John C. Lane of Grant Township

John C. Lane had the following letter published in the Pioneer Magnet (Big Rapids, Mecosta County, Michigan) from Thursday May 9, 1878.

John C. Lane found on Page 1 Column 4

I purchased 120 acres of land in the town of Grant in 1869, for which I paid $7.00 an acre.  Commenced clearing the next spring, and have 80 acres under cultivation at the present time.  Wheat has averaged twenty bushels per acre.  On new ground I have raised sixty bushels of spring wheat on two acres.  My oats have yielded sixty bushels per acre; average, thirty-five bushels.  I have raised as high as fifty bushels of buckwheat per acre; average, twenty bushels.  Corn does well.  Dent corn has always ripened, excepting only one year.  Hay has been my principal crop.  It has averaged one and a half tons per acre.  Have sold for $25 per ton at the barn, but for the last two years have only received $10 per ton.  Vegetables do well.  In fact I never saw better anywhere.  I seeded down to grass as fast as I cleared, and have commenced breaking up my meadows this spring.  Stumps are all rotted on the forty acres first cleared.  My soil is clay loam, and some sand.  Timber - beech, maple, elm, and lynn.  We have good water and a very healthy climate.  My farm is seven miles north-east of Big Rapids and my P.O. address is Paris.

                Dated April 8, 1878 - John C. Lane


I copied the section from the Atlas of Mecosta County, Michigan, below, for John C. Lane's property.  There isn't much online for this family.  His census page for 1880 is located across two pages so I didn't copy that.