Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1905 — LETTER FROM MISSOURI. [ARTICLE]

LETTER FROM MISSOURI.

Moline, Mo., July 31,1905. Mr. Babcock: Within you will find order for SI .00 to pay for one year’s subscription to The Democrat. We could not do without The Democrat, it seems so much like a letter from our friends out there each week. I promised to write you in regard to this country and how we liked it here. We are well satisfied with the country and never found a better class of peeple than there is in this part of Missouri. Spring opened up here very early this year, oats was all sowed by the 20th of March and there was considerable corn planted in March. This was the first season that I ever planted corn the first of April. I never had a better prospect for corn than I have this season The early planting is in hard roasting ear and the late planting is now shooting. If nothing happens there will be an immense corn crop here. Wheat was a good crop and a fine quality. Oats were a fair crop. Hay was light. This is a fine stock country, and there is several thousand dollars worth of stock shipped each week from Paris, the county seat of our county. One day last week one shipper shipped 10 cars of lambs and 2 cars of cattle. Mexico is also a great shipping point it; has two leading railroads, the Chicago & Alton and the Wabash, which gives us an outlet to the markets of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. We live within 12 miles of Mexico, which has a population of ten thousand. Land is still raising in value here but I know of some improved prairie farms that can be bought for $35 to SSO per acre. There are a number of lowa and Illinois jeople coming in and buying and here. I look for quite a and boom within the next year. There is being a large amount of coal found in this and adjoining countries. One of our neighbors adjoining our farm in drilling a well struck a six foot vein of good coal 25 feet under the ground. Please change the address of my paper from Santa Fe, Mo., to Moline, Mo., R-F-D No. 1. Ever your friend, Wm. T. Smith.