Year: 1876




Timber and wild Fruit I'm Abundance.


From the Sioux City Journal


n. l.. Witcher has been citizen of
Sioux City for a number of years, and,
among those who know him or have
heard of him, his statements upon any
matter of fact will be received without
question. On the 25th of last April,
without any bluster, he started for the
Black Hills, for, having had experience
self if the reports he had received from
there would do to tie to. July 81 he
left Rapid City, arriving here yester-
day. We give below the result of an
interview had with him by Journal
reporter:


He made the trip from Rapid City to
Fort Pierre with bull train, which he
considers much the better mode of
travelling, as he was able to reach the
river ahead of mule and horse teams
which started at the same time he did.
On the route, which he puts at 140
miles, having driven it in five days, he
found an abundance of wood, water and
grass, and did not see an Indian during
the trip, or in fact anywhere else.
From Pierre he reached Yankton by the
steamer Mead, thence to Sioux City by
the Dakota Southern.


In reply to questions as to the con-
dition of things in the Hills, and the
indications of mineral wealth, and
agricultural resources, he made the
most positive and enthusiastic answers
we have heard, and that they are cor
rect there is no room for doubt. He
says that men who are engaged legiti-
mately in mining are doing the biggest
kind of business in twenty-four cases
out of every twenty-five, and that there
is being taken out by men who are inn
proving their opportunities from $40 to
two and a half pounds of gold day,
while he believes that the average will
reach 500 day to the man. In this
connection he desires it to be under
stood that he confines this average to
those who are honestly and.sensibly at
tending to their business. There are
those there, he says, who are not
making cent, being of that kind who
if they were put down in the New Jeru-
salem would not scrape up dollar in
all eternity, simply because they
wouldn't have snap enough to pry up a
slab from the golden streets, or knock
chunk off the pearly gates. New and
rich discoveries are being made every
day, and those already made are con-
tinually improving. The diggings at
this time he pronounces better than
those of Colorado after they had been
opened two years, while the quartz
deposits are more extensive and better
laden than those of any section he has
ever examined. The water supply, in
stead of failing the miners as has been
predicted, is rather more than is neces-
sary with their present appliances for
using it, for the rainfall will average
greater than that of this section


The Black Hills district, ninety miles
square, he says is covered with mag
nificent growth of pine timber so thick
wherever he has been that it was i'm
possible to drive a team in it without
first making road; and among this
there grows peculiar kind of oak, the
sap of which is very thin, making the
whole tree available for the most exact
ing uses-axles, boat-work, or any
thing requiring tough and durable ma
terial. The grass of the whole region
is most nutritious, stock fattening upon
it in an incredibly short time, and the
supply is unlimited, while wild clover is
a very common and profuse production.
Agricultural pursuits will be profitable,
enterprises of that character being al
ready paying excellently, Sioux City
party there having now under cultiva-
ton garden tract of thirty acres,
which has done and is doing splendidly,
there being neither grasshoppers nor
other pests to interfere. Wild fruit of
all kinds grows luxuriantly, among
which he saw quantities of Strawberries
as large as tame specimens we get here,
plums of choicest varieties, huckleber-
ries in abundance, and several other
sorts.


Merchandise of all kinds is now in
good supply in the Hills, and the prices
are not at all outlandish, being but, lit
tie above those of the States, with freight
added. Almost any thing that man,
woman or child wants can be obtained
there, and trade is carried on according
to the rules which are observed here, or
anywhere in the older communities.