PAPERS ON GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 215 



undoubtedly found an active market for it. By the sec- 

 ond or third year, wheat was planted and it did well. It 

 was ground into flour at small waterpower grist mills 

 which shortly after settlement developed at many points 

 in the valleys. In case a local mill was not available, 

 the wheat had to be hauled many miles to a mill, but this 

 involved much time and labor, and often one-third or 

 more of the flour was taken for grinding. A team of 

 horses or oxen, a few chickens, a hog or two, and a cow 

 represented the stock on an average farm. Some 

 attempts were made to raise sheep, but for a number of 

 years so many of them were killed by wolves that they 

 did not prove profitable. 5 



In addition to the work connected with growing a 

 crop, it must be remembered that the settlers had to 

 obtain fuel for the long, cold winter ; cut wild hay on the 

 prairies or the valley meadows for the stock ; build homes, 

 barns, fences, and churches; open roads, and bring sup- 

 plies from market, so that, altogether, the first years of 

 settlement in southeastern Minnesota were character- 

 ized by strenuous toil and considerable hardship, and 

 were fraught with anxiety as to whether or not prosper- 

 ity eventually would reward their efforts. In view of 

 these conditions, it is easy to understand that, when it 

 was demonstrated that large crops of wheat could be 

 produced from the virgin soils and that wheat sold for 

 cash, wheat growing came to be almost the sole economic 

 interest of the farmers. 



Although by 1859 it was evident that wheat farming 

 had become the principal money crop in the area, it was 

 not until the decade from 1870 to 1880 that bonanza wheat 

 farming reached its maximum development (Fig. 1). This 

 was due to the fact that a number of problems affecting 

 the industry had to be solved before maximum acreage 

 and production were attained. Of these the discovery 

 that, spring wheat was better adapted to local conditions 

 than winter wheat, the introduction of milling processes 

 suited to hard wheat, the improvement of transportation 

 on the river, the establishment of warehouses and eleva- 



* History of Winona County (Chicago, 1S83), p. 263. 



