356 NEMAHA COUNTY, KANSAS. 



he never saw so dry a year before. They were Pottawattomies, 

 returning from a buffalo hunt, laden with dried meats. 



IMPROVEMENT. 



The next year was a good one, and I laid out my farm, like the 

 plat, and commenced planting trees. Every farm house should 

 stand three hundred feet or more from the public road. Mine 

 is thirty rods, and every person making a home should plant 

 groves and orchards around his dwelling. Strangers often call 

 at my place and almost invariably say to me "you have a 

 beautiful home." This affords some of the pleasure we need 

 to cheer us on in the pathway of life, for it is true that, Omne 

 tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. My groves and park 

 contain seven thousand trees, and include the following varie- 

 ties: Red elm, white elm, ash, yellow cottonwood, white 

 Cottonwood, hackberry, tamarack, Lombardy poplar, white 

 maple, sugar maple, coffee nut, black walnut, red oak, rock 

 oak, box elder, honey locust, red locust, wild cherry, thorn 

 apple, silver aspen, magnolia, red-bud, buckeye, ailanthus, 

 catalpa, wahoo tulip, willow, sycamore, Osage orange, Norway 

 pine, Norway spruce, Austrian pine and red cedar. My park 

 contains some fine roses and flowering shrubs ; the majority of 

 the trees are from fifteen to thirty feet high. My orchard con- 

 tains five hundred apple trees, mostly bearing ; also one hundred 

 peach trees, seventy-five cherry trees, a few pear and plum 

 trees. My home can be seen from some directions the 

 distance of twenty-five miles. The altitude of this farm, and 

 a.lso the general altitude of this county is two thousand five 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea. The chemical analysis 

 of the soil in its properties as plant food will compare favorably 

 with any other portion of our country, and is as follows : In 

 one hundred parts of average soil taken from upland and valley, 

 lime eight parts ; magnesia two ; oxide of iron two ; silica 

 fifty-two; potassa two ; alumina ten; phosphoric acid three; 

 organic matter sixteen ; soda, sulphuric acid and nitric acid 

 five. Some author has told us that order was the first law of 

 heaven, and we see with what perfect order nature works 



