History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 26

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742

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CONSERVATION OF ORCHARDS.

With the multiplication of bearing trees the insects and fungus enemies increased and it appeared that the growing of apples was destined to be an unprofitable business, but just then a new light dawned on the owners of a few orchards. They had heard of spraying and they took the trouble of going to see what other orchards had done both East and West, and were convinced that spraying was necessary to produce salable fruit. The late Henry C. Smith was one of the first to undertake spraying. Congress- man Pollard had government experts sent here to demonstrate the benefits. Slowly the idea soaked in so that now no one expects to raise first class apples without spraying. Then along came a dry, hot year and notwith- standing the spraying the fruit was inferior, lacking both size and quality, then it occurred to Smith that the fruit grower in the arid region not only sprayed his trees but also cultivated the soil and conserved the moisture. He acted upon the theory that such a plan might also be of advantage here. The first year's trial dispelled all doubt. From that demonstration, both spraying and cultivation have come to be accepted dogma with up-to-date orchardists. The Weaver and Smith orchards have been through very dry seasons, in both 1911 and 1912, yet the fruit was fully developed and un- injured by the drought, whereas the uncultivated orchards in the same lo- cality produced small, defective apples, although they were sprayed.

But there is still something more that is necessary for an orchardist to understand, if he is going to get any profit. He must have the business capacity to sell his product for what it is worth, for, of what avail is it to him to prune, spray, cultivate and grow a perfect apple and then sell it to some scalper at the price of cider apples. Experience, organization and a selling combination, among fruit growers in this locality, will take care of that after a while. It has been said that Richardson county alone produced more car-loads of apples than some of the Northwestern states whose fame is world wide as apple producers. In 1911 six hundred cars were shipped out, while 1912 has a record of one thousand cars. There are several differences to be taken into account in considering the capacity of Richardson county to produce apples, in comparison with a Northwestern state that grows its apples under irrigation in favored spots on hill tops adjacent to deep valleys that drain the frosty air into their recesses and allow the hill tops to escape harm. The valley lands here are unsuitable as orchard sites also, but the whole of Richardson county is in the rain belt and all is good

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apple land except the river valleys. and so far as expansion of the business is concerned it would be easier for Richardson county to produce fifty thousand cars of apples in a year than it would for Oregon. Idaho or Utah. for the acreage in those states that is suited for apples is very restricted because of lack of water and suitable land in juxtaposition.

After it is all said and done there is no better place to embark in the apple business than right here. for the same amount of attention and care devoted to orcharding will produce as good an apple as is grown any- where in the West: then this locality has the advantage of nearness to large markets and less expensive maintenance charges in the way of water. tax and fertilizer. It is quite as necessary to fertilize the soil in an orchard here as anywhere. if good crops of fruit are to be expected yearly. The experience of the most successful apple producers show that vigorous growth in the tree can be maintained that way and this vigor is what tells in the quality and quantity of the fruit.

The most persistent and difficult to eradicate of all the enemies of the apple tree is the borer. Spraying and pruning help some in the control of this pest and danger. but a close examination of each tree is necessary to locate the borer and he must be dug out and the wound treated scientifi- cally or great injury follows and death results. if the borer is allowed to work out his life history in that tree and girdle it. Many imagine that orchards are subject to other ailments. but the holding of such opinions is the result of incomplete investigation. The borer is at the bottom of it when a tree dies in this county from other than accidental causes.

DRAINAGE OF OVERFLOW LANDS.

