576 STEELE COUNTY, MINNESOTA. 



G. W. BUFFUM, 



OWATONXA, STEELE COUNTY. 



Dairy Farm — Points for Good Dairy Cow — Yield of Milk — 

 Feed — Proceeds — Wheat — Fruit — Machinery — Barn. 



Coming out of the army in 1865, with about twenty-five 

 hundred dolhirs in money, my thoughts turned to where I 

 should go and what I should do. Having always lived on 

 a farm, I thought 1 could succeed at farming, if at nothing eli?e, 

 so I took Horace Greeley's advice, and in May, 186G, started for 

 Steele county, Minnesota, where I bought two hundred acres 

 of land for twcnt3'-five hundred dollars. 



There Avcre on my place, a log house and a small stable ; 

 twenty-five acres of ground had been broken. In June, I went 

 back after my family, which consisted of a wife only, and we 

 set'out for our new home, in a lumber wagon. 



I s|artcd out in life to pay as I went, which is always a 

 good rule. 



My original farm consisted of prairie one hundred and 

 twenty acres, timber forty acres, and marsh or meadow forty 

 acres. Our people here came with but little money, and wheat 

 giving the quickest returns, they naturally turned their atten- 

 tion to its production. 



DAIRIES. 



From 1865 to 1871, I devoted my time entirely to wheat 

 and stock, planting but little corn, and only oats enough for 

 my horses. My farm being new, and the manure that accumu- 

 lated being applied to the knolls and oldest cultivated soil, 

 my fullest expectations were realized for the first few years ; 

 but, knowing that the soil could not long stand the strain of 

 continual cropping with wheat, I became, in the Spring of 1871, 

 a patron of a cheese factory that started near my place — fur- 

 nishing from sixteen to twenty-two cows. Cheese was woi'lh, 

 at that time, from fifteen to eighteen cents per pound. 



