i:05 .AKOTy^ 6SS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. iiip^rij]^ ;f xt. Shelf.:i4i.4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. y a % <\ TOM'S EXPERIENCE DAKOTA: WHY HE WENT ; WHAT HE DID THERE ; WHAT CROPS HE RAISED, AND HOW HE RAISED THEM ; WHAT THEY COST HIM, AND WHAT HE RECEIVED FOR THEM; AND ALL ABOUT HIS UPS AND DOWNS, SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. HIS TALKS WITH OLD FRIENDS, AND HIS ADVIOE TO THEM ABOUT \ ' GOING WEST. WHO OUGHT TO GO, AND WHO OUGHT NOT; WHAT MEN AND WOMEN WITH MONEY AND WITH NONE CAN DO THERE; WHY SOME SUCCEED, AND OTHERS DO NOT ; WITH PRACTICAL INFORMATION FOR ALL CLASSES OF PEOPLE WHO WANT HOMES IN THE WEST, POINTING OUT PLAINLY THE WAY TO SUOOESS; - • -'/.-^^ MINNEAPOLIS, MIN^. : "^ 3 ^i> "^ ^ Miller, Hale & Co., Publishers. 1883. .\ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by A. P. MILLER, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. StereotypcMi nni\ Priiitod at th« Tiibuiif Book Kdomi:*. Minneapylts, Minnesota. PREFACE. There is no lack of literature concerning the West. Let any one make an inquiry of some railroad or land company, real estate firm or immigration bureau, for information about the West, and he will be supplied with letters, circulars and pamphlets till he is sur- feited. And after reading these, each one asks the questions : "What could / do there? Could / succeed as these documents say others have done? '' And then, after asking these and similar questions, these seekers after truth say : " If 1 could only sit down for an hour or two and have a plain, neighborly talk with somebody who has lived there for a few years, who would tell me truly all about his successses and failures, his ups and downs, and of whom I could ask questions as he told his story, I could learn more tliat I earnestly desire to know in two hours from such a talk than I could in a year from reading these circulars and pamphlets." (iii) £^ PREFACE. This book honestly aims to give these earnest inquirers such information as they would get in a con- versation of that kind. Besides being a lecord of four years' experience in Dakota, it reports carefully, not one, but many, just such conversations with peo- ple of different classes — the capitalist, the man with- out money, the mechanic, the widow, the tenant of another man's land, and others, and answers conscien- tiously the numerous questions they ask. From first page to last^ the writer has had a con- sttientious regard for the best interests of those who are seeking inforiuation, with the view of bettering their condition and prospects in life. ^a\^ :i> CONTENTS. PAOE. A NEIGHBORLY CALL 9 A LITTLE INVENTORY 16 A MISTAKE 26 A MORTGAGE 32 A GLOOMY OUTOOOK 33 A CALL FROM THE SHERIFF 34 A LAND SHARK 35 A VISITOR FROM ILLINOIS 44 A SURPRISE 46 A woman's INTUITIONS 54 About certain family expensses 62 A business talk with Mr. Bright 65 About big crops 83 And Satan came also 89 A talk with a mechanic 90 An answer to a newspaper 94 A FARM and what TO DO WITH IT 95 a problem 102 Annie and the babies 119 Backsetting 22 Business talks 49 Balancing the books 61 Back to the old home 74 Blizzards 80 Concerning moss 12 Counting up resources 36 Cattle 53 Cancelling the mortgage 63 Choice of land 97 Could I do that ? Ill Does not cure everybody 85 (v) yi CONTENTS. DiSCOUBAGED 100 Expenses and balance 25 Extended plans 28 Friendly regrets 13 Fifty-three years' work 17 Furnishing the new house 125 Grasshoppers and drouth 1^ His pound of flesh 35 Helping sod crops ^"^ Harvesting and threshing 58 Helping people to help themselves 65 Hints to capitalists "^3 How to make a boy love farming 120 In our own home 20 Illustrating a case 67 Illinois hospitality 75 Interview with a mechanic 90 James Hardy ^ Land agents 1° Looking at "Tom's Folly " 49 Making the home pleasant 21 Mr. Samuels "^^ Mr. Bright makes A proposition 49 Mr. Bright's quarter-sections 75 My friend Snyder 79 Not exactly a paradise 10 Nine hundred dollars short 37 No LONGER A TENANT 71 Newspapers ^ No ^9 Personal 15 plannnng and locating 17 Planting trees 20 Progress 27 Pride vs. Prudence 30 Pbide goeth before a fall 33 co.vrEyTs. vii Putting in the crops 5G People who ought not to go west 87 Resources and liabilities 50 Retrospection 63 Railroad land. 96 Some of the hardships 12 Sod crops ; 17 Spring work 24 Some plans for the future 51 Seekers after truth 90 Some of my mistakes 12T The freezing point 9 Taking a risk 11 The summer's crops 24 Temptation 29 "Tom's Folly" 34 The reason why 38 The sheriff's sale 39 The buyer 41 Talking it over 42 The mortgage renewed 54 There's money in it .60 The tenant's side 70 They want backing 71 The drouth 84 The people who are there 88 Well-to-do — for tenants 16 Winter's work 23 Woman's work 27 What was left 43 Will it pay ? 67 Where there's a will there's a way 101 Was it best ? 