Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1884 — DAKOTA’S EXHIBIT. [ARTICLE]

DAKOTA’S EXHIBIT.

Arrival of the Dakota Car of Products at Milwaukee. [Milwaukee Sentinel.] The “product car” containing samples of grain and vegetable products grown in Central and Southern Dakota arrived at the Union Depot The car is an ordinary passenger coach, with the seats removed and with shelves encircling the interior. The outer sides of the car are decorated with oil paintings representing the Dakota harvest fields and South Dakota landscape views. The exhibits are from Clay, Union, Lincoln, Yankton, Bon Homme, and other - counties in Dakota reached by the St. Paul Railway. The car will go from Chicago to Detroit, Buffalo, New England, and the Canadas. After an absence of two months in the East, the car will be taken to New Orleans for exhibition at the World’s Fair.

The interior of the coach presented a very attractive appearance. The roof was tastefully trimmed with flox, grasses and grains, wrought into numerous designs and artistically arranged. Eight underneath the roof were eight or nine different varieties of corn in the ear—yellow dent, yellow flint, white flint, strawberry, etc. The white flint com grows to the length of inches. Below the corn display are the shelves containing specimens of Dakota vegetables. There are sweet potatoes weighing three pounds, from Yankton; Irish potatoes grown in Elk Point, Union County; cucumbers, egg plant, water and musk melons, squashes, beets, cabbage, and all kinds of fruit. A display is also made of- preserves from Sioux Falls, consisting of plums, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants. The vegetables, many of them, are of monstrous size. Several of the beets weigh from 17 to 20 pounds, and are grown in Brown County. On the floor are sweet pumpkins weighing 80 pounds, a watermelon from Yankton weighing 32 pounds, and other samples of vegetables of far more than the usual weight. The largest is a squash, raised by O. V. Knowles, at Karam, Lincoln County. Its circumference is 8 feet and 1 inch, and its weight 185 pounds. There are also samples of wheat, oats, rye, barley, and flax, of superior quality. The spare room in the car is occupied by exhibits of bunch grass, 7 feet high, timothy with heads 6 inches Jong, blue-joint grass 7| feet high, and red-top 5 feet high. A show is also made of peanuts grown in Yanktoii. They grow upon vines like potatoes, and are dug from the ground. There are specimens of Sioux Falls granite, very hard, and capable of a fine polish, as smooth as marble.

There also arrived at the Union Depot a locomotive and tender, constructed entirely of wheat, oats, and evergreen sprigs. The locomotive is eight feet in length, and every feature of the ordinary railway engine is reproduced in miniature. The cowcatcher, bell, whistle, j drive-wheels, steam-chest, piston-rods, beadlight, and everything else, are all there. The figures “39" are painted upon tie headlight, denoting that Dakota will be file thirty-ninth State when admitted to the Union. Accompanying the locomotive is ii baggage car and sleeper, perfect in form, and constructed of Dakota grains and grass s. The whole is the work of Win. Sibben, Aberdeen, and has occupied his time i>r about three weeks. P is a very creditt t>le display of ingenuity, taste, and patieni e. Among the curious crowd of names in the recent applicants for pensions are Pilgrim Crazyions, ajPennsylvania pedagogue, Christly Crow, a colored preacher; Torment Twist. Chrireian Bible, John Drinklager, Beason Tiijg, D. Slatecipher, and Skye Leaf. 1 The Societe Fraiklin is an association of France for promot ig the establishment of popular libraries, deriving its name, of course, from our <Ln Benjamin Franklin. It has just distribited its annual prizes. M. Benan has ompleted his history of the Jewish people.