D. O. Van Slyke

“ As we look down once more on this valley garden land, with its little silver lakes, and shining streams, beautiful groves and undulating prairies, and try to peer into its future, we are completely overwhelmed with emotion, as we notice it is just beginning to be checkered up, by marks of intelligent human occupancy, as well as by the Indian tepee and wigwam. ”

“ Is it not a little strange that the Holy Land should be the counterpart of the regions around our garden, only ours, geologically, a little older, and at present, at least, vastly superior in productiveness and desirability as a home; and that so many things, in connection with and in addition to, the exact Bible description of the garden of Eden, and of the Holy Land, point to this place as the original garden; oldest, and best adapted place on earth for the commencement of human existence, and from which naturally to branch out, filling the Palestine around it ”

“ All the inspiration we claim, is the beauty and grandeur of the scenery, and the adaptation and facsimile, or actual description of the spot, to the description given in the Bible, a Divinely inspired book, as our guide to it.
We are aware that we are living in an age of scientific speculation, of counterfeits, and humbugs. After misguided explorers have given up the search, in the Eastern Continent, a scientest, to show his skill, must throw a cloud on the possibility of finding a literal “four rivered spot,” on earth, and gives us an ingenious unaproachable North Pole Garden. ”

“ And did not God know which was the longest river on earth, and which, with its tributaries, watered the grandest region of country on earth, Eden, when he said the garden was on it?
When all these things shall be properly understood by the public, who will not wish to come and see? Yes come and see!! “Be not faithless, but believing,” come and see!! And now may the King Eternal, banish the evil one from this place forever, and build his promised “New Jerusalem” here, or to have an extensive one within our Palestine. ”

“ Take about a hundred miles square,—of which our Garden is the centre,—and you will have some of the most charming mountain and valley scenery in the world, minus the mountains, or all in miniature, just such hills and valleys in which the youth most delight. A more appropriate region to surround the Garden we cannot conceive. While immediately outside of this region you enter upon a broad level country, principally prairie, of rich farming lands, indicating the next step in developed humanity, and the very beau ideal of an Eden ”

“ But it should be a place susceptible of, and adapted to moral and intellectual growth, and lead to the admiration, adoration, and worship of the great Builder of the universe, the Infinite and Perfect. Is there a better place for that, in all this beautiful earth, than is our garden, and its surroundings? ”

“ We do not have an unapproachable, frozen sea; or Tartarian volcanic region; or malarial swamp; or government, or company, lands to sell. Our Garden is principally owned by actual settlers. All the land I own, is a burial lot in the Galesville cemetery, and not for sale; and not many have money enough to purchase it.
But we have an Eden that challenges your attention; and a Garden that will awaken your admiration. Come and see! Please notice the natural youuthfulness of the region immediately around our Garden. ”

“ Central in this domain, Eden, is our Garden of Eden. The soil is not a deep, rich paste, like the American bottoms opposite St. Louis, on the same river, which is known to be the richest land in the world, but higher, drier, and more habitable, easily cultivated, and adapted to gardening. ”

“ One of the most desirable places for a human being to dwell. Conducive of human happiness: First, where there was a plenty of good water, for human uses, and to fertilize the land, also for fishes and fowls, and yet exempt from malarial diseases. And we ask, where can there be found another plat of earth, of the same size and surroundings, so abundantly watered, and with all the requisites for a garden, and yet so free from malaria, as is our garden of Eden. ”

“ On butter, out of 69 premiums, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin took 54, amounting to $3,364, thus leading the world.
Thus who can predict the future greatness of our garden, and the region around it; naturally exempt from cyclone—which is beginning to be one of the great terrors of man-kind—as it would require a miracle to leap a cyclone from the top of our southwestern wall, down 600 feet, on to the broad Mississippi river—and into a decidedly different atmosphere, the reason already given—and keep a whirling. ”