Previous to the digging of the drainage ditches through the rich bot- tom lands of the main stream of the Nemaha river and the north and south forks of the Nemaha. the bottom lands. although the richest in the world. were unproductive to a great extent : worth very little for farming pur- poses, and valued very low in dollars and cents. and were subject to fre- quent overflow. The old channel of the Nemaha and its two forks is very crooked and inadequate to carry the great volume of water which comes down the valley in time of heavy rains in the spring and summer season. The farmer who tried to sow a crop did so with the chances against him. the odds being in favor of the river overflowing and destroying the crop

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before it was ready to harvest. It was to be expected that someone or group of individuals would eventually undertake to redeem this vast acreage of appearently worthless land and make it fit for crop production by re- moving the flood menace through the digging of drainage ditches. The movement began in 1903, when the first agitation for a drainage ditch was commenced. Then it was discovered that Nebraska had no laws providing for incorporating drainage districts, and also that permission had to be obtained from the federal government in order to incorporate the Indian lands along the lower stretches of the Nemaha within the district. These difficulties were overcome, however, and drainage district No. I was suc- cessfully undertaken and the ditch pushed to completion. Three drainage districts Nos. 1, 2, and 4. are now in successful operation in Richardson county, and a second attempt is now being made to revive the defeated project for drainage district No. 3, which is intended to drain the overflow lands of the Muddy river.

HISTORY OF DRAINAGE DISTRICT NO. I.

Drainage district No. I begins at the mouth of the Nemaha river, where it empties into the Missouri, and drains the Nemaha valley as far as Dawson. The river, before the completion of the drainage ditch, had a total length of sixty-five miles from Dawson to its mouth. This distance has been shortened to a length of thirty-one miles, and vast benefit to the contiguous lands has been noticeable. Fifty-three miles of public highway were affected and the benefit to the highways has been estimated by engi- neers to exceed seventy-seven thousand dollars. Thirty thousand acres of rich land are directly affected and drained by the completed ditch. The fall of the stream as it flows through the new channel has an average of three and one-half feet to the mile. The project was started at a time when there were no drainage laws on the statutes of the state of Nebraska. The promoters of the undertaking. however, succeded in having a wise law enacted by the state Legislature and the work moved onward to a success- ful conclusion.

The Legislature of Nebraska at the session of 1905. enacted a drain- age law more comprehensive than any then existing in the statute books of this state. This drainage act. with subsequent amendments, is found in Statutes of 1907. Compiled Statutes of Nebraska, Chapter eighty-nine. Article four, Sections one to thirty-seven.

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Under the provisions of this statute the owners of about sixteen thou- sand acres of wet and overflowed lands signed articles of association and organized themselves into a drainage district with outlines embracing twen- ty-six thousand acres and presented a petition to the district court of Rich- ardson county, asking to be declared a public corporation of Nebraska. After all the parties whose lands or interests were affected were brought into court and after proper hearing on all contested matters, the court entered a decree on the 14th of February, 1906, duly establishing and forming the organization into drainage district No. 1, of Richardson county, Ne- braska, as prayed for by the petitioners, with boundaries as modified by the court, and declaring the drainage district a public corporation of the state.

On the 17th day of March thereafter the landowners of the drainage district assembled at the court house in Falls City, and elected as a board of supervisors, Daniel Riley, R. E. Grinstead, J. H. Miles, C. F. Pribbeno and J. P. Mooney, to carry out the provisions of the drainage law and the pur- pose of the drainage organization. The board qualified and organized by electing J. H. Miles, chairman, and J. P. Mooney, secretary, and employed A. M. Munn, a drainage engineer, to make the survey, maps, plats, esti- mates, schedules and plans required by section 9 of the drainage act.

In December, 1906, the engineer filed his report with the board and notice was given to all parties affected as required by section 13 of the act. and on February 2, 1907, and subsequently hearings were had upon the objections and claims filed under sections 14 and 15, and upon the con- clusion of the hearings and the equalization of the assessments on April 27, 1908, the board levied the same assessments against the land and other property in the district and certified the same to the county clerk as pro- vided in section 18. The engineer reported that other lands than those incorporated originally by the decree of the court would be benefited by the drainage improvement and these, by a subsequent proceeding in the district court instituted under the provisions of section II were added to the district and notice was also given of the assessments upon these added lands and a hearing was had thereon.

