Agricultural Prospects in 1859
Letters to the Nebraska Farmer
The first issue of Robert W. Furnas's Nebraska Farmer was published in October of 1859 in Brownville. Furnas (who had established ...
agriculture
What We Found
Agricultural Trains
Nebraska railroads were much concerned with developing an adequate economy in the areas they served. The Burlington had a long history of promoting the welfare of its ...
Pests on the Plains: The Potato Bug
With the sole exception of grasshoppers, perhaps the most hated insects to afflict the pioneer farmer were potato bugs. So prevalent were they at one time in Nebraska ...
John H. Powers
John H. Powers (1831-1918) of Trenton is best remembered in Nebraska history for his work with the Farmers Alliance and for his unsuccessful gubernatorial race on the ...
James M. Ross Letter
James M. Ross, a Johnson County settler in the 1860s, wrote several letters to his father in Illinois describing the geography and the agricultural prospects of his new ...
Almanacs and Weather Forecasts
Almanacs were standard literature in most Nebraska homes in the late 1800s and well into the 1900s. These calendar-like handbooks were compendiums of odd bits of ...
Tractor Evolution
When the Russians visited the tractor testing laboratory on the campus of the College of Agriculture, they not only were visiting the most famous facility of this kind ...
Water Shortage
The economically devastating years of the early 1890s created hardship for many Nebraska residents. In 1893, for example, crops in Nebraska were almost totally destroyed ...
Grasshoppers, Letter from Carleton, NE
During the grasshopper infestations of the mid-1870s, Nebraska boosters were hesitant to advertise the state's distress, fearing that immigration and investment would be ...
Grasshoppers, Othman A. Abbott’s Description
Pioneer lawyer Othman A. Abbott of Hall County was Nebraska's first lieutenant governor and a member of the constitutional conventions of 1871 and 1875. In 1928 Abbott ...
Grasshoppers, Lawrence Bruner’s Campaign
"Among the insects which do great damage are grasshoppers, and these are especially numerous this season," said The Western Stockman and Cultivator (Omaha), July 15, ...
Grasshoppers, 1876
The 1870s are remembered as grasshopper years in Nebraska, although the insects visited the state on a number of occasions over the years since 1857, doing more or less ...
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