Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1908 — A South Dakota Letter. [ARTICLE]

A South Dakota Letter.

Burk, S. D., 8/24, ’OB. j To Editor of Republican, and my Rensselaer Friends: I Intended to write you some time ago, but I have been very busy. I cut and shocked oats for nine days. Oiir oats are not as good as we earlier expected. They were struck with the fust. They are going to be light, I think will average about thirty bushels to the acre, in and around this part of the country. I have been helping to thresh. I hauled one load of the Big Four oats, it tested 26 pounds to the bushel. I hauled another load of Side oats and they, tested 29 pounds to the bushel, and one load made 31 pounds per bushel. 1 Oats are from 39c to 43c per bushel.i. We have very little threshing done' here yet. / | Corn is looking very well. We will have a fair crop if we do not get an' early frost, I should judge from 35 to 40 bushels to the acre. Wheat, as far as I have heard, is going from 14 to 26 bushels. I plant-' ed water melons, but they are not ripe yet. We also have tomatces,' but they are green. Our cucumbers i are fine. We planted about an acre-' of Navy beans on sod and they are 1 fine. My potatoes are as good as ’ I ever raised. The summer has been cooler here than it was in Indiana. Wd have but very few flies here and no greenheads. I needed no sheets for my horses this summer. We have had an excellent summer here. I saw E. W. Gwin and wife yesterday. They are well, living in great prospects for the future. I saw H. H. Hayes and family today, they also are' well, and we are all thankful that things are as well with us as they have been. I see by the paper that there are' some of the boys making preparations to come out to Trippe county when it opens, but do not be foaled by the railroad’s advertisements. For it has not opened yet and we do not know when it will open. There is enough of people here now to take every acre of land in Trippe county;* and the work here will soon be all over, and I look for hard times here this fall, with the new comers. This part of the country is just full of land sharks and grafters at the present time, and the railroad companies are not any beter.. But I must say that I like the country well. I have not felt as good in ten years. The salt grass runs from one-half to one ton to the acre. But it is all grass and no waste. The lowland grass and around the draws aie just about the same as at home. We put up hay here at all times of the season. They begin making hay In May and I think will be through by the first of November. But stock does very well here. Now, if anyone wants to know more than I have told in this letter, If they send me a stamped envelope, I will gladly answer all qut sions. Truly Yours, JNO. STEWART. P. S. —Just as I go to mail I hear that Trippe county will open on the sth of October. But have not seen the proclamation.