Within the limits of the district were found certain lands belonging to members of the Iowa tribe of Indians and the Sac and. Fox tribe of Indians. These lands could not be taxed under existing laws. To permit these Indian lands to be reclaimed. the Congress of the United States enacted a law, approved June 14, 1906, the title being as follows: "An act to enable the Indians allotted lands in severalty within the boundaries

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of district No. I, in Richardson county, Nebraska, to protect their lands from overflow, and for the segregation of such of said Indians from their tribal relations as may be expedient and for other purposes." The lands have all been allotted,. and the funds segregated, but the secretary of the interior has held back fifty-seven thousand dollars belonging to these Indians against the Indian lands.

When drainage district No. I was established and declared a public corporation by decree of court, February 14, 1906, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad took an appeal to the supreme court from the order in- cluding its roadbed in the district and making the railroad company an in- voluntary member of the political organization known as drainage district No. I. In the supreme court the railroad company assailed the constitu- tionality of the act under which the district was organized. No such ques- tion has been raised in the lower court, and when the railroad company first disclosed its purpose in its brief filed in April, 1907, attacking the drainage law on that ground, the board of supervisors thought it wise to suspend active work until the supreme court passed upon the question pre- sented. On December 7, 1907, the court filed an opinion holding the act con- stitutional in respect to the points on which it was assailed, but the second contention of the railroad company that it was not "A necessary party to the proceeding in the district court to declare the drainage district a public corporation," was sustained.

Before the landowners organized this drainage district they appealed to the powers at Washington for expert assistance to determine for them whether the wet, submerged and overflowed lands of the Nemaha river could be reclaimed and protected. The department of agriculture sent C. G. Elliot, engineer in charge of drainage investigation, who looked the situation over and reported that the work was feasible and the valley could be reclaimed at reasonable cost. After the survey by A. M. Munn, the engineers employed by the drainage board, had been reported, the board called to his assistance C. G. Elliot, expert drainage engineer, who approved the plans and estimates of the engineer in charge of the work. The esti- mates were liberal. and the report set out that the works and improvements formulated and agreed upon could be constructed safely within the esti- mates, the total estimated cost being $285,900. The number of acres in the district are as follows: Sac and Fox Indians, 2,392.72; Iowa Indians, 378.67; other lands, 26,630.90; total, 29,402.29.

The maximum assessment provided for was nine dollars and seventeen

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cents an acre. These lands were assessed for state and county purposes at a valuation of twenty-five to fifty dollars per acre, while the adjoining uplands were assessed at from fifty to one hundred dollars per acre. In addition to assessments against the lands the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad was assessed $16,014; the Missouri Pacific railroad, $3,500; the county, on its public roads, $18,600, a total of $38,114.

On June 15, 1908, the board of supervisors authorized the issuance of negotiable bonds to the amount of $260,000 to defray the immediate cost of the undertaking, the bonds to bear date of June 30, 1908, and to mature in different years; the first bond being redeemable or reaching ma- turity on July 1, 1913, and the last portion of the issue reaching maturity on July 1, 1927. The bonds were issued by the board of supervisors, who were as follow: Daniel Riley, chairman; J. P. Mooney, secretary ; R. E. Grinstead, J. H. Miles, V. F. Pribbeno, A. R. Keim, attorney, and A. M. Munn, engineer.

The drainage ditch was completed in 1913, just five years after the actual work of dredging was begun. Bonds to the amount of $202,000, bearing interest at six per cent. were issued. The grand total cost of the ditch to date has been $297,564.

Thomas Wilkinson, of Dawson, is the present chairman of district No. I, and C. F. Bucholz is secretary. Since the completion of the ditch many landowners have supplemented the work by ditching and tiling their own lands as individuals and are reaping considerable benefits from the ven- ture in the way of increased crop yields. Over one thousand acres of land in the bottoms are now tile drained and other owners are making preparations to lay tile for the purpose of more rapidly draining the soil in time of heavy rains.

The drainage on the main channel of the Nemaha river has not been a complete success, because of the fact that too much of the old channel of the stream was used. In the further dredging of the south fork of the Nemaha the district is getting away from this method and is dredging an entirely new channel, it being noticeable that in places where the old channel was abandoned entirely it very rapidly filled up and the new stream was worn deeper by erosion, thus making a more rapid current to carry away. the surplus flood waters.

