USA > Nebraska > Adams County > Past and present of Adams County, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 2
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Adams County, being 24 miles square, contains 376 square miles, embracing 368,646 acres. There is a gradual rise of height above sea level as one travels from east to west across the county. The eleva- tion at Hastings is 1,934 feet: at Hansen it is 1,949 feet: at Pauline, 1,777: at Roseland, 1,969; at Holstein, 2,011; at Leroy, 1,860.
In the southern part of Adams County the Little Blue River with a number of tributary creeks which form its headwaters flows in a general easterly direction looping north, however, at a point about directly south of Hastings. The Platte River cuts off a very small corner of the northwest part of the county in Kenesaw Town- ship. These two are the only rivers in the county. The Little Blue is formed from its creeks at a point about twelve miles southwest of the Village of Ayr. It flows in a general northeast direction until to nearly the east side of Ayr Township when it takes a southeast direc- tion through Hanover and Little Blue townships. After leaving Adams County it continues its southeast course, crossing portions of Clay and Nuekolls counties and then crosses Thayer County from west to east, after which it increases its southern swerve in Jefferson
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County, finally entering the Blue River near Blue Rapids in Mar- shall County, Kansas, some ten miles below Marysville.
While the Little Blue is a small stream, often in dry weather no more than a few inches deep, it is the principal stream in the county from the point of attraction. Natural timber grows upon its banks and therefore it affords opportunities for picnics and is used consid- erably for that purpose. It also affords some fishing, channel cat being the species most sought. In dry weather the road which in many places winds among the timber affords a picturesque drive for automobiles. When flood conditions prevail in seasons of much rain- fall or following the thaw of much snow the Little Blue attains to a mile or more in width. Sharp hills border the stream for a mile or so on both sides of the river.
The creeks which give rise to the Little Blue for the most part How into it from the north side. These creeks are generally dry, but after heavy rains and thaws a large volume of water is carried by them into the river. Thirty-two Mile Creek enters the Blue on the north side. This creek rises in the south central part of Verona Township and flows in a general southeast direction passing about a half mile west of Juniata. It enters Denver Township on the west side of section 30, and shortly afterwards it makes a sharp looping turn flowing northeast before turning sharply south. It enters the Blue on section 26 in Ayr Township.
Pawnee Creek rises in Verona Township and flows northeast. It enters Denver near the northwest corner, cuts off the southwest corner of Blaine and then flows south to about the center of Hanover, where it turns to the east and flows across the latter township.
Cottonwood Creek enters Wanda Township near the northwest corner; it flows east about two miles and then takes a southeasterly direction across Wanda and Cottonwood townships, reaching the Blue on the west side of section 10 in Silver Lake Township, about a mile north and a little west of Silver Lake.
Sand Creek rises near the western side of the county in Cotton- wood Township and runs along the northeast corner of Logan enter- ing Silver Lake Township about a mile and there entering the Blue. Crooked Creek, Ash Creek and Oak Creek enter the Blue from the south side in Little Blue Township. West Blue Creek rises near Hastings and flows in a northeasterly direction across West Blue Township. It ultimately reaches the Big Blue River near Crete.
Silver Lake lies near the center of the township that bears the same name. This body of water is shaped much like a horseshoe with the opening to the north. The greater part of the lake lies in the
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northwest and northeast quarters of section 15, though both tips of the horseshoe extend aeross the road into the respective quarters of section 10. At its closest point to the BIne, which is on seetion 10, the lake is within about ten rods of the river. It does not flow into the river, however, except at periods of very high water. The inhabi- tants of the vieinity say that the water in the lake is not as high now, 1916, as it was generally some twenty years ago. At that time there was considerable boating on the lake, but it has diminished in reeent years.
