574 NOBLES COUNTY, MINNESOTA. 



pasture, that affords good water the entire year for them. The 

 lambs come about May tenth. The grass is then large enough 

 to afford good pasturage, so that the ewes have plenty of milk, 

 and will not disown their lambs, as they are apt to do earlier 

 in the season. This year my expenses for shearing, hay, inter- 

 est and taxes are sixty cents per head. The income from the 

 wool, mutton and increase, is two dollars and twenty-five cents 

 per head. The care I give them I can hardly estimate, as they 

 usually come into the yard at night without being looked after, 

 in Summer or in Winter. 



GRAIN. 



While I have raised stock of various kinds successfully, 

 I have also tried to raise wheat, but have met with poor 

 success. For seven years the grasshoppers came, either in the 

 Spring or just before the harvest, and destroyed most of my 

 crops. Last year I expected a good crop, but the heavy rains 

 and hot sunshine in July, blighted the grain. Oats have proved 

 a fair crop, and corn, where planted early and well tended, is 

 also good. My crop last year footed up one hundred and 

 twenty^five acres of wheat, yielding nothing, twenty-two acres 

 of oats at forty bushels per acre, and twenty-five acres of corn, 

 not all husked, but estimated at fifty bushels per acre of sound 

 corn. 



SOIL. 



The soil of my farm is a very rich, black loam, from two 

 to three feet deep, upon a subsoil of yellow clay. The soil is 

 slightly impregnated with alkali, and is well adapted to raising 

 either grain or stock. The wheat that has headed out before 

 being destro3'ed by grasshoppers, looked very fine, and now 

 that we are finally rid of the pests, I hope that we shall make 

 a good showing in this county. 



PLANTING. 



Most of my plowing is done in the Fall. As soon as the 

 ground is sufiBciently thawed in the Spring," I start the harrow 

 where wheat is to be sown, going over the ground twice. I 

 sow one and a quarter bushels of wheat per acre, with a 



