The Green Forest tribune., 1910-07-01
HOW THIS COUNTRY LOOKS.
Kansas Lady Writes Her Home Paper
 About Trip Down Here.

Kansas Lady Writes Her Home Paper
 About Trip Down Here.
 The following extracts from a letter from Mrs. Isis L. Harrington publish ed in the Cove County (Kans.) Republi- can Gazette, gives Kansas woman S impression of this part of Arkansas:
 "From Eureka Springs on to Green Forest the country is covered with mountains. They call them the Ozarks but they were only big, round knolls covered with timber and abounding in pretty creeks, real creeks with run ming water in them (and fish tool About six miles from Eureka we pass ed the ''Elk Farm" where we saw a herd of elk quietly cropping the grass in their pasture and never even looking toward the train. Near there we went through our first tunnel. Now, I've heard that in a tunnel is the place for the couples on their wedding trips (and others) to do their delayed "spooning" and for the men to take a drink. As we had no work of that nature we all stuck our heads out into the inky black ness and drew them in again instantly as we were almost suffocated with smoke and blackened by soot and cin- ders. We went through one more tunnel but we had learned to keep the windows down and do like the rest of the passengers.
 "We reached Green Forest for dinner and such fine one! Everything to eat and all kinds of home made preserves, canned fruit, etc., besides. After din ner the liveryman drove up to the door with double seated buggy and we got in and started on a 10-mile drive.
 "The roads are good though in some places there were many smooth, oval shaped rocks. The horses didn't seem to mind them tho bare-footed horses there). Some fields looked like there had been light snow and it still cover- ed some spots. This I learned was rock patches. One field I saw had been planted to corn. Now, the small rocks lay upon the ground 8 inches deep and l couldn't see a grain of soil but saw many big cornstalks from last years crop.
 When we got to Oak Grove I had the driver stop at very pretty place to inquire the way to MT. Lincoln's, who should come to the door but my sister Iris! She saw us out in the road, and gave the alarm to papa and mamma. They came out so surprised and shock ed that they didn't get over it all day. The place they live seems to be an elevated plateau about half the height of the mountains. This plateau is about 6 by 8 miles and is surrounded by low mountains. It is level and smooth. In the surrounding hills there are many rocks all over the ground but on this plateau, which is called the Hale Barrens" there is not much. Many beautiful homes are there, and in the hills too. Clover does finely. Grows wild in the woods and I saw many nice tame pastures of clover, timothy, and orchard grass. Papas orchard of 40 acres was the first large orchard 1 ever saw Almost every kind of fruit 1 had ever heard of, and more kinds I had never heard of.
 "And the timber! l saw enough good logs burned up in the two weeks I was there to cook the food for all the people in Cove county all summer. We took a ramble one day and I saw walnut, hickory, butternut, a dozen kinds of oak, maple hard and soft, elm, sycamore, pine, cedar, wild cherry, persimmons, paw paw, and others in- cluding wild grape vine inches in diameter.
 '"The water is immense, soft and clear. The soil is a clay-some yellow and some red and seems to be very rich My brother Tom pulled me bunch of his rye that measured feet inches. There seems to be quite lot of wheat raised there too and when 1 was there, about April 21, it was IS inches high. All kinds of vegetables do well, and of all the well filled cellars, you'll find them in Arkansas. My sister-in-law tells me the country is just like Iowa in many ways and so it seems to me.
 ''There are many vegetable canneries there. At every farm one may see a pile of tomato crates (about like egg cases) in which the farmers haul their tomatoes to the canning factory,
 "There are some flour mills near my fathers place and saw people going to mill but no one going horseback with sack of rocks on one side to balance the sack of wheat on the other, though that is the way learned to believe they did. The people are just like everybody else. They are very sociable and re- mind me of the people in the west many years ago. It's great country for parties and churches too. Every one raises nearly everything he needs and so is quite independent. As a whole the place reminds me of the country Irving describes in his Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Though 1 didn't hear any ghost stories, saw some