“ See its “Broad channels,” queer and picturesque islands, its trees and vine-clad bottoms, lovely beyond description; its general course, not meandering, but evenly hugging the base of the Minnesota bluffs, or western wall of the garden, which it does for some twenty-five miles, or from just below Winona, to just above La Crosse, running in a southeasterly and southern direction, making a beautiful curve, leaving the main garden valley on the “Eastward” bank, in the form of a section of an ampitheater, 35 miles long, 5 miles wide at each end, and 10 miles through the center. ”

“ We do say that you can find many grand valley and landscape scenes on the Mississippi, and its tributaries, and we do not wonder that good writers extol them,—should wonder if they did not,—but we further say that we have the Garden; and everything considered, not only the greatest, and grandest, and best, but the only spot on earth that answers the Bible description of that notable spot, or Garden of Eden. ”

“ The second bank is high and dry above the hightest water mark,—and generally smooth prairie, and ready in the state of nature for the garden plow—extending back on one or both sides of the river for miles, making a valley at this place, of about ten miles in the widest, when we reach the bank, bluff, or rocky wall, which rises—on each side of our garden—to the altitude of 600 feet above the river, being the point of the highest bluffs on the Mississippi. ”

“ And as man was the only intelligent being placed on earth, capable of noting time, his residence was, evidently, on that central line. Our “long” river and garden of Eden, is exactly there, on the 90th meridian of central time, as laid down on our present time table maps for this continent. ”

“ When God made man to dwell on the face of the earth, He, evidently, must place him somewhere. In giving the antldiluvians a description of the creation, and first location of man, how mankind corrupted themselves, and how God destroyed them with a flood, he simply stated the principal facts, and gave a description of the location—and it not being on that continent, he could not point it out to them—and as the country in which Noah then resided, was all new to him, and his family, no one knew where it was ”

“ Trempealeau Lake, at the head of the hanging garden, just back of the mountain, is a body, principally of spring water, and is one of the most notable fishing ponds known, attracting fishermen from far and near. “Trempealeau; surrounded, soaked, fertilized with water.” So expressive, so important to this region is the word, that the lake, the island, the mountain, the river, the county; the township, and the village are all named Trempealeau. ”

“ When God formed the earth into a globe, and set it rolling to keep it so, and started it in its orbit around the sun, and the light of the sun first flashed upon it, producing the requisite light and motion, for marking time, then, with half in light and half in shade, as round the sun earth took its flight, time on earth began. ”

“ This vast area, Eden,—containing the most fertile and habitable region of earth, and is being settled and inhabited by the most industrious, enlightened, christianized and well to-do people in the world ”

“ As good, natural grasses and plenty of the right kind of water are the material requisites necessary to successful dairying or stock-growing generally, I propose to discuss in a brief manner, and for the first time, call the attention of the public to the peculiar quality of the soil in this section, and its adaptability for successful grass growing, especially clover, and of its action, through the grasses and water, in producing a superior quality of butter. ”

“ As everything in creation was full and perfect, God wisely placed the earth in the summer solstice point of its orbit, and this continent facing the sun, so that when he placed man upon it, as to give him the benefit of harvest, and correct time, and all of which is proved by the change, God ordered, from original reckoning of time, when Israel left Egypt, Ex. ”

“ In our early settlement, over thirty years ago, Deacon Gilbert, raised, near Galesville, fifty-two bushels of wheat to the acre; and it was reported of some one raising 60. On a farm, located midway between the hanging garden and the opposite wall, purchased by D. O. VanSlyke from the government—as “Hopkins choice,” or the refuse vacant land, and last to be entered on the prairie, or entire upper end of the garden,—when, at its [pg 22] best, produced forty bushels of wheat to the acre. And as one forty was devoted to wheat, several crops were taken, averaging over 35 bushels to the acre ”

“ But by degrees it has been opening to the minds of some, that the first habitation of man must have been somewhere on the American Continent; and [pg 4] the finger of time has been plainly pointing to what is known as the “North West,” as the place. But of this last fact I was ignorant when I made the discovery of the garden, and commenced developing the facts about it. ”

“ The comparative dryness of the atmosphere neutralizes the severest effect of excessive cold. The Smithsonian Chart assigns to Minnesota an average temperature for the hottest week in summer of from 85° to 90° and for the coldest week in winter from 10° to 20° below zero. ”