plow at last is done, but very likely a parting kick. We have not given the ox his well-earned place among the foundation builders of our land, and I propose that even at this late date we should repent and build in South Dakota a monument to the ox, our early, faithful and indispensable friend. The first few years after arriving were required by our pioneers for making temporary shelters for themselves and their few animals; also in providing some way of obtaining the bare necessities of life while they could lay the foundations for a larger prosperity and more comforts. As already indicated, the first resource and dependence for getting a little money was eggs, butter and hay. These commodities were sold to get the few groceries and small necessities which they could not well do without. Some of the men worked out to supplement their meager income. By 1885, roughly speaking, these hardy men really began to wrestle with the soil in earnest and thus make possible something more than a bare existence. From about '83 to '90 a picturesque and ever recurring scene, when spring and early summer came, was the breaking rig moving slowly but majestically over the long furrows. There were from four to six oxen to each plow and most generally it took two men to hold the plow and keep the oxen in the straight and narrow way. The country I am describing was very stony and there was many a hard lift and aching back before these stones could be pried out of the ground and hauled away sufficiently to make breaking possible. Even after spending many weeks at this clearing work there would still be many stones left which the plow would strike with such violence as to almost fell the man at the handles. With the plow out of the ground and the load suddenly lightening the oxen would make the most of this relief by starting on a trot so that often the plow could not be gotten back into the sod for a rod or two. Two neighbors would often go in together in breaking, each furnishing one yoke of oxen.