Editorial Motes on the Boad. 
Live Scliooner. — 
The Prairie Schooner 
(see illustration) is al- 
way an object of cu¬ 
riosity to Eastern eyes, 
though of course very 
familiar to our ■West¬ 
ern readers. For clays 
and weeks a family 
live in one of them, 
while making the long 
journey westward. 
They may he too poor 
to go by rail; so the 
sturdy owner takes his 
wife, children, and 
household effects with him in a covered wagon. 
They camp at night on the prairie by a stream or 
spring, or near some settlement, and at early dawn 
are again on the move. Plover, kildeer and an occa¬ 
sional duck or goose, are killed with the shot gun, one 
perhaps, which grandfather used “ way back East,” in 
New England, before he moved to New York or Ohio. 
Now and then, fish are caught on the way,and together with 
the fowl give change and zest to the simple daily fare. 
All the family greatly enjoy the novel experience at first, 
though of course it grows very monotonous after a time. 
If the weather be cold, the stove is set at work right in 
the wagon, and a section of pipe protruding through 
the canvas cover carries away the smoke. It is usu¬ 
ally the custom, on camping at night, to build a fire, 
cook the meal, and sleep 
close by the smouldering 
■embers. If, however, the 
weather is cool, all hands 
Trunk in the wagon for 
their sleep. The horses, 
Which have been tethered 
close by for the night, 
sometimes break their 
ropes, or otherwise detach 
themselves, and wander a 
long distance away. Then 
there is trouble in the 
morning. Usually, how¬ 
ever, the faithful dog which 
has been brought along, 
makes known the fact by 
'his incessant barking, when 
one of the horses, has 
broken loose. Probably not 
many of our readers would 
care to do the far West in 
a “prairie schooner,” so- 
called, doubtless, because, 
seen at a distance, it re¬ 
sembles a sail moving over 
the water. For those, how¬ 
ever, who may care to make the venture for a day or 
more, a novel and rather enjoyable experience is in store. 
A New Industry In Kansas. —In the summer 
We found a company organized in Middle Nebraska, 
With a capital of $25,000, for raising sorghum. To-day I 
have ridden for a hundred miles with a party of Louisian¬ 
ians, who, with their mills, are turning out large quanti¬ 
ties of syrup from sorghum raised in Kansas. They tell 
me there has been a large sorghum crop there this year, 
and with many other Louisianians they were turning 
their attention to the State. It would be noteworthy if 
the sugar crop which in former years lias proved so pro¬ 
ductive in several of the Gulf slave States should now be¬ 
come a source of large revenue to Kansas, and the freed 
negroes from the Southern plantations should become 
the owners of sorghum plantations in free Kansas. 
The Rusli lor Free Lands.— The illustration 
representing the rush for free lands to the Government 
Land Office at Huron, Dakota, during the last, year, may 
be a little overdrawn. The artist, however, conveys a 
good idea of the scramble notv being made for free lands 
in Dakota, to which we alluded in last month’s corres¬ 
pondence. During the last fiscal year, between twenty- 
two and twenty-three thousand homesteads have been 
entered in Dakota, as against five thousand in Nebraska, 
three thousand in Minnesota, and about five hundred and 
seventy-five in Montana. It may interest our many 
readers to know.that since the passage of the homestead 
act in May, 1862, up till this autumn, a total of G08,G30 
original homesteads have been entered in the various 
States and Territoties. Of this number the following have 
been located in the North-westDakota, 74,794; Min¬ 
nesota, 73,762; Nebraska, 60,011; Wisconsin, 26,162 ; 
Iowa, 13,968 ; Montana, 3.044. I believe there have been 
more entries in Kansas than in any other State or Terri¬ 
tory. I have but to repeat what lias been said several 
times before in this correspondence, viz. : That the sub¬ 
scribers to the American Agriculturist should hasten to 
share in this free land distribution which the General 
Government is making, before all the good lands have 
been taken. The frontier is rapidly moving westward. 
