Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 511 



Tlie next year we had excellent corn, potatoes, and all kinds of 

 2-arden veojetables. About the middle of May I procured two bushels 

 of seed wheat ; spring wheat. Winter wheat does not generally do 

 \vell there ; and tliis was the first sown in the State north of Omaha. 

 The wheat came up finely, but soon hot, dry weather came on, and, 

 when ready for harvest, the wheat was about two feet high, with short 

 heads, and not very well filled ; it had hardly littered at all, and I 

 gave it to a neighbor. He harvested it and got eight bushels. I 

 concluded i!s^ebraska was not much of a wheat country, and did not 

 feel like trying it again the next year ; but some of my neighbors 

 procured seed and sowed early in April, and had fine crops ; twenty, 

 and twenty-five bushels to the acre. Since that time we have all 

 been raising wheat, and the yield has steadily increased, and two 

 years ago the average crop in Burt county, as in several other counties 

 north and south of the Platte river, has exceeded thirty bushels to 

 the acre ; while individuals have raised from forty-five to fifty bushels 

 to the acre for whole fields. Hon. William B. Beck, of Burt county, 

 raised forty-nine bushels to the acre, on seven acres, and it weighed 

 sixty-four pounds to the bushel. Much of our wheat for the last three 

 or four years has gone to St. Louis, and brings ten to fifteen cents 

 more per bushel than any other spring wheat that goes to their mar- 

 ket, and I can assure you the flour is better than any I have ever 

 seen, except the best quality from white winter wheat. Our JN^ebraska 

 wheat has already created quite a sensation at Washington ; and I 

 must here suggest that, if any parties are wishing for information 

 about ISTebraska, they had better write to the patent office, or the 

 St. Louis millers, especially on the subject of wheat-growing in 

 Nebraska. This much in reply to Mr, Tewksbury's extinguisher on 

 Nebraska as a wheat-growing State. I doubt if there is a State in the 

 Union that equals Nebraska as a natural wheat-growing state. Mr. 

 Tewksbury informs the club in a very positive and ofi'-hand manner 

 that he knows all about Nebraska, and that it is tjie last place he ' 

 would go to stay. He is probably one of the happy few who have no 

 reason to emigrate. I will now briefly answer the inquiring mem- 

 bers of the club from my stand-point, having lived in Nebraska most 

 of the time for more than fourteen years. 



I think Nebraska an excellent place to emigrate to ; its climate is 

 much like New England, though more dry and generally much less 

 snow ; very little rain in fall or winter ; it is a very healthy country ; 



