Norwich bulletin., 1921-09-22
PASTOR MCINTYRE WRITES
 OF SOUTH DAKOTA TRIP

Rev. W. s. McIntire, a former pastor at the Methodist churches in WiIlmantie and Rockville and a field agent for the Connecticut Temperance Union has writ ten the Bulletin an interesting letter | from South Dakota where he and his 1 family are enjoying a vacatiin.
 He gives description of a trip which l he calls One Thousand Miles by Auto l Through South Dakota, writing as fol- | lows
 For the first time in forty six years l am free from official responsibility I We are spending the summer with our daughter. Mrs. H. J. Root in the Meth odist parsonage in Wessington Springs. South Dakota. This is state of vast area and abounds with wealth of soil, mines and good folks. One who has never visited the state can have no con- ception Of its possibilities and achieve ments. It is three hundred and eighty miles long, as far as it is from New York City to Lewiston, Maine, two hun dred and forty five miles wide, as far as it is from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts. Il includes as much ter ritory as Maine, New Hampshire, Yer mont, Connecticut and New Jersey with 1 thirteen thousand square miles to spare | Much of it's soil is deep and fertile. Crops are grown year after year without
 
 Souri River the state is covered with glacial ice. oyer which there is a deep cover of vegetable mould. It is the ac- cumulation of the centuries. On the west side Of the river for forty miles 1 back the soil is g tenacious clay pro 1 duced from mountSin erosion, exceed ngly rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, covered with black sandy loam It has been proven time and again that the soil of the state is as rich in the ele- menc5 that are essential to large crop production as any in the world. Lands in the older eastern part of the state are better improved and more sdvant- tageously situated with reference to rail roads and markets. The price of these lands range from $40 to S150 per acre Land in the western part qf the state is equally fertile and it is expected to be as productive when improved. The price Iranges from $10 to $40 per acre. The trough land is adapted to grazing and can be bought from 8 to $12 per acre.
 am not a real estate owner nor the
 agent of any promoter, so have no land
 to sell. The states owns about 5000, 900
 acres, a part of which is sold each year
 at auction to the highest bidder. 4 ten iper cent payment is required and the balance spread over a period of thirty ! . Ia wonderful country. The eastern sec tion is fiat prairy land. I can stand on 'i the hillside near the city and look across the country miles east and north. West of the city the land Is more broken. In the extreme western part is the famous , Black Hills which has been described as the richest one hundred miles square on earth. It Is the home of the Home stake gold mine. In 1918 this section produced gold to the value of ss,000, 900
 In addition to gold there are silver, lead
 copper iron, tin. tungsten and mica , mines.
 The principal crops of the state art corn. with crop of S1,o00.G .G00 bushels
 oats 53,000,o80 bushels wheat, 3000o 900 bushels. The farms range from 16( < to $40 acres and some even larger. have I passed by cornfelds where the row! were more than mile in length. Ont Q man planted 430 acres of corn. He blow : ed the ground, planted the seed anc ;; plowed it, the New England farmer .woult D !call it cultivated, alone with a team 0 9 F horses. I have seen but two men il | the field with long handled hoe, ant d that was in the field of a penal institu
 tion. It may be they were there fo
 punishment. The fieiJ work is don
 with horses. I have seen but two tract , DTS at work in the fields The whea
 is sold to the elevator men, the presen T. price is s1.10 per bushel. The corn q fed to cattle and hogs and shipped t i- market alive. Oats are selling for twelv " cents per bushel Alfalfa is raised i | large quantities. After it Is once SOW T. it will bear from two to four crops pc It year. ana all the labor required is t '''i harvest it 4 held of alfalfa in bioor 'I is one of the most fragrant and beautt .0 ful ccenes I have ever seen
 The land is divided into sections ( Ia $40 acres each by roads running at rigf - angles one mile apart. The cities an
 towns seem small to enc from the Eas ,+ The largest cky is Sioux Falls with 1r population of 25,167, Aberdeen has 14 1 537, Mitchmen SAYS, Madison 4,14 m Brookings 3,924 and Pierre, the capitt 3.209 While Plymouth is ceiebratin
 it's 3Oth anniversary we must reunembe
 that fifty years ago there were but a fe people in this state. It must have tim to grow. The villages are small. wit Id very little manufacturing. The house ie are one family dwellings and many St the families are retired farmers rentin d their land to tehants or cultivating thel n with hired help. Portable houses al Ie hauled from the village or city in u
 spring and returned in the fall, for tt IT. workers to live m. Bus 'nesS IS trdH le acted by the use of checks It seen le as though every family had checkir r. account at some bank We find on a the counters of the stores blank checl r. for the use of the customers. have sec ) man write his check to pay for h
 meal at restaurant and woman to ps
 for a quart of cream. The banl
 do a great business, paying from n 6 per cent on deposits and charging = per cent on loans. They take all kin 1n of security, land. cattle, hogs and croI 1y. 1y I have travefed more than thousal a. miles by auto through this great stat uy visited Dakota Wesleyan Universit e one of its several colleges the Methodi lss hospital at Mitchell. one of its gre oa lakes an Indian reservation it's B' "' Lands and it's mountains.
 ve I was the guest of MT. w. T. Geor .tb and Fred Grace on fishing trip
 Lake Ponsett, the largest body Of wat
 in the state. It involved a ride of 3
 miles by auto and an absence of thr
 days from home. There were eight
 the party and we spent six hours in ifs an ing and caught fifteen hundred per ,D with hook and line. There were T A one half a minute when there were T k one or more fish in the air or on 0 ek hooks.
 Ids We were the guests of Hon. B. ar- Theurer, the mayor of the city, on
 automobile s~ip to the Crow Creek Indi ad reservation, sixty miles west of the cd
 Fort Thompson ss the headQSalters q