At the present time the lake is usually only about three feet deep in the deepest places and of course mueh shallower over a good deal of the surface. It is fed by rains and thaws, although in the south- west eorner there is a spring. A peculiarity of this spring is that it is not observable unless the summer should be a dry one. In that event the spring is seen to begin to flow early in September, and pre- vents the lake from becoming dry. If the lake were laid out in a straight line it would be about a mile and one-half in length. Ordi- narily it is about fifteen rods in width but when there is great rainfall it swells to some one hundred and twenty rods in width. In season there are numbers of wild dueks on this water, but they do not fre- quent it in anything like the numbers that were found here twenty years ago. This lake is the only natural lake in the county. It never becomes entirely dry, although when the drought is prolonged a few puddles, due to the spring, are all that save the reputation of the lake.
Following the course of the Platte in Kenesaw Township a low range of sandhills extends. The sandhills follow at a distance of a mile or so from the Platte. In the west eentral part of Wanda town- ship, too, sandhills are found. embracing an area of perhaps four seetions. Some more sandhills are found in the western part of Cottonwood Township.
The following is a general topographical description of the county by townships. Little Blue, rough along Blue River and creeks: rest smooth and rolling. Hanover, mostly rolling and fertile; south part somewhat rough. Blaine, generally level, smooth and fertile; very little low land. West Blue, about two-thirds rolling, smooth land; rest rather rough along ereeks.
Zero, south half, rolling fine land; north half some rough; all fertile. Ayr, rough along Blue River and ereeks; balance rolling; all fertile. Denver, southern part some rough; balanee rolling; all very fertile. Highland, smooth, gently rolling; very little low land and very little rough.
Silver Lake, rough and some sand along the Blue River; balance
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rolling and fertile. Roseland, nearly all rich, smooth land: some rough in south part. Juniata, some rough along creeks; balance all smooth, good land. Verona, gently rolling, all rich and fertile: no waste land.
Logan, rough along the creeks; balance, fine rolling land. Cot- tonwood, about one-third rough and sandy; rest fine, fertile land. Wanda, west third rough with some sandy spots; balance smooth and rolling. Kenesaw, north half rough and sandy in places; south half rolling, fine land.
The rapid development of Adams County since its organization in 1871 suggests that there was behind this movement a strong pres- sure of population that urged the people to look for homes in the new and undeveloped prairie country. And such was the case. Many of the newcomers were from Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indi- ana. The resources of these states had caused them to be quickly populated from the old Atlantic seaboard and neighboring states. For this reason emigration was in the traditions of the people so that they did not shrink, at least to no forbidding extent, from seeking their fortunes in the prairie land. At home the price of land had increased to a point that made its acquisition a very difficult matter to those who had little more than youth and ambition with which to attack the problem, and these heard gladly the call of the new land.
Adams County, then, was in the path of the stream of people flowing westward from the East, crossing the Missouri River and pouring into Nebraska and Kansas. Towns twinkled into being here and there on the vast domain of the prairie wilderness with a regu- larity that presaged of the future. Isolated, indeed, were the sod shanties of the early pioneers but from time to time they felt the consciousness of the country growing and felt something of the sus- taining force that comes of the knowledge that one is not alone. that his hardships, experiences and hopes are those common to others.
The act creating Nebraska a territory became a law seventeen years before Adams County was established. This was May 30, 1854. The territorial officers appointed by President Pierce, with Governor Burt as chief executive, did not arrive at Bellevue, then the only town of pretension in the territory, until October 7th of that year. Thirteen years later, February, 1867, Nebraska was admitted into the Union as a state, during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. Four years after this, in 1871, Adams County was organized: very nearly then does the history of the county date as far back as the history of Nebraska as a state. At the time of the organization of the county, Secretary of State W. H. James was acting governor in
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
the place of David Butler, the first state governor who, earlier in the year, had been removed from office following impeachment upon the charge of misappropriating state funds.
