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MOORHEAD, MINN. 
Its Agricultural Surroundings, Commer¬ 
cial Interests and Railway 
Connections. 
MESSRS. HOLMES AND SWEETLAND. 
[Special Correspondents of the Rural New-Yorker.] 
Moorhead is especially ha py in its local¬ 
ity and site. It is the county seat of Clay 
County, Minnesota, and here is the junction 
of those two great railroads, the St. Paul, 
Minneapolis and Manitoba and the Northern 
Pacific, ere they cross the Red River of the 
North. In several letters already written we 
have discussed the merits and given statistical 
information regarding the productiveness of 
this valley; hence we will only say of the 
country tributary to Moorhead, that it par¬ 
takes of all the many characteristics in the 
general excellence and fertility of its soil. 
The average yield of wheat this year will 
doubtless exceeed 20 bushels to the acre. We 
learn from Messrs. Comstock & White that 
property in Clay Co. has appreciated iu value 
from 00 to 85 per cent, the past year, being 
held now at from $3.50 to $10 per acre for 
wildland; improved farms bring from $3 to 
$5 additional. 
Besides the railroads mentioned above, grad¬ 
ing has been commenced upon the Moorhead 
& Northern R. R., which will be pushed to 
rapid completion. The Moorhead,Breckenridge 
and McAuley ville 11. R. has been surveyed and 
will be soon built. Having also river connec¬ 
tions by two lines with the north, thus giving 
outlets in every direction, this city bids fair 
to be an important railway center and receiv¬ 
ing and distributing point. 
Its site is high and dry, well drained (three 
" coolies’’or natural drains through it) while 
the sewerage system now being put in is thor¬ 
ough and complete. An excellent feature we 
noticed is an organization called “The Moor¬ 
head Loan and Building Association,” to aid 
persons of small means to acquire property 
and obtain a fair start Edw. E. Moore, cash¬ 
ier of the Merchants’ Bank, is secretary. Such 
institutions should be promoted and encour¬ 
aged in every growing city. The assessed 
value of property in Moorhead (on the basis 
of about, one-third) is $501,000, while the value 
of permanent improvements for 1881 exceeds 
$400,000, against 8800.000 for 1880. There is 
no city indebtedness. Business lots can be 
purchased for from $500 to $1,500 on the main 
streets, while residence lots bring $25 to $100. 
Moorhead’s population last census was 
1,800; it is now estimated at between 3,500 
and 3,000. There are Presbyterian, Episco¬ 
pal, Methodist, Catholic. Lutheran and Bap¬ 
tist church organizations, all well housed ex¬ 
cept the lust named, which expects to build 
soon. The valuation of church property is 
$17,000. The school building cost $25,000 and 
is considered the finest in tins portion of the 
State, having high and graded school depart¬ 
ments. The high school receives aid from the 
State by appropriation. 
The Moorhead Argonaut, weekly, expects 
very soon to establish a daily. The social life 
is on a par with the business activity, the sev¬ 
eral civic societies having prosperous lodges. 
Like most progressive cities, Moorhead has 
completo telephone connections, with Fargo; 
and the street railway company recently or¬ 
ganized intend to connect with their sister 
city, for which purpose and many others the 
necessities of a free bridge are keenly felt, and 
arrangements are perfected for an excellent 
one to be built of iron. The water-works are 
owned and controlled by the city; 7,000 feet 
of mains have l>een laid this season. The 
pumping is being done at present by the Moor¬ 
head Manufacturing Co. There are two banks 
(one recently opened), with an aggregate cap¬ 
ital of $ 100 , 000 ; while the banking and ex¬ 
change business of the one for the past year 
has been between five and six millions. Dur¬ 
ing 1880 the wheat marketed in Moorhead was 
700,000 bushels, and the elevators have re¬ 
ceived at this time double the quantity and 
5,000 bushels more than last year. The grain 
storage capacity is: ‘elevator, 120,000 bushels; 
warehouses, 30,000 bushels; St. Paul, Minne¬ 
apolis and Manitoba Railway elevator (to be 
built this Fall), 150,000 bushels, anti elevator 
for mill, 65, 000 bushels; total, 305,000 bushels. 
