86 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ June, 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 NEBRASKA NOTES. 



Cheyenne, W. T., May 28, 1877. 



Mr. Editor : — Between Cheyenne and 

 Kearney Junction there are tliousands of 

 cattle, slieep and liorse.s, and excellent pas- 

 turage for at least "six hundred thousand 

 more." The grasses here are greater in 

 variety and quantity, and of better quality, 

 than along either of the more southern routes 

 from the Mi.ssouri Kiver to the Kooky Moun- 

 tains — and this would seem to l)e necessary to 

 adapt it to stock raising, as the winters are 

 more sevei'e, and stock require more nourish- 

 ment ; yet not lialf as many cattle, horses and 

 .sheep perished last winter in the Platte as in 

 the Arkansas Valley ; probably for two rea- 

 sons : First, the superior quality of the 

 grasses along the I'latte, and second, because 

 the Platte stock men provide botli winter feed 

 and shelter for their stock, while the average 

 Arkansas "Cow-boy" is "Arkansas Traveler" 

 style and provides neither feed uor shelter for 

 winter use. 



The stock all along the Platte are in good 

 order, and very few dead cattle wei'c seen 

 during my recent trip from Denver to Omaha 

 and return to my Rijcky Mountain home. 



At Cheyenne there are four live churches, 

 to whicli have been added about one hundred 

 members by profession of faith, during the 

 last three months. The pastor .of the Presby- 

 terian church. Rev. ISIr. Corwick, is also 

 County Superintendent of Education, and 

 very etlicient in both positions. About half 

 of the children attend some Sabliath scliool. 



There are over fifty liquor store.s and saloons 

 here, and an active temperance society. 



Tliere is one business firm here comjiosed of 

 a Presbyterian, a Methodist, and a Congrega- 

 tionalist, who never sell goods on the Sabbatli, 

 and prosper. 



Sidney, one hundred and fourteen miles 

 east of Cheyenne, is a great out-fitting point 

 for the Black Hills. It lias more new build- 

 ings and business activities than any other 

 town of its size in the Union, but religious 

 enterprise does not keep i^ace with them. 



North Platte, near the confiucnce of the 

 North and South Platters, is surrounded by a 

 rich agricultural region, and from this point 

 east to Omaha, about .3()(t miles, the fertility 

 of the soil and tin; rain-fall increases, which, 

 with the genial and almost constant sunshine, 

 and general southeastern .slope of tlie valley, 

 constitiUes it a superior farming country, in 

 which land is being rapidly .sold by the Union 

 Pacific at from two to eight dollars per acre, 

 on long credit, witli only six percent, interest. 



From Nortli I'latte going east we pass 

 tlirough tlie comparatively new county of 

 Dawson, which is watered l)y the Platte and 

 Wood Rivers, Plum Creek and other smaller 

 streams. 



Plum Creek is the ca])ital, and is a promis- 

 ing point 2:i() miles west of Omaha. The 

 people of the town and county are principally 

 from Pennsylvania and Oliio. 



Dawsou county has f oi ty-two miles of U. P. 

 Railroad, six thousand feet of bridges, thir- 

 teen good .school houses, well furnished, and 

 about as many churches — all built during the 

 last five years. 



The altitude is 2, .370 feet above the level of 

 the sea. There have been only eight deaths 

 in the county during the last year, of those 

 who came Iiere well. 



The crop prospects are excellent, and no 

 grasslioppers. 



During the construction of the Union Pacific 

 road, when every train bad to cari-y soldiers 

 and arms for their men and passengers, near 

 the mouth of Plum Creek a band of Indians 

 tied some wire to a telegraph pole, al)out four 

 feet from the ground, and about fifty of them 

 stretched it across the ]'oad in front of an ap- 

 proaching train. The engineer put on full 

 steam, and wlien the engine struck tlie wire 

 the Indians all had a rougli time, and especi- 

 ally the leader, who had the end of the wire 

 wrapped around his liand, was terribly muti- 

 lated. So it will ever be with the poor infi- 

 dels wlio are trying to stop tlie train of 



Christianity, which has fmnided and sustains 

 all the charitable institutions for the relief of 

 the thousands of sick, blind, deaf, dumb, 

 insane and helpless in our own and other 

 lands. — Sidney A. Gaylor. 



