Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/574



penetrated the great plains, that they began to use corn and slough hay for fuel. There was no market for corn within one or two days’ travel and when the market was reached, eight or ten cents a bushel was all that a farmer could get for his load. A large load would sometimes bring him from four to five dollars.

This was the pay for raising forty bushels of corn on an acre of his farm, husking it and transporting the load a journey of two or three days with his team. The proceeds of his load would pay for about a ton of coal which he must draw back to his home and which would furnish about as much heat as the load of corn sold. It did not take the settler long to see that he might far better burn the corn at home and save a perilous journey in mid-winter over the bleak prairies, often at the risk of his life. He learned to twist the long coarse slough hay into ropes with which to start his corn fire and utilized a home grown vegetable production to furnish heat in place of the expensive foreign mineral production of the same earth upon which he lived. Persons of the luxurious homes of distant countries and states read of the burning of corn, in the morning paper by a comfortable grate fire, and were horrified at the reckless destruction of food by the western prairie farmers.

As the railroads were slowly extended westward in Iowa settlements were made along the projected lines far out on the wild prairies in anticipation of their coming. Towns were laid out along the lines of survey and a new impetus was given to all branches of business.

The public school system of Iowa had been a gradual evolution from the First Territorial Legislature which, in 1839, took the incipient steps toward its organization, by the passage of an act which provided that:

“There shall be established a common school or schools in each of the counties of the Territory, which shall be open and free for every class of white citizens between the ages of five and twenty-one. The county board