At the time of our visit grain prices were: 
wheat, $1.33; oats, (Hie.; flax,$1,05. 'thecom¬ 
merce of the city averaged, from statements 
of several leading citizens for the past year, 
over $5,000,000. Amoug recent improvements 
one which is of the greatest importance to 
Moorhead, ns well as to the ent ire North west, 
is the building, by the Mayor, H, A. Bruns, of 
the Grand Pacific Hotel, Opened to the public 
November 15. It is Athenian in architecture, 
has 120 rooms and 18 bath-rooms with hot and 
cold water and the same number of water 
closets. It is lighted with gas, except the office 
and dining hall, which will have electric 
lights. It has elevators, pneumatic calls, 
steam heating, steam laundry, etc., being 
complete in every detail. The waiting rooms, 
ticket and baggage rooms and land depart¬ 
ment of the Red River Valley division of the 
St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway 
will bo in the building. These offices are sim¬ 
ply complete In every detail, large, well ven¬ 
tilated and handsomely finished. Their per¬ 
fect arrangement reflects great credit upon 
their designer, and the road certainly has just 
reason to be proud of its quarters in Moor¬ 
head. The cost of the building, with furni 
ture, has been $160,000. Having also another 
excellent and well-kept hotel, the Jay Cooke 
House, Moorhead’s reputation for caring for 
the traveling public is assured. The Mayor 
also built, in 1880, a neat and handsome opera 
house, seating500, with all accessories of stage, 
etc., costing $16,000. 
Briefly summing up Moorhead’s manufac¬ 
turing establishments and needs, we will close. 
Thu Moorhead Manufacturing Company have 
a roller flouring mill of 150 barrels daily 
capacity running night and day. Thex-e area 
large brewery and four brick and tile compa¬ 
nies, which burned 8,000,000 brick this year, 
and a steam saw mill, capacity about 40,000 
feet of lumber per day, is to be built at once 
by experienced parties. All steamboats of the 
Red, Saskatchewan, and Assineboine Rivers 
(with a few exceptions) were built here. Thpre 
seem to be openings for manufacturers of lin¬ 
seed oil, tow, straw paper, and, perhaps, agri¬ 
cultural implements, and wo are told of vacant 
niches for furniture, ladies’ and gents’ furnish¬ 
ing goods, and a tailor. 
With this brief summary of the interesting 
points of Moorhead, we will once again visit 
“ The Park Region,” and write of its interests 
as we journey. 
A VISIT TO A COUPLE OF NEW 
YORK SLAUGHTER HOUSES. 
At the foot of West Fortieth Street, N. Y. 
is the great West Side abattoir or slaughter¬ 
house. It is 425 feet iu length and about 300 
feet wide, and is of easy access to the river. 
This is the largest establishment of the kind 
in the city and the average number of beeves 
there killed and dressed for market is about 
2,200 per week or something over 114,000 per 
year. The average weight of the cattle ar¬ 
riving at the abattoir is said to be about 1,200 
pounds, though judging from those we saw in 
the stalls, we should think that figure a trifle 
too large. 
The manner of killing the cattle and dres¬ 
sing them is similar to that pursued in all es¬ 
tablishments of this kind. There are at this 
abattoir 12 pens or stalls into each of which, 
say five cattle are driven at a time, or just 
enough to stand without crowding. Corres¬ 
ponding with each of these pens and connect¬ 
ed with them by a wide door-way, is the place 
where the beeves are dressed. When one of 
the animals is wanted for slaughter, a man 
steps into the stall, places a noose about the 
hiud leg of the beast, attaches to this the pul- 
ley-rope and tackle and in an instant the ani¬ 
mal is hanging by its hind leg, with its head 
just touching the floor. In another instant 
the “ sticker ” has drawn his long knife across 
the throat and the black blood pours out in 
streams. Three workmen, a “dresser” and 
two assistants, then lower the carcass, flay it 
and exit it up, and in less than 15 minutes from 
the time the struggling animal leaves the stall 
the warm, quivering flesh is dressed and 
rinsed and hangs in the shambles ready for 
market. There are, as we have said, a 
“dresser” and two assistants to each “crit¬ 
ter,” who are hired by the week. In 
some abattoirs the “ sticker’’gets 15 cents per 
head and the “ dressers ” about 60 cents. 
While watching this interesting process o 
transforming live animals into beef, we 
noticed that a different mode of killing was 
practiced upon one victim. He was struck 
between the horns with an axe and a small 
aperture was made in the throat through 
which the dark blood fl wed into a pail set be¬ 
neath. On asking a young man who stood by, 
why this animal was made an exception to 
the rule, and his blood collected so carefully 
in a pail, ho said "That’s for me to make 
blood puddin’ of.” It seems that he is au 
att> tche of some neighboring German restau¬ 
rant where it is said, “ blood-puddin”’ is con¬ 
sidered a delicacy. When the day’s butcher¬ 
ing is done the floor - are washed, and every¬ 
thing is made ready for a repetition of the 
work on the morrow. 
