Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1908 — SOUTH DAKOTA HAS ITS DRAWBACKS, TOO. [ARTICLE]

SOUTH DAKOTA HAS ITS DRAWBACKS, TOO.

Mt. Vernon, 8. Dak., June 21. Editor Democrat: As I am taking your paper and it seems I couldn’t do without it, os it furnishes so much home news, I will write you a letter and you can insert it in The Democrat if you like. We are having all kinds of rain here, and the farmers are getting the blues pretty bad. The last two days have been all O. K., and if it should stop raining now there would be a fairly good crop yet. But the corn looks bad to be sure. It looks as though it might have had the Yellow fever and just getting over it, but not out of danger yet. Wheat and oats look pretty good, but the wet weather has damaged them more or less, especially on all the low ground. One thing that makes this state look years behind old Indiana is our public roads. A gravel road here in this country would be just as much a z curiosity as the sun shining at night out there. It makes a man that is used to gravel roads feel like “thirty cents,*’ and the most of that spent, to go out on our roads, especially when they are in the shape that they are now. Farmers that have money to “throw at the birds” have their farms pretty well fenced, but those who have not, and there are lots of them in this "boat”—l will tell you how their farms are fenced: Posts are just about as fan apart as telephone poles are out there, and they have from one to two wires on. Now if you don’t catch the reason of this, I will tell you. Good posts are about 35 cents apiece. See?

And as to living here it costs quite a little more than it does in Indiana. And if a man hasn’t his stomach lined with a little bit of gold the prices of some things will be apt to turn it. But it is not as hard on some as others, for they say if it does turn their stomachs that the other side is just as good or a little better than the first, so you see those kinds of fellows have the bulge on me. ) I will give you just a few prices on articles and you can see that I am right: Coal that sells from $3.50 to $4.00 a ton with you sells at $8.50 here: cord wood sawed up in stove lengths will cost you between sl6 and $lB a cord. Salt that sells for 75 and 90 cents a barrel out there sells at $1.75 here. A suit of. clothes that would cost you $lO there would cost S2O or $25 here.

Now I hav© told youLgome of the bad things aboiit South Dakota. I will say this to the good. 1 believe the soil here is much better on an average than the soil in and if a man has a full pocketbook when he lands here and wants to farim I believe he can make more money farming here than out there, as the soil will produce a heavier yield per acre if the season is good, but this year it looks like the crops would be rather light. I landed here this spring and was fortunate enough to get a job clerking in a grocery store. lam drawing a fairly, good salary; If I was not I expect I would have been at the county farm by this time. Now I will say, those who wish to come to South Dakota, why, come along. We will be glad to have you come, and those who wish to stay in Old Indiana, we will be glad to have you stay. Your friend, JOHN N. PRICE.