He is not in the nursery business, except in the way that it will benefit and improve his home, his neighborhood, his county and his state.

In one distinctive feature has Sheridan county passed all her contemporaries. Potash production in Nebraska, as an industry, is practically confined to this county, although frayed edges are over the county lines in adjoining and nearby counties. "Sand hills gold," as it has been called, seems to have been intended for Sheridan county alone.

The first factory of consequence was built at Hoffland, and produced for some time in a quiet way, until the war broke out, and then, "the cat was out of the bag." There were big profits in potash, and factory after factorycame into existence. Some of these were built without much source of supply, and other people waxed rich in accumulating potash leases. Some of these leases were obtained by the initiate, who failed to enlighten those who were selling ; others were made at the insistence of the seller when neither the selling party or the buyer knew of the value. When the Hord interests were buying some ranch lands, they purchased a tract from one A. Simonson, an attorney then practicing in Alliance. One1 eighty contained a sour lake, which it is stated Mr. Hord offered to let Simonson retain if he would cut the price one hundred dollars. Simonson insisted that it go with the others. Later it proved worth many thousand dollars for the potash it contained. On another occasion John Krause bought some land containing a lake from a party named Long. It developed that Krause had made an examination and knew the lake to be rich in potash. In the courts Long recovered something over seventy thousand dollars, said to be the value of the product Krause had taken from him without just compensation.