THE PROCESS OE KILLING AND DRESSING 
HOGS 
is still more interesting and in order to see 
this most satisfactorily, we crossed the street 
to the Western Stock Yards, the name by 
which those premises are known. The “pork¬ 
ers” are introduced to their fate iu a manner 
quite similar to that practiced in the cattle 
department. They are di’iven from the pen s 
outside up an inclined pathway to a platform 
elevated several feet above the main floor of 
the building. Here each hog is caught up by 
a hind leg and suspended, head downward, 
upon a horizontal iron rod along which it is 
passed until it comes before the “sticker” 
who is, indeed, a foimidable-looking being, 
armed with a long, sharp knife, while his 
hands and leather apron are covered with the 
blood of bis victims. By him the hogs are 
“stuck ” in the throat, and they are then run 
along the horizontal rod until they arrive just 
over a chute into which they drop, one at a 
time, and slide down into the scalding vat in 
the basement. Here they remain until the 
workman in charge (who, by the way, has 
been in the business 21 years) pronounces ihe 
“scald” sufficient, then by an ingenious con¬ 
trivance they are lifted out one by oue, and 
thrown upon an adjoining table. Two men 
then attach a hook to the lower jaw of the hog 
and then to an endless chain which conveys 
•the hog upward through a large cylinder pro¬ 
vided v> ithin with scrapers which remove 
nearly all the hair as the hog passes up. 
Arriving at the top it passes over another 
cylinder, is unhooked from the chain and falls 
upon slightly inclined tables, where stand 
eight men. four on either side, who complete 
the scraping aud external dressing. Two men 
then insert the gaiubrel iu the hind legs, by 
which the hog is suspended to a circular iron 
rod, and passes first to the “dresser” who, as 
we timed him by the watch, removes the in¬ 
testines at the rate of four hogs per minute. 
He has acquired a high degree of skill in 16 
years’ con tinuous experience. The now nearly- 
di-essed hog passes around to another who 
rinses the pork (for such we must now term it) 
aud then to another who transfers it to the 
shambles, where it cools and is marketed. 
“How long does it take for a porker to 
‘pass through the mill’?” we inquired of a 
workman. “ Can’t say exactly,” he replied, 
“ but with a full force we can get 200 of ’em 
through in an hour;” but a non-iuterested 
party informed us that 150 per hour was a 
good average, aud so we thought. 
Wo were also informed by the keeper of the 
yards that during the war a million and a half 
hogs annually passed through this slaughter¬ 
house to market, but owing to the fact that 
similar establish meuts are in operation in al¬ 
most all the larger Western cities, much less 
than half that number ai'e now slaughtered 
here. 
Half Hardy Trees and Shrubs. 
I think, after all, it is difficult to decide as 
to these, for the question is whether if any 
of our natives which are among the most hardy 
roses, were placed in the same circumstances as 
those which are considered half hardy, they 
would not be killed in the Winter. Noth¬ 
ing is more hardy than the Red Cedar, and yet 
every three or four years, more or less of these 
of various sizes are killed on my grounds, no 
matter how placed, whether standing singly, in 
groups, or, in a crowded forest. 
The Japan Akebia (quinata) is reported as 
hardy in the Rural Grounds, but planted in 
mine about a degee and a half farther South) 
iu a [dace exposed to the north wind, it in - 
variably died every Winter whether mild or 
severe. I then planted it on the south side of 
my house basement, protected by a brick wall 
on the west. It grew well there for eight 
years, thickly covering the first-story veranda 
till the past Winter, when it was killed, the 
roots as well as the vines. a. 
CATALOGUES, ETC. 
Farming for Boys. What They have 
Done, and what Others may do in the Cultiva¬ 
tion of Farm and Garden. How to Begin, 
how to Proceed, and what to Aim at. By the 
author of Ten Acres Enough, Illustrated. 
Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.25. 
This excellent work, from the pen of the 
author of Ten Acres Enough, will be warmly 
welcomed especially by the young people who 
live iu the country, and it should be the aim of 
parents to put some such book as this in the 
hands of their children. The author shows 
the advantages of farm life, its health fulness, its 
freedom from temptation, and the sure reward 
it brings to intelligently directed industry. 
The book is iu the form of a story, and will 
be read by those for whom it is intended with 
delight and profit. 
Annual Catalogue of the Columbia Vet¬ 
erinary College and School of Comparative 
Medicine, 217 East Thirty-Fourth Street, 
New York. This college is connected with 
the University of the State of New York, and 
this catalogue contains the names of 28 grad¬ 
uates aud 41 of the matriculated class of 1880 
—1881. The faculty embraces the names of 
well-known veterinarians, and the course of 
study seems full. Alexander Hadden, M.D. 
is president, and applications for information 
should be made to hirn. 
