Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1884 — Straw as Fuel. [ARTICLE]

Straw as Fuel.

“Yes, I’ve lived out West for fen year,” said a traveler, who was bearded like a forty-niner; “I mean on the prairies of Nebraska. Great country, too.” “What do the folks do for fuel?” “Well, nowadays we’re following after the Rooshuns,. the Rooshun Mennouites, know, iu the fnel business. They are right smart ingenious in some things, and this is the way they get over the * fuel difficulty. They build their houses of four rooms, all cornering together in the center. Right there they pnt up a great big brick oven, with thick walls. From the furnace door back to the back yard is a passageway. Every morning, ’noon, and night they lug a jag of straw in from the stack and burn it in the furnace. The thick walls get red hot, and stay so for hours, warming every room in tire house. Even in the coldest weather three fires a day in the furnace will keep the house warm. For the cooking stoves we burn corn stalks to get meals with, and thus our farms raise our fuel as we go along. Pretty good scheme, isn’t,it?”—Chicago Herald.