At this time there was for the encouragement of the early settlers the ever coming stream of eastern immigrants. A territorial census taken in 1855 showed the population of Nebraska to be 4,491. In 1870 it had increased to 122,993. By the time that Adams County was organized a school system had been established in thirty-one Nebraska counties, and signs of pioneer settlers' activities were visi- ble in the immediately surrounding territory. To the northward Hall County had officers by appointment as early as 1858; eastward, the postoffice in Harvard, Clay County, was established in Decen- ber. 1871, while the population of that county the previous year was 54. Webster County, to the south, was organized in 1871.
CHAPTER II ADAMS COUNTY SOILS AND CLIMATE BY PROF. WALTER J. KENT, HASTINGS COLLEGE
To get a correct understanding of the nature and kinds of soils it will be necessary to go back somewhat into the geological history of the earth. This land upon which we are producing our wheat and corn has had a history which extends far back when the world was in process of formation. No one knows or can scarcely form a concep- tion of the vast extent of time which has been required to make a fertile soil out of what was first solid rocks. We say rocks, leaving out of the consideration possible times of a gaseous or a liquid condi- tion of the earth. We might say in just a sentence in passing that this earth is supposed to have begun it's existence as a body of gas thrown off from the sun, then to have gradually cooled down into a liquid and afterward a solid body or a body with a solid crust over the surface. The condition of the interior of the earth is still an open question, but there is a probability that it is an intensely heated but solid mass of matter.
In the cooling of this mass of gas there was formed a spherical body covered over with water and surrounded by an envelope of air. Under the water there was a solid crust of matter in the form of rocks, or a layer of granite rock to be exact. When this body of gas cooled, three distinet forms of matter separated-air, water, and solid rock. Difference in density caused these to take the positions mentioned before, the rock below, then the water, and the air still above the water.
The interior of the earth is known to be intensely heated and violent disturbanees cansing elevations and subsidences in the crust of the earth have at times occurred. In this way the land in places arose from the sea. But this land was in all cases solid rock of a granite formation. From this granite rock all our soil has been formed. At first mostly sand but afterward changing into clay and all stages between sand and clay. A granite rock is composed of
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
several distinct kinds of matter. There are particles of quartz, of feldspar, and of mica, and sometimes of other mineral matter. Now when a granite rock decomposes, due to the action of the atmosphere, the quartz particles form grains of sand, feldspar forms clay directly. Sand will also decay under some conditions and form clay. Much of our Adams County soil is yellow clay from decayed sandstone. This stone once formed the surface of the land but percolating water has caused it to decay to a depth of more than one hundred feet in many places. That is, we have a hundred feet of yellow clay before we reach the rock. This sandstone was once granite but dissolved under the erosion of the atmosphere into sand. This sand was then buried under rivers and beds of water. Here under pressure it was com- pressed into sandstone, then an elevation of the earth's crust occurred and the sandstone was brought to the surface. Since that time there has been this slow decay by the water until the present when we may find many feet of yellow clay before we come to the more solid rock below.
It will be understood that this is a very brief outline of the geologi- cal history of our soil. More extended discussion will not belong to this work. A survey of the whole State of Nebraska shows four dis- tinct regions each with a different type of soil. The eastern portion has a layer or covering that is called glacial drift. Then to the west and south, which includes Adams County, windblown soil. To the southwest there is a layer of volcanic ashes, commonly called alkali soil. Then in the northern and northwestern part we find the sand- hills, which were either carried there by water or possibly were in part windblown.
This soil east of Adams County which we call glacial drift was brought there from the country lying to the northeast of the state. It was carried there by immense fields of moving ice which at one time in the history of the earth came down from the north. This movement of glaciers or ice fields carried great masses of rocks which were left when the ice afterward melted because of a change in the conditions upon this portion of the earth. Many rocks in the form of boulders not yet decaved into soil are still to be seen in this portion of the state.
