572 NOBLES COUNTY, MINNESOTA. 



amply pays for tlie clearing and preparation of the soil. For- 

 merly, a short time before seeding in the Spring, I tapped 

 about five hundred maple trees, from which I made from one 

 thousand to one thousand five hundred pounds of sugar, which 

 for several years, commencing with the Spring of 1866, sold at 

 twenty cents per pound. Of late, owing to the price, the 

 injury to the trees from constant tapping, and the failure from 

 some cause of good sugar weather, the sugar business does 

 not pay, and the pride of the farm, a good sugar bush, is fast 

 becoming a thing of the past. 



The foregoing is not an overdrawn sketch, but simply a 

 description of the Winter occupation of a timber farmer as a 

 means of Gfettincr — not rich — but a livinGf. 



J. H. CUNNINGHAM, 



• , HERSEY, NOBLES COUNTY. 



Wind -"break — Stock — Sheep — G-rain — Soil — Planting — 



Buildings. 



In the Spring of 1870, having in view the making of a 

 home and model farm, 1 started from the eastern part of Min- 

 nesota, with a span of horses and a few hundred dollars, and 

 made my way to the frontier of the State, determired to find 

 something to suit me, if possible. In ten days I encamped on 

 the banks of Graham lakes, in Nobles county, a spot that 

 seemed to me more desirable than any thing previously seen. 

 A stay of two days, and much examination of soil and advanta- 

 ges, convinced me that I had found a desirable place to settle 

 on. I therefore secured three hundred and twenty acres of 

 government land, overlooking, but not running to the lake, and 

 extending south to Jack creek (a small stream of clear, running 

 water). There are about two hundred and fifty acres of well- 

 drained plow land, and seventy acres of bottom land, lying 

 along the creek, which was, at that time, covered with a rank 



