d.
justice to the subject.
| The snow of 1867, FIVE feet on th'
level and often murcury at 40 below
and would have been colder had the
thermometer been longer; freezing tx
Iueath was easy but getting over it wa.
hard, might say hardly worth while
/ 1858 was rainy season and 1859 {
Iyear without summer, a killing frost
each month; starving was as easy ir
1859 as freezing was in 1857, but al
| this was trifle to the sturdy pioneer
of northeastern Iowa, who challenged
success by being worthy Of it, and grew
wheat at 33 cents bushel to team to
/ McGregor, rs miles to market and ex-
change for the few real necessities Of
life. My neighbor Carver, before
starting to McGregor would go to the
door with bowl Of water, throw it up
in the air and if it came down water he
would go, if it came down ice he would
stay at home.
Later, with better seasons and good
crops we lived till the war of 1861 and
its high prices and consequently good
times, then reaction and the Dakota
fever took off many of us.
The winter of 1867 was unusually
severe, wind and snow made travel diff
fcult, there was no friendship in meet
| ing teams and little safety in getting
out of the beaten path. Ny friend Gar
land tried that with the famous buck
skin team near Conoyer by the red
house, in front of which by the road
was circular hole we called the potash
kettle. At the approach of severe wealth
er the Norwegian family had thrown
poles over the hole in the ground, ar
ranged their furniture under cover and
moved the family from the house to
kettle. A heavy fall of snow covered
the roof and Garland losing the road,
drove the horses onto the the snow
root, the horses disappeared as sudden
enly as the family appeared getting
out from under the horses feet, the fall
unhitched the team leaving his sleigh
out, and Garland. / hada somewhat
similar experience in Fillmore county,
MINI. but this is ancient history to be
succeeded by an industrial era of great
prosperity. Teaming to McGregor rs
miles to market was succeeded by the
advent of the c. M. & st. Paul Ry.,
with nearer station for a market. From
1862 to 1872, great age Of prosperity.
Then the wheat began to fail and our
courage also. The next ten years were
experimental from grain to stock grow
ing and many changes and failures were
made. Many of our peoEE went to the
great West and Northwest against adj
vice and protests. A very few cripples
including myself and family went South
to Jennings, La, station on the
Southern Pacific without an agent and
but dozen people, nothing but name
surrounded by the largest prairie in nthe
state. l made it my business to invite
Northern farmers to prairie lands for
homesteads. Our first business fruit,
with poor results, L. D. Ladd who
owned the priz fruit farm in Cali
fornia, sold out to L. Burbanks, of ma
tional note, came to Jennings at this
time and made a fruit orchard, pro-
|nouncing the climate of southwestern
Louisiana better for fruit than Cali
fornia.
Some Acadian was raising rice,
harvesting with sickelrand threshing
with a club; we looked on, caught an
idea to harvest like wheat; Maurice
Bryn, of Delaware County, Iowa, had
a Deering twine binder, he was among
the first settlers from Iowa, and Frank
D. Noble, a brother Of H. ID. of Cresco,
prepared the machine and cut 60 acres,
which was threshed the day after cut
ting yielding 20 sacks, so bushels an
acre and sold at $500 a sack, amount
ing to $100. 90 per acre ata cost of $40
an acre. on such land at 12a cents to
$1.25 for homesteads.
| A REVOLUTION.
The harvesting, threshing and pre-
pairing for market Of a crop as old as
Adam and that had fed the world in all
ages was revolutionized ina day, and
the output was increased from $50, ,00C
a year to $40, 900, 900 a year in 20 years,
while Jennings has enjoyed growth
of from a community of 100 people to
a thriving city Of 5000 inhabitants.
The county assessment advanced from