Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1892 — NORTHWEST GROWING. [ARTICLE]

NORTHWEST GROWING.

IT HAS BEEN BOTH RAPID AND STEADY. Cheerfrfl Outlook for the Residents of South Dakota and Nebraska—A Careful Kevleit of tile Situation—Rapid Settlement still Ahead. s • The Past, Present and Future. Joseph Sampson, President of the Fidelity Loan and Trust Company, Sioux City, has given tp the public the following encouraging and interesting article: In the month of June, 188 J, accompanied by a friend, I drove across the country northwest from Storm Lake to Sheldon, in O’Brien County, to attend a land convention being held under the auspices of Geo. D. Perkins, the newly appointed Commissioner of Immigration for the State of lowa. The distance between Storm Lake and Sheldon In a straight line across the country is about sixty miles. On this drive we passed over many solid sections of v&-. cant prairie. After leaving Buena Vista County and getting into the corner of Clay and O’Brien Counties we began to note vacated houses and abandoned farms, the number growing quite large as we came near the county seat town of Primgbar, where we stopped for refreshments. While we were eating lunch the proprietor of the restaurant begged us to buy his farm, which we had passed on the way. It lay two miles east of town , and was mortgaged for about 3600. Ho wanted S3OO for his equity, but we felt that we would not be safe in offering him SIOO for his homestead subject to the mortgage for fear he would take us up. This would have made the farm cost us less than $5 an acre. It had a comfortable little house and a nice grove of trees, and about eighty acres under cultivation. Wo had noted the farm' On our way along with especial interest oq account of the over-supply of dilapidated machinery that we saw scattered around the house and in the grove adjoining. Hundreds of farms we found-couid bo bought on as favorable terms in several of the counties of Northwestern lowa at this time, and the burning questions that were discussed at the land convention were how to attract settlers to our prairies and how to best promote the prosperity of those already settled. We discussed flax growing, dairy business, blue grass, timothy, clover, etc. During the convention we heard from Alexander Peddie, representing Scotch colonists, and Close Bros., representing English colonists. L. S. Coffin, of Fort Dodge, made a stirring address, pointing out the necessity of keeping these lands for American farmers who would yet come in by the -thousands and appreciate the magnificent opportunities our prairies afforded of founding fine homes. Willis DrummondJ jr., of Chicago, was en hand with his lieutenants, representing the Chicago, Milwaukee &, St. Paul land grant, and other men were on hand representing the land grant departments of other railroad companies. These gentlemen were all perfectly willing to let the land be invaded by the peasant farmers of Europe, or India, for that matter, provided the lands were sold at fair prices and a good first cash payment made on the purchase. Looking back across only the brief period of eleven years, and thinking of the really desolate character of Northwestern lowa in that year when we were all so anxiou3 to promote immigration, one is lost in wonder and surprise at the swift qhanges that have taken place in this portion of lowa. Since that day in June the railway system of Northwestern lowa has been perfected to a wonderful extent, so that it Is impossible for a farmer to get more than ten miles from a railway station. The Northwestern line has been buiit through from Eagle Grove to Hawarden and beyond; the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern line through from Grundy Center to Watertown and Sioux Falls; the Illinois Central branches from Cherokee to Onawa and Sioux Falls; and, last but not least, the Sioux City & Northern, with its great lake outlet for the products of the soil. If some one had predicted at our land convention in 1880 the things that would come to pass during these eleven years, indicating the compact settlement of the prairies, the enormous rise in the price of lands, and the industrial and agricultural changes incident to improved methods of farming, all who were present at the convention would have voted the man a “visionary” or perhaps insane. Talcing up the cue from what we have all seen of Northwestern lowa since 1880, may not we who live here in Sioux City be entirely just fied in glancing to west and northwest of us to find the conditions that surround the people of Dakota and Nebraska, in a certain sense surrounded just the same as the people of Northwestern lowa were ten years ago ’ May we not also be entirely justified in looking lor much greater progress and development during the next ten years ic the section referred to than has been made by us in lowa between the years 1880 and 1893? The soil of the prairies west of us is as fertile as is that of lowa, perhaps more so, having a larger quantity of lime in the soil, thus making suro a better quality and yield of small grain. The climate is the same. The one drawback that has been menacing the people of portions of South Dakota—namely, the lack of moisture—is now in a fair way to be overcome by irrigat'on. It is clearly shown that the irrigation of immense areas of South Dakota is purely a mechanical question; that is to say, a question of reaching the underground flow of water, and then, when it is found, distributing it properly in the right season over the land in crop. Millions of acies, however, that are yet to be brought into cultivation, will jield profitable crops w.thout irrigation, so that whether irrigation becomes the commercial success that is hoped for or not, still the State of South Dakota i 3 capable of sustaining an agricultural population ten times greater than it has at present, and still not have its first-class lands as compactly settled as a e the lands of some of the Eastern States.

To give more than a mere hint at the filling up of Dakota and Nebraska that is sure to come within the next ten years would seem to be unnecessary, for our most thoughtful people fully concur in the idea of the rapid settlement of the cheap lands west of us. There is no such body of cheap lands to be found on the globe having the same climate, conditions and railway facilities. No other section of the country to-day presents such a field for land Investment or spaculation. East of us very little unimproved land is left to sell and the improved lands are ranging from £3O to $45, while to the west of us the same quality of land, with as good market facilities, can be bought at from $lO to s~*o per acre. With the inrush of new settlers and the stir and enterprise that will be in the air during the next few years, no doubt the smaller towns and villages will be built up. The building up of the towns and villages will in turn business in our city and give to our people the opportunity of aiding and fostering further enterprises that will react upon and improve the general industrial and commercial development of the country surrounding. The morning is a time when most foung men for»ct their rising ambition.