Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1901 — A GLOWING REPORT. [ARTICLE]

A GLOWING REPORT.

AN INDIANA MAN COMPARES WESTERN CANADA WITH THE UNITED STATES. What Mr. Frank Fisher, a Prominent Dunkard, Has to Say After a Trip Through Canada. The Department of the Interior at Ottawa has just received from Mr. E. T. Holmes, the agent of the government stationed at Indianapolis, lud., the following letter, which requires no comment. It Is only necessary to state that Mr. F. Fisher, tlic writer of the letter, is one of the most prominent o. the Dunkards and' a man upon whose word the utmost reliance can be placel. His home is at Mexico, lud., and he will be pleased to substantiate verbally or in any other w’ay all that he says in his letter. Anyone desiring information apply to nearest’ Canadian agent, whose addresses are here given: M. V. Mclnnes, 2 Avenue Theater block, Detroit, Mich. .Tames Grieve, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. J S. Crawford, 214 W. Ninth street, Kansas City, Mo. Benjamin Davies, 151% East Third street, St. Paul, Minn. T. O. Currie, room 12, B. Callahans block, 203 Grand avenue, Milwaukee, Wis. C. J. Broughton, 927 Monadnack building, Chicago, 111. W. V. Bennett, 801 New York Life building, Omaha, Neb. W 1 H. Rogers, Watertown, S. D. N. Bartholomew, 3J6 Fifth street, Des Moines, lowa. J. H. M. Parker, §3O Chamber of Commerce, Duluth, Minn. E. T. Holmes, room 6, Big Four building, Indianapolis, Ind. Joseph Young, 51% State street, Columbus, Ohio. To My Many Friends: I am pleased to make a report to you of the pleasant visit my wife and I had in Western Canada. We visited the territories of Alberta, Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan, and found them far surpassing our imagination, but little did I expect to find such rich, loamy soil, so much of it, and so uniform in its level prairie lay. I do think the soil of Canada as a rule equals if not excels the finest prairie farm lands of Indiana. These lands are immense in their richness, and when opce the sod is rotted and pulverized, it is as pliable and as easily cultivated as Indiana sandy soil. Western Canada, from my point of view, offers as fine opportunities for mixed farming as any place in my knowledge. The long, sunshiny days, together with the rich soil, produce very fine wheat, oats, barley, flax and other cereal products. There is scarcely any attempt to raise com, except early varieties for table use. The season Is too short to depend upon maturing field corn. From the standpoint of getting this land ready for the plow, 1 must say that I never saw such a vast extent, practically all ready, so all that one has to do is to hitch up the plow and go to work. This Is not the case with all the Canadian land, however; some of it has quite a bit of timber, much of It may be called brush land, and some of it has lovely forest groves, dotted here and there, thereby covering a hundred and sixty acres. I have no doubt but that this country excels as a grazing or ranching country, because they have such rich grass, having an abundance of rain to beep it fresh. They also have plenty of water streams, and as a rule water may be reached at a depth of from twenty to forty feet. From this you see there can be plenty of hay mown for winter feeding, and I have had reliable farmers to tell me that their stock will feed on hay alone, and be ready for market in the spring. Upon inquiring about the expense of raising a steer, a farmer replied that’ he did not consider It would cost any more than $4 or $6 to develop a 3-year-old steer. I truly think Canada offers a fine opening for a young man or a man who is renting land In Indiana. One hundred and sixty acres of good black land will cost you only $lO at the time you enter it, and by plowing and cultivating five acres each year for three years, gives you one hundred and sixty acres of good land for $lO. This land can be bought from the railroad companies, private corporations or the government for $3 to $4 per acre. From a financial standpoint, I believe that for a series of years (five), a young man can make $lO in Canada, whereas he would only make $1 here, and 1 feel sure that 1 spent more money to get my eighty-acre farm in White County, Indiana, cultivated than it would cost me to cultivate eight hundred acres in Canada. This may seem a strong view to take of the matter, hut when you take into consideration the clearing, ditching, fencing and the expensive breaking In of the stumps, and then compare the expense to that of land needing only the breaking, you will conclude that it is not such a wild or exaggerated statement as you might at first think. I enjoyed the balmy, breezy atmosphere, which was bracing and refreshing, and the cool nights which made It so pleasant for sleep. On making Inquiries regarding the winters in this country I learned that the people never suffer from the cold, as the weather is dry and Invigorating, and U3L a great many places farmers and herders allow their stock to run outside the year round. One great advantage to the settlers in Western Canada is the free creameries established by the government, and run exclusively In the Interest of the farmer. „ I visited Thomas Daley, a farmer near Edmonton, Alberta, who showed me oats he had raised, some of which took the first prize at the Paris Exposition last year. The same yielded 110 bushels to the acre In WOOYoura truly. _ FRANK FISHER, Mexico, Ind.