Cultivating tlie Memory.— One, while travel¬ 
ling, is constantly afforded signal illustrations of memory 
training. A conductor only glances cursorily at the coun¬ 
tenances of the passengers in perhaps a dozen car coach¬ 
es as he passes through collecting tickets and fares. And 
yet so successfully does ho carry these countenances in 
his memory, that a stranger is immediately recognized 
when appearing on the train. The dusky door-keeper at 
the entrance of a dining hall in a large first-class hotel 
takes your hat as you pass in for your meal, and de¬ 
posits it on the rack. There may be several hundred 
others going and coming, and yet you are sure to receive 
the right hat as you file out. Seated at the same table 
there may be four or five others, and all of you give to 
the negro waiter combined orders for fifty, sixty or 
more dishes, enough to confuse the ordinary Whiteman's 
brain. And yet the lowly black, who maybe was liber¬ 
ated by President Lincoln's proclamation, and scarcely 
now knows how to read, brings all the different articles 
of food as told. There is no confusion of orders. Every 
one of the guests at the table has placed before him the 
precise dishes he ordered. If by practice the untutored 
negro can acquire such remarkable proficiency in the 
art of memorizing, how readily may others strengthen 
wbat they choose to term a naturally poor memory. 
“Located,” The Prairie “ Shack.”— The 
traveller over the prairie will readily recognize the tem¬ 
porary home of the homesteader at the head of the page. 
If timber is too scarce and too high, the new comer 
erects a sod house for the time being, particularly if he 
bo a Swede or a Bohemian immigrant. As a general thing, 
however, he quickly throws together a few timbers^ 
making a cover of boards with a protuding stove-pipe,' 
and this constitutes his home until he is able to erect a 
more pretentious structure. He calls it his “shack.”— 
In securing land under the homestead or preemption acts, 
one must establish a residence. All over the States and 
Territories, dishonest persons have at one time and 
another erected these “ shacks ” without any inten¬ 
tion of occupying them, but simply to call them resi¬ 
dences, and thus impose upon the Government. I have 
Sfeen them in Wyoming and Colorado, constructed of 
simply four upright posts, with timbers stretched be¬ 
tween them, having no sides or roof. The owners 
might be a hundred or five hundred miles away. The 
Government authorities are now, however, exercising so 
much vigilance, that it is much more difficult to practice 
impositions of this character, than it was years ago 
Game Protection demanded.— At this sea¬ 
son of the year, hunting parties are passing westward 
through Minnesota to the northern lake region of that 
State for deer, or through Western Minnesota and Da¬ 
kota to the Yellowstone for deer, buffalo, and other large 
game. It is to be hoped that Congress will, on assem¬ 
bling this winter, immediately take some steps to effect¬ 
ually stop the shooting of buflalo in Montana simply for 
the horns and hides. Two years ago this winter, while 
on the Yellowstone, I encountered numerous parties 
from Minnesota and other 
points further East, who 
were slaughtering buffalo in 
large numbers, leaving the 
carcasses where the animals 
were shot, saving only 
the hides and horns. It was 
a great outrage, continued 
again last winter. Two 
years ago there were fully 
one hundred thousand buf¬ 
faloes in that region of 
country; at the rate they 
were then being slaughter¬ 
ed by these lawless parties, 
they could last but a few 
years at the farthest. If the 
slaughter is again resumed 
this winter, the Govern¬ 
ment troops ought to be 
turned loose on the buffalo 
butchers. They would soon 
put an end to this business. 
ICail Road Rival¬ 
ry. — The great through 
railroad lines in their vigor¬ 
ous efforts to cover as much 
Western territory as possible, have all of them unques¬ 
tionably built “ ahead of time,” which fact accounts to 
some extent for the present depreciation in railroad se¬ 
curities. And yet this constant pushing to cover new ter¬ 
ritory is well nigh unavoidable on the part of many 
rail roads. If one does not possess the land some rival 
will, and thus secure control of the region. This rivalry 
leads to some amusing circumstances. Not long since 
two of tlie trunk lines opened negotiations for a local 
rail road running between their routes. Neither wanted 
the third, but neither wanted tlie other to acquire posses¬ 
sion of it. One day the President and other officers of 
one of the roads chartered a special car and proceeded 
over the local line to make examination with a view to 
purchasing. No sooner had the officers of the other line 
learned oi this fact than they immediately, on that very 
forenoon, closed with the offer which had been made 
