Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1888 — “THE AMERICAN DESERT” [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

“THE AMERICAN DESERT”

A WONDERFUL TRANSPOSITION APPROACHING THE MIRACULOUS. The Great Northwest Now a Thriving Garden of Bountiful Husbandry—Palat'al Edifices and Populous Cities Supplant the Indian Tepee and Tillage—Graphic Descriptions with Apt'lllustrations. An exploring party sent out by the lien - eral Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 reported that the interior of the country was “most desolate,” and that to extend settlement more than twenty miles from the coast would be useless, as the land was “rocky and like the desert. ” This scarecrow of the desert has always stood in the way of the westward movement of population. The adult reader of this will remember that his school geography put the limit of the agricultural area at the Mississippi River; all beyond was the “Great American Desert,” and the untraveled citizen of the East has not unlearned this lesson of his youth. Crossing the Mississippi and then the Missouri, the advance guard of civilization found, not the desert, but grassy meadow' lands and wide fields where nature in the remote past had, with its massive harrow of ice, pulverized the rock into soils perfect in chemical proportions for the growth of vegetation. Everywhere the plowshare moved through the soil like the keel through the water, and countless acres were added to the food-producing area of the republic. The discovery of these untilled fields, the gardens of the desert, settled the question of more and better meat and bread for the hungry millions of earth. New' appliances were needed upon land where the plow could

iuoxe for miles without meeting an obstacle, and so the gang plow was invented and substituted for the single one. Sowing grain by hand was too slow, and so the seeding machine was called into use. The sickle, the scythe and the cradle disappeared before the reaper and mower, and the latter in turn wont down before the self-binding harvester, and the steam thresher naturally followed, capable of doing the work of an army of men with flails. The cramped valleys of the East would never Lave developed the labor- c aving implements now in use upon the M csteyu prairies, where the intellects of the sons have beenquickened and broadened by the vnstne c s of their domain, where the soil is fertile to prodigal ty, and whe e the bracing air. good water and healthy food develop the highest types of physical life. It is the vigor born of frost that makes the nor;h temperate zone the only one of impoitance in the world. Between the tOtli and 50th parallels of not th latitude in the United States will be found the largest cities, the greatest wealth, the finest hca'th conditions, the most enterprising people and the widest diffusion of intelligence and comfort in the world. The center of this belt of power is Minnesota and Dakota, where not only the best wheat is grown but the best Hour is made. Under the oldgiinding process winter wheat was considered the best, but siuce the flour made of Dakota spring wheat has become a f ivorite among bakers all over the world there ha> been much speculation why this wheat, which is ready for the thresher in four months from the'planting, has its peculiar hard quality and makes flour of such strength and purity as to give the

baker 250 pounds of nutritious bread from a 196-pound barrel of flour, or 25 to 30 more loaves than he can get from an equal amount of the winter wheat product. The conclusion of scientific investigation is that the long and continuous sunlight in the pure air of the Northwest is the important factor in, not only perfecting the wheat but all the other cereal crops. The valley of the Red River ofthe North is the most productive grain-growing section of the country. Bayard Taylor called it the Nile of America. Seven counties on the Dakota side in 1887 produced 23.C00,-

THE OLD WAY OF CROSSING THE PLAINS. 000 bushels of wheat, 11,000,000 bushels of oats, and 2,000,000 bushels of barley. The entire wheat crop of the United States could be grown in Dakota and then leave enough land to produce all the other principal crops of the Union. A large part of Dakota is still unoccupied. It could contain the present population of the United States and not be as crowded as Belgium. Few persons realize the immense size Of the Territories along the norlhern •boundary of the Republic—Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington, each an empire in area and wonderful in variety of

resources of field, forest and mine. Any one of these four Territories is larger than all of New England, and far more richly endowed by nature. The continuous line of settlement to the Pacific is to be through these soon to be Northwestern States, the conditions being against constant growth along any other route across the continent. The altitude of the valleys and table lands in the highest section of this northern route, Montana, is on an average 2,200 feet lower than the plains of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, the Northern Pacific Railroad, in its long run from St. Panl to I’uge‘t Sound, nowhere reaching the height of Denver. There is a dip or depression in the Rocky Mountain sys-