^ 



ESSAY ON WHEAT.* 



Wheat is one of the most valuable of our 

 cereal productions, and invariably follows 

 civilization — if it may not be regarded as the 

 most universal .liijn of civilization. Its origin, 

 unlike that of the origin of the Irish potato, 

 is almost, if not entirely, unknown. Its 

 antiquity, however, seems to be unquestion- 

 able, as by reading the Book of Genesis, we 

 find that when the sons of .Jacob were working 

 in the harvest field, .Joseph had a dream — 

 "For behold we were binding sheaves in the 

 field, and lo, my sheaf arose and also 

 stood upright ; and behold your sheaves stood 

 round about, and made obiesance to my 

 sheaf. " By that we may infer that v)h(at was 

 meant, and when the Egyptians stored up 

 "corn" it also meant wheat. 



fCorn is a general term whicli includes all 

 kinds of grain used as breadstufls, and when 

 we .sjieak of the "Corn E.xchange" we mean 

 the Ijuying and selling of wheat, rye, barley 

 and oats, as well as corn, or maize. So we 

 may jierceive tliat wheat was cultivated in 

 Asia and Africa full3- foiu- thousand years ago, 

 (4,000) according to Bible hi.story. Wheat 

 will grow in all .soils in the same latitude ; but 

 even in the same latitude it will thrU-e better 

 ill some soils than in others, although it in- 

 variably does well in virgin soils. But in 

 from fifteen to thirty years many of the 

 Western States cease to be good wheat grow- 

 ing districts, and many less acres are under 

 cultivation than in former times, in conse- 

 quence of the deterioration of the crop. In- 

 stead of raising wheat, the farmers go into 

 stock raisiug — .such as blooded cattle, sheep, 

 swine and Norman horses ; the latter of which 

 command from .f 1..50 to .f200 ai)icce. Many 

 varieties of wheat were cultivated in the 

 American Colonies — afterwards the United 

 States — at least three hundred in all. 

 More than one hundred and fifty varieties 

 were cultivated at dilTerent times in Oliio and 

 other AVestern States. Nearly all those early 

 vaiieties have been long since discarded. 

 Very few varieties imiiortcd from Europe, 

 ever .succeed well in tlie UnitcMl States, except 

 the "Old ISIediterraneaii," which originally 

 came from the shores of the sea of that name. 

 After the great wheat fiiilure of ISSfi and 18:57 

 — when flour brought $U per barrel — the Hes- 

 sian fly was the tmiversal destroyer of the 

 wheat crop in Lancaster county. The Medi- 

 terranean variety seemed to have withstood 

 the attacks of the fly. At first its farinaceous 

 cliaracter was somewhat similar to rye, but it 

 imjiroved in the course of time. Some twenty 

 years ago, a farmer in Paradise township 

 ]iicked out a stalk of wheat from a field of the 

 Old Mediterranean, which, when planted, 

 proved a great improvement on the old, and 

 did much better. It was afterwards known 

 as the "Red Mediterranean," and was the 

 principal wheat afterwards cultivated, down 

 to the introduction of tlic Foltz variety. The 

 Foltz was introduced from the valley of the 

 Susqnelianiia. Many other varieties have 

 been introduced through the National Agri- 

 cultural Department at Washington, and 

 elsewhere, and have since been nearly all 

 abandoned. Most wheat will soon degene- 

 rate, and new varieties from our native soil 

 will do better tlian others. We even can 

 raise the best of fruit from seedlings of our 

 native soil. 



I believe that if fai iners would every year 

 search their fields, when the grain is fully 

 ri])e, that tliey might lierc and there find 

 heads, or clusters of heads, that would jiro- 

 ducc distinct varieties of wheat which would 

 be an improvement on the old kinds. By such 

 a course of culture, by "n.atural selection," 

 we might develop varieties that would yield 



•Kead before the Lancaster County Agricultural anfl Hor- 

 ticultural Society, May 7, 1877, hy Levi S. Rei8t, 

 I " The SpriiiK is waning fast, 

 Tlie cnyii in iu the ear." 



from 20 to 40 bushels per acre. How few 

 farmers ever search, or try to discover new 

 varieties of wlieat or other grains. I would 

 suggest that the society should offer a premi- 

 um of five dollars (15), for the best variety of 

 wheat selected from the fields of Lancaster 

 county. The diseases and enemies of wheat 

 art! numerous, conspicuously among which 

 are bUght, mildew, rust, midges, weevils and 

 tlie Hessian fly. 



