g04 U\LL COUNTY, NEBRASKA. 



a pasture for the milch cows, of which I keep about eight head 

 at home during the Summer; and two acres about the house 

 are sown to blue grass, timothy, and red top grasses. 



My crops average : corn, from thirty-five to fifty bushels 

 per acre ; wheat, from twelve to fifteen bushels per acre ; rye 

 and barley, from twenty-five to thirty ; and oats, from forty- 

 five to sixty bushels per acre. 



FORESTRY. 



The first twelve acres of artificial forest, were planted by 

 me in the year 1861, and consisted of cottonwood seedlings, 

 one year old, and black locust seedlings, to which were added 

 a few hundred green ash, and black walnuts, the latter raised 

 from the nuts — where they now grov/. 



The trees were planted six by six feet, in rows, and re- 

 ceived a clean but shallow cultivation for three years. The 

 cottonwood trees yet left growing of the original and first 

 plantation-, are now from sixty-five to seventy-five feet high, 

 and some of them measure over two feet in diameter, but nine- 

 tenths ^of them have been felled by storms and worms (borers), 

 and I had to sell them, in the shape of cordwood, at from five 

 to six dollars per cord. But an excellent growth of hard wood 

 trees is springing up between the pioneer trees yet left grow- 

 ing. The hard wood trees, mixed with some soft wood, I have 

 planted from time to time, consisting of black walnuts, white 

 and green ash, box elder, red cedar, white elm, soft maple, 

 butternut, mixed with an undergrowth of black currants, wild 

 grape, dogwood, and other brush trees. 



The original black locust grove was totally destroyed by 

 the borer in the years of 187G, '77 and '78, but the dead trees 

 furnished fence posts and the best of fuel. A new growth of 

 the same timber, now from ten to fifteen feet high, has sprouted 

 from the roots, and is intermixed wilh same kind of hai'd wood 

 and other trees as before enumerated. 



The remaining ten or twelve acres of artificial and orna- 

 mental groves consist of the same hard wood varieties, with an 

 addition in variety, of honey locust, Kentucky coffee bean. 



