Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1878 — The Great Wheat Country. [ARTICLE]

The Great Wheat Country.

The word valley conveys to the general understanding no idea of what the Red river country valley is. It is not bordered by ranges of mountains, or hills, or bluffs of any considerable dimensions, but only by “rolling prairies ” slightly higher than this enormous level prairie. It is a vast treeless plain, from sixty to 100 miles wide and 400 miles long—an area larger than that of Lake Michigan, with a surface almost as level, in appearance, as that of this “ unsalted sea ” in a calm. It is the bed of an ancient shallow lake, whose outlet was southward through the Minnesota river into the primeval Mississippi. It received the waters of the Assiniboin and other large streams that now reach the ocean by a shorter route through Hudson's bay. At length its waters broke through the range of hills that oonfined them, below the present mouth of the Assiniboin, the lake was emptied into Lake Winnipeg, and gave place to the so-callei Red river valley—the richest wheat-producing land in the Northwest. The soil, from two to four feet in depth, is a very rich loam, resting on a bed of deposited clay and marl from twenty to fifty feet in depth. Neither ledge nor bowlder nor gravel nor sand, in even the smallest quantity, have been anywhere found, either on the surface or in the substance of this formation. The bed of the Red river is simply a tortuous gorge worn by water in the clay, and the water, even at the lowest stage, is still deeply colored by clay held in solution. The Cheyenne and other tributaries of the Red river present the Bame features. The evidences of formation by deposition from the waters of "a great lake are conclusive. The plain is not wholly treeless. Thin belts or ribbons of timber skirt theprin cipal streams; but the quantity of timber is too small to be of any economic value. When within the range of vision it serves to break the oppressive monotony of a landscape otherwise without limits, and it also serves the useful purpose of a wind-break in the immediate vicinity of the streams; but there is too little of it for any other purpose. This is the new and wonderful winterwheat region of the Northwest, where can be seen fields of wheat whose boundaries are only the limit of human vision. Here arc wheat-fields whose dimensions are expressed in figures, as 5,000 acres, 6,000 acres, 7,000 acres, etc., and whose aggregated area might be described as a township of growing wheat. But these are terms of exact definition which the mind comprehends only as subjective limitations. The objective spectacle is indefinite, unlimited. Standing at the center of this “farm,” and looking in any direction, the beholder gazes only upon a level sea of wheat whose boundary is where the earth and sky come together. It is said by disinterested experts that every acre of these wonderful wheatfields will yield not less than twenty-five bushels, and that every bushel will weigh sixty pounds, and grade as No. 1. The harvest is somewhat better this year than it was last. The yield is euexpectedly large. The grain is simply perfect. And this is a part of the country which the scientific Gen. Jlazen pronounced to be a barren, worthless desert, that would not produce anything. The latitude was too high (between 46 and 50 degrees) ; the climate was too frigid ; the seasons were too short; there was no water, no anything to render it habitable. The opening of it by the Northern Pacific railway has proven by actual test and experience that the unfavorable opinion which Gen. Hazen put into such positive statements was not well founded. For wheat culture the experience of two years has shown the Red river country to be the most favored portion of America. While in the southern half of Minnesota the wheat crop is a failure, in the extreme north of Dakota, in latitude 47 degrees, within 150 miles of the British boundary, upon Gen. Kazen’s worthless desert, the best and most bountiful wheat-harvests on the continent are found. On the banks of the Red river this wheat crop will command within 15 cents of the price of the same grade on the Chicago market. It can be placed at tide-water at a cost not exceeding 1 cent a bushel more than the cost of placing the crop of Eastern lowa at the same place. To some these statements may be surprising. But they are facts. In view of such facts, is it wonderful that Gen. He zen’s desert is rapidly acquiring a vigorous and thrifty population?—Chicago Times.