Proceedings of tee Farmers' Club, 259 



proved most effectual was the turning on of the wash, from the road- 

 side. When this is practicable it seems to me as good a plan as any. 

 I ought to have premised by stating that I began operations by 

 thoroughly underdraining the land. Now, the surface that starved 

 one cow, keeps three horses and two cows, and they are sleek all 

 summer. 



Mr. J. W. Gregory — I have known good effects from the applica- 

 tion of soot to mossy pastures. 



Mr. Charles D. Bragdon — I know a piece of mossy land which 

 was thoroughly scratched over with a sharp-pointed harrow and top- 

 dressed with plaster and strong bone manure, and with good effect. 

 Anything which supplies ammonia will kill out the moss. 



Dakota. 

 Mr. Jud. Pierce, Elk Point, Dakota — Now, that the season of 

 emigration is at hand, I would like to say to the hearers and readers 

 of your proceedings, who are westward inclined, come to souteastern 

 Dakota. Here they will find a climate not enervatingly warm nor 

 frigidly cold, in climate not unlike that of the middle States, but in 

 weather much freer of rain and snow in winter ; a soil rich beyond 

 comparison ; free and limitless pasture, and hay lands of nutritious 

 native grasses; streams of pure spring-fed water, with abundant and 

 cheaply-developed water-powers, and above all free land, unchanged 

 and untampered with since it came from the hand of God and the 

 government surveyor — in short, all that is necessary to make it a 

 desirable home for the farmer, the mechanic, or the manufacturer, 

 except the single article of timber. As there is a herd law, none is 

 required for fencing except a corral for the stock at night. For 

 building lumber the government land is yet near the Missouri, where 

 lumber can be got at about the same rates as east. As for fuel, there 

 is enough for present use, and with the rapidity with which timber 

 grows on these prairies, and a little care, I doubt not farmers can 

 burn home-grown timber in four or five years from planting, with as 

 little yearly expense and work as it now takes to get it from the 

 " wood lot " east. Coal has been found, and promises to supersede 

 the use of wood for fuel. It seems to be a law of nature that men 

 will be happier and healthier in a climate to which they are accus- 

 tomed than in one warmer or colder, and emigrants from the North- 

 ern States of the Union will find the climate of south-eastern Dakota 

 much more like that of their old homes than that of Kansas or 

 Colorado, where the seasons and methods of farming resemble those 