THE NEW WAY OF CROSSING THE'. PLAINS IN FREE SLEEPING CABS. tem in Montana which admits the warm winds from the Pacific, even far into Dakota, giving all the region a much milder and more uniform climate and better agricultural and stock privileges than in the more elevated regions to the south, where the land is lifted into the dome of the continent. This accounts for the existence of more arable land than is found south, the Northern Pacific alone having more land capable of utilization along its route than all the other transcontinental lines combined. The presence of great navigable rivers—the Missouri, Yellowstone, Snake. Columbia, and numerous tributaries—is evidence of the fact. The development of the Northwest is going On at a rapid rate, a progress to be

accelerated the coming year by the certainty of statehood and self-government by these great Territories. Land is the basis of wealth, agriculture is the basis of civilization, and diversified industries the key that retains wealth in a community. Examine these Territories on this hypothesis. 1 bev have countless acres of limber, nvneral, gtazing and farming land. The land will produce all that is needed for the support of human and animal life. The forests comprise every variety of wood necessary for the wants of a ripe civilization. In the mountains, ciowued with forests and enlivened with cooling streams, are to be found nearly every precious and base metal known to man; all the metallic and mineral earths and elements used in medicine, chem stry, farming, or the ar.s, either exist as natural productions or can be produced. A sing'.e county in Northern Idaho, with four yeais of development, is producing a quarter of the entire lead output of the Union. In seeming compensation for roughness a few acres of mountain land in a rich district will give employment to a large population and produce more treasure than many thousand acres of farm laud. A trip through this northern region is one of surprising interterest; everywhere instruction for the intelligent observer, and opportunity for capital. In the Yellowstone Park nature seems to have taken a holiday and in a mad frolic made the wonder region of the world. Montana produces more mineral wealth than all the other Territories combined, making Helena the richest city per capita in the United States, an honor Spokane Falls will some day contest. A trip of 2,000 miles is nothing to do now. Times have changed since the days when the pioneer traveled with an

ox team: the sleeping-car and the d ning - car are great innovations upon the pilgrim outfit of a generation ago. Even the second-class cars running from St. Paul to the coast, and they are only second class in name, are models of comfort and convenience. Our illustration shows the interior of a Northern Pacific 1 free family sleeping-car, fitted up with bunks or berths like a Pullman, the car having in addition cooking and bathing facilities. The writer met two Judges from lowa in one of these cars en route to the coast, riding in these in preference to the regular coaches. Remembering when there was no railroad west of the Alleghenies, they m irveled at the traffic of the Twin Cities—St. Paul and Minne apolis—from whence more than 200 passenger trains come and go every dav. Fifty years ago they were mere Indian villages; to-day brick and mortar is being pile fl up in buildings so high and massive that they thought land must be scarce in Minnesota. The great mills of Minneapolis, which grind every day enough flour to feed one-fourth of the people of the Union, gave additional cause of woader nent to our judicial friends. The two cities but index the growth of the mighty tributary, region west to the ocean. New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Duluth, St. Paul, and

Minneapolis, a chain of cities along the northern zone of power, each with a thousand industries in hand, but none more important than the grain trade, with steam ■cars and boats, bustling wharves, vast warehouses, elevators, and mills, and swarming life in many score avenues of traffic, in the perplexity of which is seen the evolution of commerce from mere barter to the precision" of science. A new claimant is asking a place among the grain cities, in Tacoma, the city of Puget Sound, where European vessels come for the wheat of Washington Territory. This Pacific coast wheat. while not hard like that of Dakota, is larger grained, and often exceeds the legal bushel from 4 to 8 pounds, making it the heaviest wheat in the world, and its yield is marvelous, 50 bushels not being uncommon for whole farms. A peculiarity of Pacific grain-growing is the volunteering of crops, as h'gh as 30 bushels having been gathered from a field the third year without reseeding. There are more than .'IOO varieties of wheat known to man, but those grown in Noithwestern America lead the world in purity, quantity and quality of flour. The advance in civilization seems to have been in exact proportions with the improvement in bread food and its general use among the masses. The Bible mentions bread, but it was not the delicate and nutritious compound known to the American household. The countries left behind in the race of civilization have never gotten beyond the simple hand-mill of stones. The roller process of flourmaking in the Northwest differs as much from the old burr-mill as it differs from the Scriptural hand-mill still in use amo»?g Asian peoples.