Dewey County advocate. [volume] (Timber Lake, S.D.) 1910-1913, 1913-05-30
SOUTH DAKOTA PRAl-
RIES IN MONTH OF MAY
AS THEY NOW APPEAR TO A FORMER
SOUTH DAKOTAN AFTER SEVERAL
YEARS ABSENCE.

i JLAk0 AD9CNIC.
4 The following is from the pen OF
a former South Dakotan who spent
his boyhood on the prairies but
now lives in Minneapolis:
The South Dakota prairie at
this season of the year, revisited af-
ter long absence, presents a pleas
ing and grateful aspect. The last
sign of winter has long since fed.
The seeding of small grain has been
finished these two weeks, and the
virile seeds. eager to reproduce
their kind, have sent up millions Of
sturdy stalks, so that the fields pre-
sent pleasant expanses Of green
that stretch away till they merge.
with the horizon.
And the horizon of the prairie"
is strongly distant boundary !,
compared with the circumscribed
vision obtained in the wooded
country. When the prairie Isl
reached. some impeachment seems
to be lifted and the eye roams un-:
hindered over sections and town
ships. From an elevation other
counties can be seen with their lit
tie towns and mills and smokes and
grain elevators and freight trains
ambling lazily east or west. mol
such stimulating. panorama is u1-
yelled to the forest dweller. In moi
such generous manner is the curl
tain lifted upon his neighbors adj
ventures.
Upon such portions of tfe3
original ground " slspe escsp( IN
the plow and still remain virgin
the grass is already tl1ickly green.l
1t started up with the first warm
days and now covers many mea-
dow and hillside. The wind, on a
sunny morning. will go rollicking
over these meadows and hillsides,
and they will present surface
moving with verdant waves the
like of which man will remember
to have been the wonder and de-
light of his childhood.
Nor are these prairies by any
means treeless. During the thirty
years that they have been occupied
splendid groves have sprung up on
every farm. The soil was all the
time adapted to the growing of
trees, and as soon as they were
planted, and protected from prairie
fires, they began to flourish. Not
only do groves of the hardy cot
tonwc cd, box elders and willows.
which are the pioneers of the tree
race, flourish abundantly, but plum
and apple trees are now mingling
their blossoms freely with the gen.
eral green. and the air is often
mode delicate with their perfume.
Birds were always fond of the
prairie. but the introduction of
trees has not been displeasing to
them. They come up from the
south in great migrations with the
first spring days and set about
arrangements for the sum-
mer. Most welcome. striking up
on ones waking ears in the early $
morning. is that brilliant call of the
meadow lark. There is one of these
dear. companionable birds upon
fence post or schrub beside every
house in South Dakota at this sea-
son. Their clear, courageous note I
is the earliest remembered sound of
many prairie child. 1t cheers the
at his desk, the plow-
man in the field, the woman at her
household affairs. /
General good fortune seems to !
be the dominant note. The old
days of billiards, grasshoppers and i
famine are passed. South Dakota
receives more rainfall than some of j
the great agricultural states further
east, and as a rule much of this
comes in the growing season when
Continued on page 8.