Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1899 — Jennings County Letter. [ARTICLE]

Jennings County Letter.

Mr. Editor: —We receive regularly, the best county paper published in the state, The Jasper County Democrat, which stands boldly out for the people and justice and right in all things. Well, we promised to write you a letter as soon as we became somewhat acquainted with the country. First, we say that wo don’t have any windy weather outside of occasional breezes in the evening, and when it rains, it rains a shower and quits. This is the first time in 16 years that the writer has plowed and planted corn, and-theground all the time being in good working condition—no mud nor water to contend with. The country, where we live, is level and the soil is a mullato clay which will produce all kinds of grain and grass. Clover and blue grass seem to be a natural product of this country. The wheat prospect is immense. You don’t find any spots in the wheat or grass fields here, but thick and heavy all over. The land here is free from rock and only an occasional walnut or popular stump in the fields. But poke roots and briars and spice brush have had a considerable way of their own in some fields. Nearly all the land is worked with a disk—the disk has taken the place of the breaking plow. Considerable plowing for corn here is did with one horse and a right-handed bar shovel plow. I will give you a sample farmer. Mr. Nobe, my neighbor, has 300 acres of land, 2ao cleared. He sowed 4 acres of oats and will put out 7 acres acres of corn. He has one cow, five sheep, two hogs and three horses. This leaves the farm to briars, poke root and pawpaw bushes. I have 45 acres for corn and we have had what we call a fine time to plow and plant, and no hard work about it. It is well said that the people of southern Indiana are a slow, easy going people. No better neighbors ever lived than we have here. There is lots of land for sale here, at $lO to S2O per acre. The first question you ask is what kind of land is it? It is level, mullato clay soil. Some of it is old sage grass fields that have been abandoned —not worn out—but the low price of farm products and the expense of running a farm was above the profit, so the owners just went to one-horse farming. This land is near the railroad and in sight of Butlerville and North Vernon. One farm with a new house and 60 acres in a fine state of cultivation and joining my farm, sold last week at $7 per acre, part on time. This is a first-class grain country, and a better grass country than this, I never saw in all my travels. You have a June grass in Jasper you call blue grass, but come down and see a regular Kentucky blue-grass pasture and you never will say Jasper county is grass and cattle country rtny When u mftn plows this soil and farms it as we do up north, he gets big pay for his labor. It is a land that holds the richness you put on it and don’t leach away. Neither is this land underlaid with a hardpan, but 12 to 18 feet to gravel. We will have lots of fruit of all kinds. We have 190 fruit trees of different varieties. This land plows easy and works up in fine order with a harrow. We live onefourth mile from the B. O. & 8. W. R. R., which runs thirteen passenger trains each way, every twelve hours—so we don’t get lonesome. ,1 have seen but one colored man since our arrival here. Well, you ask, is it hotter than Jasper? I say, no, but the nights are warmer and every morning a big dew which makes the leaves and grass sticky, like rosin weed, is noticed. Vegetation grows very fast and grass comes on by the lath of March. You will find more old men here than in any plage I ever lived. Most all these people are those good old-time folks we have heard of. My family is all well jileased. Son Mahlon won’t go to see. He says Jennings county good enough. If any of you Jasperities want* good farm at a low price, write to E. C. Davis, Butlerville, Ipd., enclosing stamp. I will close by saying, Bro. Babcock, keep up the fight till the nngster has been retired and th* officers become the people’s honest servants.

REV. PETER HINDS.

Butlerville, Ind., May 8,1899. 1