J. H. Miles, owner of the great Miles ranch in the vicinity of Dawson, dredged a continuation of the ditch incorporated in district No. I, on his

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own account through his land on the upper end or terminus of district No. I. Mr. Miles completed three miles of ditch, which is of vast benefit to his bottom ranch lands.

DRAINAGE DISTRICT NO. 4.

Drainage district No. 4 begins at the terminus of the Miles ditch and continues to the county line for a distance of six and one-half miles. This ditch drains a total of three thousand four hundred acres and the flowing water has a fall of four feet to the mile and is now in charge of County Engineer J. F. Relf. The estimated cost of this ditch is fifty-nine thou- sand dollars. The work in this district is well under way and is being dredged along plans formulated from knowledge gleaned from the dredging of the ditch in district No. I. John E. Wissler is chairman of the board of super- visors in this district.

DRAINAGE DISTRICT NO. 2.

Drainage district No. 2 extends from Dawson to the county line north- west of Humboldt and embraces a total of five thousand eight hundred acres.

COUNTY FAIR AND AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITS.

The Richardson county fair ceased to be an institution in the year 1894. During the long career of the fair and agricultural exhibit it was easily the most popular institution in this section of Nebraska. The first fair was organized in 1867 and the fair grounds were laid out at Salem in one of the most picturesque and beautifully wooded spots in the West, along the banks of the Nemaha river. Nature has so endowed this spot, located just to the east of the town of Salem, that it was a natural recreation ground shaded with great, natural forest trees and well watered and carpeted with velvety blue-grass. A splendid race-track, one-half mile in circum- ference, was laid out, and for years the race meets were exciting and inter- esting events in connection with the fair. An impetus was given to the breeding of racing animals and fine live stock, and many of the old-time horsemen bred horses which became famous the country over for speed and endurance on the track. The late John W. Holt was one of the prime movers in the establishment of the county fair; Ralph Anderson served as

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president of the Fair Association for a number of years; many of those who were prominently identified with the association have gone to their rewards in the life eternal and owing to the lack of recorded data available concerning the history of the county fair it is impossible to give any very authentic account of the various fairs which were held for nearly thirty years on the Salem grounds.

The county fair was an institution to which people looked forward during the year, when, with the crops laid aside and care thrown to the winds, entire families would gather at Salem for the one great event of the whole year. Everybody deemed it necessary to attend the fair and there were hundreds of exhibitors at each annual session. The Salem fair was -the annual reunion and home-coming meet for the greater part of south- eastern Nebraska during the heyday of its prosperity. With the coming of the nineties and the advent of the chautauquas in the land the popularity of the county fair gradually waned and the yearly chautauqua has taken its place. The county fair ceased to exist after 1894 and the chautauqua then came into its own. The first chautauqua in the county was held at the Salem fair grounds and soon became an even more popular institution than the annual fair. Before the popularity of the automobile had reached such a great height, as high as ten thousand people attended the Salem chautauqua and a large part of this number lived in tents throughout the session. Such famous men as Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. General Gordon, Gov. Bob Taylor, of Tennessee, T. Dewitt Talmage, and Sam Jones, the great evangelist, were among the attractions during the early years of the chau- tauqua. Of late years several chautauquas are held in the county each season, practically every town in Richardson county having its list of attractions during the late summer season, and it is evident that the chautauqua has come to stay as an established institution. Attempts to resuscitate the county fair at different times of late years have not been successful.

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF RICHARDSON COUNTY.

By J. O. Shroyer.

A thousand years ago the Indian recognized these beautiful valleys, the gently undulating uplands and the sunny hillsides as the land of homes. The mighty Missouri, the winding Nemahas and the wandering creeks pro- vided wood, shelter and water.

