Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1899 — INDIANA IS GOOD ENOUGH. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA IS GOOD ENOUGH.

Many Emierants to the Northwest Are ' ick of Their Bargains. In a private letter a former Indianian, now a resident of North Dakota, speaks with much feeling of the mistake made by Indiana farmers who are persuaded by real estate and railroad agents from the Northwest to sell out their holdings here and go up there and buy land in the expectation of bettering themselves. The representations made by the agents are, be declares, very misleading. The temperature, which they admit gets pretty low in the winter, but which th«*r assert is never uncomfortable, because “you do not feel the cold where the atmosphere is so dry,” this correspondent says is quits as uncomfortable as cold weather anywhere else. The mercury during the last week in January ran the scale from 20 to 35 degrees below zero. Such weather is common there and not the exceptional thing of years. Further, he says, these agents conceal material facts, such as local market prices, cost of fuel, lumber, tax rates, rate of interest on loans, etc., and the new settlers are greatly disappointed and discouraged when they learn the truth. If they write back to their old home newspapers warning others not to be beguiled as they were the letter is copied into the papers of their new homes and they are attacked and vilified. Their prudent course is to make the best of a bed bargain in silence. This story is not a new one. It has been repeated, with variations, hundreds of times by men to whom the region that is a Httle farther on always seems more highly favored than the place where they now are. They could by proper inquiry satisfy themselves that the new country toward whidh they look bears the enchantment of distance and that it has few, if any, advantages over the place where they now are; bnt they do not take these precautions. The glamour of the distant and untried and the desire for the new and strange overcome them and they go to the far-off regions only to regret their venture afterward. It is doubtful if any farmer ever improved his prospects in an agricultural sense by a removal from Indiana. He will hardly find better or more easily tilled land in any other region, his markets are near at hands and the transportation and the fuel questions do not bother him. Farmers everywhere have their problems and their difficulties, ns all business men have,* but those of Indiana have as few as any of their brethren, and in many respects have advantages those of States farther West do not enjoy. Those who “move on” learn to value these blessings after they have taken their flight.