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that do well in Jackson, are the Bellflower, Jannetting, Spitzenburg, Tomp- 
kins county, Pound-sweet, Black Detroit, Fall Rambo, and Russet. 
Mr. Suel Foster, a pomologist, of Muscatine, writes that nearly all the fruits 
of the latitude, except the peach, succeed well. Apples yield as much as in 
any country, and the fruit is large, fair and highly colored. He thinks pasturing 
the orchards with hogs will destroy many of the insects infesting the trees, 
especially the codling moth. Of grapes he prefers the Concord, for profit, as it 
will yield seven to eight tons of very perfect fruit to the acre, he having 
gathered seven tons to the acre the past year, worth in the market from 7 to 
10 cents per pound. 
Our Des Moines reporter writes as follows : 
When I first came here it was voted, unanimously, that this was no fruit country. 
Itinerants from the east traversed the country and took orders for trees, but with decided 
loss to the purchasers. After local nurseries were started a decided change was wrought in 
the minds of the people, and now this county has become famous for fruit growing, and 
many thousands of dollars are annually realized from the enterprise. As to profits: one of 
my neighbors has an orchard of about ten acres, and last year he sold from one acre 
(probably the last) $150 worth of apples. 
NEBRASKA. 
1. Our returns from Nebraska are chiefly from counties bordering upon or 
adjacent to the Missouri river, or upon the Kansas border, with a few of the 
interior counties, and basing an estimate upon the figures from these localities, 
the settled portions of the State show an increase in the value of farm lands of 
from 150 to 175 per cent. since 1860. Dodge county reports an advance of 
400 per cent.; Burt and Gage, 200 per cent. ; Dixon, Dakota, Otoe, 100 per 
cent.; Cass, Richardson, Pawnee, 50 per cent.; Merrick, 33 percent. Ina num- 
ber of counties the settlements have been made since 1860,when the farms were 
bought at $1 25 per acre, or entered under the homestead laws. Such is the 
case with Jefferson, where there are now farms held as high as $15 peracre. In 
Hall county, in the interior, farms of 160 acres which could be purchased in 
1860 for from $300 to $400, now command from $1,500 to $4,000, according to 
improvements and distance from railroad stations. 
2. The value of wild or unimproved lands ranges from the government min- 
imum price of $1 25 up to $10 per acre. In Dixon, choice locations on prairie, $3 
per acre, very fertile, well watered, capabilities good; Dakota, $3 to $7 per 
acre; Burt, $5 to $6 per acre, excellent farming land; Dodge, $4 per acre ; 
Cass, $3 to $10 per acre; for lands lying 5 to 15 miles from the Missouri river, 
gently rolling, well watered, and unsurpassed in fertility ; but little government 
land in the county ; Otoe, $5 per acre, on the average, mostly prairie, except 
along the streams, gently undulating, with no abrupt bluffs or hills, except when 
it takes its first rise from the Missouri river, and with this exception is all capa- 
ble of cultivation; Richardson, $4 per acre, deep, rich, sandy loam; Pawnee, 
$2 to $10 per acre, soil black muck or loam, with clay sub-soil, very rich, pro- 
ducing wheat, corn, and oats; Gage, $2 per acre, chiefly prairie, timber lands 
generally being taken up by settlers; Jones, $2 to $5, mostly prairie, good tim- 
ber as high as $5 per acre; Merrick, $3 per acre, level prairie, quality good, will 
produce all kinds of grain and roots ; Buffalo, $1 50 per acre; Hall, $2 50 per 
acre, nearly all level prairie, rather sandy but rich, and produces well all the 
crops suited to the latitude. There are millions of acres of the best prairie 
lands in the State to be purchased at government prices, or subject to entry 
under the provisions of the homestead acts, but a small proportion of the State 
having been taken up by settlers or speculators. In 1860 there were over 
48,000,000 acres of wild or waste areas in Nebraska, against less than 700,000 
acres included in farms. 
Sorghum has been successfully grown in some sections of the State. 
3. The great resources of Nebraska are to be found in her deep rich soil and 