The first wanderers who crossed the desert, paused here on the edge

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of the great unknown and recuperated their forces before plunging into the terrors of an unpathed wilderness. The flowing waters, sheltering timber belts and the luxuriant pasturage recuperated their stock and put energy into the human heart. When the first real homemaker rafted across the river and ascended the bluffs of the western shore, he turned his eyes back toward the Eastern home. He remembered those groves, orchards, productive fields; he thought of the well-filled granaries, those splendid gardens and all the comforts of that far-off land. But as he turned his face to the West the rising sun of that splendid morning dashed a golden glow over the landscape, the fogs lifted from the valleys of the Nemahas and drifted off into the azure of a perfect day; the emeralds of the hills and plains caught a little of the gilt of the sunlight, the darker sombers of the timber belts lay enticingly winding away, the prairies were dotted by the golden flowers of the gumweed, the crimson of the phlox, the tawn of the lily, the purity of the plum and the chokecherry. The wild cucumber was just clambering over the tops of the underbrush along the streams, and the clematis clung more sturdily to the chosen tree, while the wild grape flung its flaunting tendrils graspingly towards the swaying bough, put- ting forth the bloom that should later be followed by the purple fruits of autumn.

There he saw the deer, antelope, and buffalo; he saw the plover, wild duck, the honking goose and the everpresent grouse. And as the rising sunlight began to simmer the ether of the plains, his vision blurred, and in the optimism of the hour a new and a greater land lay smilingly before him. He saw the homesteads spring up over the land, he saw the fields of waving corn, the herds of cattle; he saw the wild fowl translated into flocks of poultry and, vision of visions, he saw a thousand spires of smoke arising from the firesides of a thousand homes.

Then the development went on, and he beheld the church spires as they pointed upward, he saw the children playing about the school maid. as she cared for them and moulded them into characters of worth. He saw more than corn and wheat, cattle, hogs and fruits; he saw a great com- monwealth producing sturdy men and women. to go forth building a greater and a better nation than the world had ever known.

Who was the first man to grasp the plow and urge his strong oxen across the wild sod and watch the ribbon of chocolate loam that strung out its productive length as he trailed across a chosen plot of ground? No

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man knows; his name is not recorded, but the inspiration and example of his act, the success of his achievement, taught a thousand imitators, and unawares a great agricultural industry sprang up.

FIRST RURAL HOME BUILDING IN RICHARDSON COUNTY.

Forty years ago we visited one of the real pioneer homes of Nebraska, it was on the north bank of Porter run, and the owner was a pioneer of the true type.

He had dug out a cavern and walled it with stones from the creek, a joint of pipe projected through the roof at the north end, a door opened to the sunny end on the south. In one room they had lived and reared a family of boys and girls. Far and near it was known as the dug-out of Tommy Hodkins. The nearby timber provided his fuel, the spring on the creek the water, the luxuriant grass the food for his oxen, the wild meat of the plains his food, supplemented by a little flour or meal transported in the earlier days from Nebraska City. Few of the children from those very earliest homes ever stayed to enjoy the fruits of their fathers' exer- tion and ambition. They inherited the wild instinct of the pioneer; they loved the open lands, and the encroachments of the second brigade of settlers drove them on into the lands of the setting sun. But this type of home was the first and it was a comfortable retreat from the blasts of winter.

The breaking plow was the first requirement in the way of farm ma- chinery: it was a long-beamed, low-built affair and had a long curving mouldboard that gently turned the sod and left it in an unbroken ribbon. It had a standing cutter and a depth-ganging wheel at the end of the beam. Then came the "grasshopper" plow. It had long rods curved in mouldboard fashion that turned the sod, and the share was a flat steel blade that sat perfectly flat in the furrow and cut a root or stem in parallel stroke.

I have followed both these plows down the long furrow and have often sorrowed as they turned a plover nest, with its speckled eggs, or caught a full dozen prairie chicken eggs and whirled them under the sod. Sometimes it was different when a two-foot rattlesnake came buzzing up with the sod and the driver jumped swiftly over the handles and onto the beam to avoid the poison fangs. The little six-inch lizard often left his tail wriggling in the grass and hurried off to shelter. The swift, darting blueracer glittered in the sun as he sped more swiftly than any reptile and

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 26

Author: Edwards, Lewis C Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1742

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742