. The story of agriculture in the United States. years residence required,soldiers could get homesteads quickly. Railroad buildingwas making rapid progress in these states, and the com-panies were holding out strong inducements to latter were nearly all poor people, who came withfew tools and implements and little household lived for the first years in dugouts, instead ofin log cabins, for timber was not so plentiful as it wasfarther east, and the prairie sod was thick and building a dugout, an excavation about 12 by 14 feetin size was made in the side of a
. The story of agriculture in the United States. years residence required,soldiers could get homesteads quickly. Railroad buildingwas making rapid progress in these states, and the com-panies were holding out strong inducements to latter were nearly all poor people, who came withfew tools and implements and little household lived for the first years in dugouts, instead ofin log cabins, for timber was not so plentiful as it wasfarther east, and the prairie sod was thick and building a dugout, an excavation about 12 by 14 feetin size was made in the side of a hill. In each cornerwas set a heavy forked timber, and poles were laid uponthese, across the four sides. Split logs or lumber werethen laid upon the poles, upon which the thick sod restedand formed a sohd roof. Sometimes a piece of canvaswas stretched beneath to form a ceiling. The floormight be of puncheons, or of dirt pounded hard andcovered with corn husk mats. The sides of the dugoutwere built up of sod, though the front was often of logs. THE WESTWARD MARCH OF WHEAT 221 or stone. Not infrequently the entire hut was built onthe level prairie with sides and roof of sod. In these temporary homes, with homemade furnitureand few comforts, many a prairie farmer and his wife be-gan their struggle for abetter life. Soon thedugouts gave place toneat white crops were abundant;the sod or breakingcrop of wheat or corn A Sod House often paid for the land. Then, because there was littleclearing to be done, the farmers enlarged their acresrapidly, and soon became well-to-do. Like their brothersof the North Central states, the Kansas or Nebraskafarmers of the seventies broke hundreds of thousands ofacres of wild land each year and sowed them to were the years of the great Kansas success of the early comers gave rise to exaggeratedreports of the ease with which any farmer might get rich,so the settlers swarmed out upon the prairies in increas-ing number
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
