Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — CONDITIONS IN NEBRASKA. [ARTICLE]

CONDITIONS IN NEBRASKA.

Corn Promise* a Large Yield, Except in the Btate’e Garden Shot. A McCook, Neb., correspondent says: On crossing the Missouri River running to Lincoln, the' Burlington lh£d agents’ party found a prospect which, from an agricultural standpoint, could not be excelled. Corn is luxuriant and sturdy and every stalk shows large-sized ears sticking out from it It is so far advanced that the uninitiated could be made to believe very readily that it is past all harm from any source. Notwithstanding its fine appearance, however, it is not yet out of danger of frost, and will not be for at least two weeks. A fine crop of oats has been reaped in this section. Much of it is still in the shock and a good deal of it has been stacked. It is thrashing out from thirty to fifty bushels to the acre and will average about forty. The wheat crop has all been harvested, and farmers are now busy plowing their land preparatory to putting in another crop of winter wheat. Leaving Lincoln the outlook is much less promising. Between Waverly and Fairmont, a distance of sixty miles, is a stretch of country which has usually'been described as the garden spot of Nebraska. Crops have always been abundant here, however poorly they may have been in other parts of the State. Last year and this year have been the only known exceptions to this rule. Somehow this belt has suffered severely this year. It has rained copiously on all sides of it and all around it, but the clouds refused to give it a drop of moisture until too late to save the corn crop. For a stretch of country sixty miles long and sixty miles wide the corn crop is a comparative failure. It will only run from a quarter to half a crop, averaging as a whole about one-third an ordinary crop. Oats have not fared so badly. They are thrashing out from thirty-five to forty bushels an adre. Heavy tains fell over this section at the end of last week. They came too late, however, to save the bulk of the corn. Very much of it is wilted beyond redemption and a good deal of it has already been cut for fodder. Wheat in this section is thrashing out fifteen bushels to the acre. West of Fairmont the scene again changes and an ocean of waving corn, strong and luxuriant, is to be seen as far as the eye can reach in every direction. The crop from Hastings t 8 the western boundary of the State is practically made, and nothing but a killing frost can now blight it. It will average not less than sixty bushels to the acre, and very many large fields will yield fifty bushels. Around McCook is where the disasters of last year were most severely felt. The gains of this year have more than made up for the losses then sustained. The whole section of country looks like a veritable garden, and the people feel buoyant beyond expression. Winter wheat is thrashing out about twenty bushels to the acre nnd the best fields are yielding thirty bushels. Spring wheat is running from twelve to eighteen bushels to the acre. Oats average front fifty to sixty bushels, the best fields thrashing out 100 bushels. Alfalfa is a new crop here with which the people are delighted. All kinds of live stock eat it with relish, and it is proving to be fattening fodder. The first year it yields one ton to the acre, but after the third year it yields three crops a year, which foot up seven and one-half tons to the acre. It is worth in the market 05 per ton, but to feed cattle the results have shown it to be worth 070 per acre. It is the coming crop all along the flats of the Republican valley.