540 BOONE COUNTY, NEBRASKA. 



H. RICE, 



ALBION, BOONE COUNTY. 



A Land of Promise — Wheat Land — Ploivs Early — CuU 

 His Grain Before Quite Ripe — Exi^erience — Forest Culture. 



NEBRASKA ONCE A WASTE. 



We are in that belt of the United States that at one time 

 was considered a land of waste, a desert, uninhabited, and 

 abounding in rolling waves of prairie, which were worthless 

 and could never be utilized for the purposes of the white man, 

 — created only for the red man of the prairie. Nebraska is 

 about equally divided as to the situation of her soil. Between 

 her streams and rivers are belts of rolling prairie, which are 

 susceptible of maintaining a vast population on the cereals, 

 and of'^sustaining immense herds of cattle and sheep. The 

 rolling prairies have no timber, save what has been planted 

 by the sturdy pioneer. Along the rivers and streams, which 

 are very numerous, may be found belts of the cottonwood, 

 box elder, and maple ; also white elm. These are the chief 

 woods, which thrive and grow for fuel and farm use in a few 

 years after being planted out. 



THE SOIL. 



The soil all over the State is about the same, consisting of 

 a black calcareous loam, impregnated with an abundance of 

 decayed vegetable matter, composed of those chemicals and 

 elements which are essential to the successful raising of grain 

 and glasses. In depth the soil is from three to six feet, with a 

 subsoil of a whitish clay, and sometimes of a blue clay. 



SOIL INEXHAUSTIBLE. 



My experience, from farming more or less for the past 

 fifteen years in the State, is that the land can not easily be 