The history of the alkali soil is quite peculiar. A long time back in the formation of the world the mountains to the west contained many volcanoes that were constantly sending off smoke and cinders of lava. The prevailing winds were then as now from the west. This carried all the smoke and lava to the east where it was deposited over the land. The immense amount of time when these processes con-
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tinued may be inferred from the depth of the deposits. These vary from a few feet to more than thirty feet in some places on the west- ern boundary of the state. This volcanic ash has been much wind- blown and has undergone many changes due to the action of the atmosphere. As a result of all these agencies we have our alkali soils.
The northwestern sandhills, which are the result of granite rocks eroded by water, also carried by water or by the winds, and our Adams County soil, much windblown, will need no further explanation. The many changing causes of all these different kinds of Nebraska soils may be understood from this brief description. Mention should also be made of recent soil formation along some of our rivers. These alluvial deposits result from overflows at times of floods and are seen especially in the valley of the Platte River.
During the long intervals of time many changes in temperature have occurred. At first intensely heated, the earth has cooled until all parts are habitable though the equatorial regions are still tropical in climate. This cooling of the earth's surface began in the polar localities and gradually spread to the south. All our present animals and plants came down to us from the north where their ancestors are now to be found buried under the ice and snow and preserved in the rocks in the form of fossils. This region itself was at one time trop- ical in temperature. The coal beds of Kansas and of Wyoming are formed of palms and other trees now found only to the Far South. This type of vegetation once grew luxuriantly in this state in former ages of its history. Buried by the upheavals and subsidences of the crust of the earth, we now find it in places partially petrified in the form which we call coal.
The native animals themselves have changed much. At one time the mastodon and the mammoth, which are supposed to be the ances- tors of the present day elephant, lived in this county. These huge animals which resembled the elephant of today were larger than any land animals which we now know. Their skeletons are found in sand beds which may have been ancient river courses. Many bones from the skeletons of these animals have been found near Brickton in Adams County. There can be no doubt that these very old types of the elephant family with long trunks and immense tusks once roamed over this county as well as the entire state. Nebraska has been also the home of many other curious but now extinct ani- mals. Among these are the ancestors of the horse which we now use as a domestic working animal. The horse which we now know came to us with our European ancestors. But in times back an animal
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
somewhat resembling the horse lived in Nebraska. The skeletons of the horselike animals have been found in several places.
In the ages past this part of the country has been at times above the sea and at other times covered with water. All this has been determined by examining the fossil forms of animal life preserved in the rocks. Not far from us in the State of Kansas many skeletons of very large fish have been found. Some of these bones would indi- cate a fish ten or more feet in length. This would imply deep water. The geological history of the earth has been that of a slowly cooling body of matter. The oldest part of the land surface in the arctics is now almost uninhabitable because of the cold. In the long distant future the whole earth will become cold and all plant and animal life will disappear.
One of the most important questions concerning soils is that of the supply of ground water or rather it might be called the under- ground water. The depth of this ground water surface below the general land level is also a very important question in every agricul- tural community. The supply of Adams County water is quite largely from the west and is at some depth in places. At other places this ground water is near the surface. The importance of this will be understood when we consider the extensive irrigation projects now being carried on in the State of Nebraska. Many farmers now own and operate small irrigation plants upon their farms. The under- ground water is pumped by means of steam or gas propelled pumps into reservoirs and then run over the land. This question of irriga- tion is far from settled in all its phases at present and is beyond the scope of this paper. But there is no reason to doubt that in the future we shall make much use of the water that now goes largely to waste as it makes its way slowly back to the rivers in the lowlands by this underground route.