Programme of Eleventh Annual Meeting 
of the Michigan Horticultural Society, to be 
held in South Haven, Dec. 5, 6, 7, next. 
GREEN APPLES. 
Pull down the bough, Bob! Isn’t this fun ? 
Now give it a shake—there goes one ! 
Now put your thumb np to the other and see 
If it Isn’t as mellow as mellow can be. 
I know by the stripe 
It must be ripe ! 
That's one apiece for you and me. 
Green, are they ? Well, no matter for that, 
Sit down on the grass, and we’ll have a chat. 
And I’ll tell you what old Parson Bute 
Said, last Sunday, of unripe fruit; 
" Life," says he, 
" Is a beautiful tree. 
Heavily laden with beautiful fruit. 
“ For youth there's love. Just streaked with red, 
And great Joys hanging right over his head ; 
Happiuess, honor and great estate, 
For those who patient work and wait ; 
Blessings," said he, 
“ Of every degree. 
Ripening early, and ripening late. 
“ Take them In season, plnck and ate. 
And the fruit Is wholesome, the fruit is sweet ; 
But, oh, my friends Here he gave a rap 
On his desk, like a regular thunder clap, 
Aud made such a bang, 
Old Deacon Lang 
Woke up out of his Sunday nap. 
“ Green fruit," he said, “ God would not bless ; 
But half life's sorrows and bitterness. 
Half the evil, ache and crime, 
Came from tasting before their time. 
The fruits Heaven sent," 
Then on he went 
To his fourthly aud fifthly—wasn't it prime ? 
But, I say. Boh, we fellows don’t care 
So much for a mouthful of apple or pear ; 
But what we like is the fuu of the thing. 
When the fresh winds blow, and the hang birds bring 
Home grubs and sing 
To their young ones, a swing 
In their basket nest, tied up by Its string. 
Like apples In various ways; 
They’re first-rate roasted before the blaze 
Of a winter’s tire : and, oh, my eyes, 
Aren't they nice, though made into pies! 
I scarce ever saw 
One, cooked or raw. 
That wasn’t good for a boy of my size. 
But shake your fruit from the orchard tree, 
To the tune of the brook and the hum of the bee 
And the chipmunks chirping every minute, 
And the clear, sweet note of the gay little linnet, 
And the grass and the dowers. 
And the long Summer hours, 
And the flavor of sun and breeze are In it. 
But this Is a hard one ! Why didn’t we 
Leave them another week on the tree ! 
Is yours as bitter t Give us a bite, 
The pulp Is tough aud the seeds are white, 
And the taste of it puckers 
My mouth like a sucker's ! 
I vow, I believe the old parson was right! 
THORNS AND ROSES. 
CHAPTER IX. 
(Continued from page 803.) 
My ne<v home! I looked around at the old 
home and its garden—the home of my child 
hood—and a pang shot though my heart at the 
idea of leaving it even with him! 
“ Nevil, suppose you could uot like me when 
I left home?” 
“ My dearest girl, some foolish fear seems 
to haunt you, but 1 can understand your feel¬ 
ings. Only, what am I to do without you? If 
you knew how lonely I am, you would pity 
me. At home, I fancy how bright it would be 
if ycu were with me. 
“ When will you come to me?” 
“When you please. Nevil,” I said; “Ido 
not fear the future with you!” 
We walked on silently. It was but one 
evening among the many happy evenings 
strung like golden beads on the rosary of mem¬ 
ory. 
When the guests were gone, my cousin an¬ 
nounced with a yawn that she must l'etum 
home. 
“ You are rather interesting at first, Kate, 
but you are getting tedious, aud even Nevil 
has ceased to amuse me. 
“ Papa, too, will think I am going to live here 
altogether. I shall leave my interesting 
Edgar to your care, Kate. Like everyone 
else, he is boring and prosy.” 
I read Edgar Dana’s play the following 
morning, and was not a little surprised by its 
beauty. The heroine was an idealized Edith, 
the hero himself, of course; but it was well 
written, and not wanting in dramatic force 
and power, though rather a poem than a 
play, and I certainly did not think it suited 
for the stage of present days. After reading 
I had little confidence in my own judgment, 
and feai’ed either to praise or disparage. 
CHAPTER X. 
Since the day of Edith’s departure I had 
seen nothing of Edgar Dana, and this sur¬ 
prised me not a little, as I thought he would 
have been eager to hear about his play; but I 
had not to wouder very long. He called one 
afternoon—an afternoou to me for ever me¬ 
morable. 
I was in the garden, in a shady little glen, 
where a seat had been erected under a droop- 