We have had very few good wheat harvests 

 in this county for the last ten years. About 

 eight or tten years ago the wheat looked 

 very promising until harvest time, when it 

 was discovered that the heads would not fill ; 

 it was rank enough in the straw, but had not 

 enough of weight in the grain to bend the 

 lieads over, and they stood erect and empty. 

 It was generally thought, at the time, that it 

 was infested liy a new kind of u^eeril, hut my 

 opinion was that the cause was in the condi- 

 tion of the atmosjihere when it was in bloom ; 

 or, not in the right temperature when the 

 graiji was maturing. It was something new 

 then, but beyond the farmer's ken. Four or 

 five years ago we had a cold open winter — 

 dry, and without snow, and the thermometer 

 sometimes 30'-' below zero, and this was the 

 occasion of a failure iu the wheat crop. Two 

 years ago the southeastern part of Jjancaster 

 county, from the range of hills extending from 

 New I3erlin to Kissel Hill, or New Haven to 

 Manheim, was overlaid with solid ice, and 

 many farmers diil not raise more than from 

 fir to ten bushels of wheat to the acre, and 

 those failures afi'orded new researches, rela- 

 ting to their cause, among the farmers. 



The Hessian fly is only an occasional visitor ; 

 and, as before indicated, seems to have been 

 an emigrant from Eurojie, where it had been 

 known and described long before it commenced 

 its ravages in this country. According to tlie 

 best authorities on the siiliject, its first ap- 

 pearance in Amei'ica was noticed in 1776, and 

 it is supposed to have been brought over from 

 the continent of Europe in the straw-litter 

 used by the Hessian soldiers, and from this 

 circumstance its common name has been 

 derived. AVhether this assumption is correct 

 or not, it is on record that it was first no- 

 ticed on Long Island one hundred years ago, 

 and traveled inland at the rate of twenty 

 miles a year, until it is now known all oveV 

 the Eastern, Middle and Western States. It 

 exists always in certain localities, and varies 

 its attacks of the wheat crop from the begin- 

 ning to the end of September. In 1836 this 

 fly destroyed all the wheat sown from the .5th 

 of August to the 1st of October. A farmer in 

 Rajiho townsliip, who was always a late sower, 

 sowed his wheat on the 20th of October, and 

 his wheat crop totally escaped the ravages of 

 this insect that year, and he realized <a good 

 crop, and sold to other farmers at 53 per 

 bushel. 



In the year 1876, all the wheat sown on or 

 before the .5th of September, will be almost an 

 entire failure. The present prosjiects are that 

 the yield will only be from iiN to ten bushels 

 per acre. After the •'ith of September a "wet 

 siiell" succeeded, and farmers could resume 

 their sowing, until after the 11th or 12th, and 

 wliat was sown aftei- that period looks very 

 promising ; and if nothing like hail, mildew 

 or midges intervene — or other contingency at 

 present unseen and unknown occurs — we may 

 expect a yielil of from twenty to thirty bu.shels 

 per acre. About one-fourth of the crop in 

 Lancaster county was sown before the 5th of 

 September, and .about throe-fourths after the 

 11th, and from this data, all other thing.s 

 being eipial, we may at least conjecture what 

 the crop the present season may lie. 



tVNlieu we say "ahnut" ten years ago, we may mean a year 

 more, or a year less. If Mr. R. alludes to 18fi^ — which was 

 alxnit ten years ago — we would respectfully refer hint to the 

 /.rtji''n.s7('r IvtcUitjnu-fr Un June 3(1, of that year ; to the 

 ftixih/ HzpTctii for Jiiue 20, IH(17; and to the Exainin^r nntt 

 Ili'iaf'l foi- July 10, of the same year, in wliii^h he will tind 

 that i''c entertained a djtierent opinion from his, on the 

 causes of the wheat failure of those yrai-s. We made a series 

 of investigations, both in the closet and in the field, and 

 came to'the conclusion that the damage to the wheat crop 

 in those yc'ars was caused by the " midge," or " wheat-fly," 

 iCeriilninifia tritici,) sometimes wrongly called the " Red- 

 \\'eevil." There was plenty of good strong straw, but the 

 heads stood erect and with little or nothing In them. — }kL 