A vital question in the production of farm crops in all places is this water content of the soil. After every shower of rain a large part of the waterfall sinks into the ground. Some of this water is retained by the soil near the surface and comes back again by capil- lary attraction and by roots of growing plants. Still more water sinks deep into the earth and in a large part becomes lost so far as farming operations are concerned. The amount of underground water at all places seems almost incredulous, but very careful esti- mates have been made by geologists. In Nebraska it is estimated that if all the water below the surface could be brought back it would cover the ground with a layer more than one hundred feet in depth. There is an abundance of this water below the surface to irrigate the Vol. I-2
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
land for many generations to come. The question is the cost of pumping. In some parts of this county there are places where the underground water approaches the surface. This is true in all loeali- ties where there are streams of water or even low land where there is running water. It is a rule that in the beds of rivers the underground water lies not more than a few feet below the surface and it may even approach to the surface, so that the running water of the river may be in actual contact with this water underground. Irrigation in these low places is only a matter of the small expense to bring back this water from below. In many districts of Adams County where there is high land the ground water sinks to a considerable depth. It would be necessary to go a hundred feet or more in many places to obtain sufficient water for irrigation, and here of course would come in the matter of heavy expense. Just how much land we have in this county that can be easily irrigated and how much where the cost might be excessive has never been determined and we have no way of knowing at present. But it still remains for the experiment of irrigating to be tried in Adams County on any extended scale. There are plenty of these irrigation plants in other and especially western parts of the state. The lack of need of water during many seasons has acted to deter anyone from expending any time or money to make use of this great amount of water below ground.
But if we leave out of the consideration the need of water for irrigation, the presence of the water underground has much to do with the productiveness of the land. The roots of all plants extend far deeper into the soil than generally is supposed. A depth of several feet in the roots of corn and wheat is quite common, while many plants, and especially the alfalfa, send their roots very much deeper. When we come to the forest shade-trees of course a depth of many feet is common, though there are some trees whose roots are in most part close to the surface. In general, however, the growth of the tree is largely a question of the water supply of the soil. Many trees send their roots down to where the ground is always moist, and any change such as might be caused by the digging of a ditch for drain- age of the land will cause the death of trees standing near. This death of the tree under these circumstances is to be explained by the absence of the usual water supply. The presence of many trees in Nebraska along the water courses and in low ground and their absence on high ground is a fact of very common observation. This whole matter is merely a question of water supply. With more abundant rainfall and groundwater there would never have been any prairie land in the West. Whenever in any virgin country there is
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
a lack of vegetation the cause must be sought in one of two ways, either poor soil or lack of moisture. Here in Nebraska where the early settlers found the country covered only with grasses of the very hardy varieties, unfavorable climatic conditions could be and were by many discerned at once. But to come back again to the subject of our soil water supply, here we must look for means to change natural conditions, and in this respect we are exceedingly fortunate. The supply of underground water is sufficient for all time to come since the total amount is constantly increasing by additional rains. But very little of the water from any shower of rain, no matter how heavy, runs off into the rivers and reaches the sea again in this way. It all or nearly all goes into the ground and only after many years does it seep back through underground channels to the seashore. The different layers of clay, sand and rock for a depth of several hundred feet below ground are completely saturated with water. This great volume of water is slowly moving back again to the sea whence it came in the form of vapor in clouds and rain. The importance of the work of this water in soilmaking can scarcely be overestimated. The unfortunate part about it is that it lies so far below ground that roots of ordinary plants can not reach down and bring any of this moisture back again. The flow of water underground has caused the decay of rocks and in this way a soil many feet deep has been formed. The top layer has been mixed with humus from the decayed plants until there is now one or more feet of black soil very rich in chemicals and with many bacteria, especially the nitrogen-fixing kinds. Upon this black humus soil farmers are now raising crops. The chemical content of this soil is more or less depleted with each crop. There is a question of how long will the original supply of chemicals last with- out fertilization by artificial means. So far in the history of Nebraska farming everything has been taken out of the soil and nothing put back except in the case of the alfalfa culture. This crop is peculiar in that it fertilizes the soil in the supply of nitrogen. There are cer- tain microscopic bacteria upon the roots of this plant, also on clovers of all kinds, which take nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil. This is a chemical change which takes place and the soil is enriched by the growing of this plant, at least in the nitrogen supply.
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