90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



sweeps across this open country, roaring, howling and 

 shrieking in a way nobody can describe ; the little ice 

 needles are driven by the wind into and through everything. 

 Then the cold is awful, and nothing but hay to burn ; and 

 quite likely you will be caught without enough in the house 

 to last through the storm. If you want to appreciate a 

 blizzard, come, see and feel it, but be caught in it at your 

 peril. If one had come in October, the tirst fall we were 

 here, none of us would have been here to tell the story. 



"Prairie fires? You would think so; and the grass is 

 about dry enough to burn now. When the fire gets going, 

 and a high wind gets behind it, it seems as if the whole 

 world and all in it were going to burn up. The smoke and 

 heat go ahead of the fire, and it is dark as night, and you 

 are almost suffocated. Hardly know which to choose — a 

 prairie fire or a blizzard. On some accounts we have the 

 most dread of the fire, and keep the grass mown and fed 

 back a hundred rods from the place, and then plough a 

 fire-guard inside and outside of that line ; so that we have 

 escaped thus far. But fires have swept over whole counties 

 here, and cleaned out everything, — villages and all. 



"As yet, there is practically nothing that farmers can raise 

 to sell in this region but wheat, and that might about as Avell 

 be burned as sold. It is hard to find a man here who raises 

 more than about two hundred bushels, and he cannot take or 

 send that much to the Chicago market. Either way, the 

 freights and commissions will take the whole crop. 



"On the way out you probably noticed elevators once 

 in twenty or thirty miles all along the railroad. The 

 railroad ring own them all, whatever may be the name 

 painted on their brown sides. Oh, yes ; they are ready 

 to buy wheat; 'but the crop is not a desirable one, and 

 the market is glutted ; but if you cannot hold it, draw it in, 

 — we will give what the market will afford.' They have 

 a sure thing, and can wait ; the farmer generally cannot ; so 

 the crop goes to the elevator, and of course in the worst pos- 

 sible time. ' There never was such a glut ; ' it is hard, but the 

 best they can do is forty-five cents a bushel. That won't do 

 for the farmer at all ; but it is thirty miles to the next eleva- 

 tor, which is tAvo days' journey from home, and when he gets 