107 What a woman can do 112 What a boy can do 119 What Mrs. Sanford did about it 123 What other women can do 124 TOM'S EXPERIENCE DAKOTA. A NEIGHBORLY CALL. ik /^OOD morning, Tom. I hear you are going to VJ Dakota next spring. Ts it true? " '' Yes. 1 have made up my mind to go and see if 1 can't get a farm of my own. I have been working for other people as long as I care to." "Well, it seems to me you had better let well enough alone. You are comfortably fixed here, and can get all the land yon want to farm on shares, and in the course of time get a farm of your own." ''Yes, I am doing well as things go here; that is^ I am making a living and a little more each year^ but as for my getting any land of my own here, where it is worth from eighty to a hundred dollars an acre, I would stand a good chance of dying of old age before I could get enough for a farm." THE FREEZING POINT. ''But you and your family will freeze to death in Dakota. Why. only yesterday I saw in the paper that (9) " 10 TOM'S EXPERIENCE the mercury was down to thirty degrees below zero out there. Just think of that! It's cold enough here for me, and if I move at all it will be further south. In Dakota the winters are so long that it will take all a man can make in the short summer to su]>port him over winter. Have you thought of these tilings?'' ''Certainly; I have thought of them all. This is no sudden notion of mine. I have been thinking of it for years, and all that has prevented me from going before is that I did not know where to go. I have investigated the matter as carefully as possible, and- weighed the pros and cons with my very best judg- ment, and believe I can do well in Dakota^ and 1 am going there the coming spring. 1 am not afraid of thp cold winters. JfOT EXACTLY A PAIIADISE. " I don't expect to find a paradise in Dakota. I have no doubt it is a good deal colder there sometimes than it is here, and the winters are longer, too. I have been watching the weather reports from there, not only this winter, but for several winters past, and have noticed that the mercury does get down pretty low at times, and if I could have everything just a,s I would like I would prefer a milder climate and shorter winters. But if I should go where those conditions prevailed, I would find other disadvantages which I think are greater than those of the severe cli- mate of Dakota. And. besides, people who live there /.V DAKOTA. 11 say the air is so dry that they do not feel the cold as much as they used to when they lived where the mer- cury seldom or never got down to zero. There are a good many people out there who are pleased with the country and are making money, and if my good health continues I think I can do as well as any of them. I am tired of this thing of raising crops and giving half of iJliem for the use of the land I raise them on. Out there I shall have land of my own, and all that I raise on it will be mine. I regret to leave my friends here, of course, but in these days of railroads it is not much of a journey from Illinois to Dakota, and I shall try to deserve good friends out there, and presume I shall have them in time." TAKING A RISK. " Yes, I have no doubt you will. But, really, it does seem to me that you're taking a good deal of a risk in leaving a good place here, among your old friends and acquaintances, who have known you all your life, and who would do anything in their power for you, and where you are not only making a good living, but lav- ing up something every year, and going out there on the frontier, where you may have no neighbors nearer than four or five miles, and if you do raise any crops it will cost you more than they are worth to get them to market. Why, you may not have a railroad within thirty to fifty miles of you. Remember, Tom, that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. YouVe got your bird in hand here in the shape of a 12 lOM'S EXPERIENCE comfortable home. Now, I ask if it isn't better to hold on to that bird than to go away out West, five hundred miles or more, in the hope of catching a big- ger and fatter one? A rolling stone gathers no moss." CONCERNING MOSS. •' That old saying is good enough in some cases^ but I've never been a rolling stone. I've lived all my life in this county, most of it in this township, and if '' moss " means money, you know I haven't gath- ered very much of it. I think I might probably have had more if I had done a little more ^^ rolling." And the bird whicli I have in hand is a very small one and quite lean. I think I won't have much trouble in catcbing a bigger and fatter one on the Dakota prairies. At any rate^ I propose trying. I don't be- lieve in people changing locations very often^ nor ever without good reason. But there are times in the lives of many people when they might change with great advantage. 1 think that time has come in my life." SOME OF THE HAEDSHIPS. '' But have you thought of the hardships you and your family must endure out there? You have the reputation of being a very kind man to your family, and I will say I think you deserve it. But it does seem to me that in this matter you do not take them into the account. You will have no schools for your children, nor churches within many miles of you, and your wife and children will die of homesickness." JX DAKOTA. 13 EASIER TO WORK OUK OWN LAND. '' My wife and 1 have talked that over a good many times, and she is really more anxious to go than I am, if there is any difference. We shall probably both he a little homesick at first, and we expect some hard- ships and privations, and so will not be disappointed when they come. Neighbors and schools and churches will all come in time. And we don't think it will be quite so hard to do the same amount of work on our own land, as it is here on that which we don't own, and can never expect to." SOME FRIENDLY REGRETS. '' Pardon me, Tom, but I think you are making a serious mistake, and that's why I am so earnest in this matter. It may seem to be none of my busi- ness^ but you know we've been neighbors, boy and man, twenty years or more, and I can't see you make such a mistake without using what influence T may have to try and prevent it. And just about all your friends are of the same opinion.'' ''Are they? What do they say about it? " '•Well. I was talking to Squire McCreary last evening, and he thinks you'll be back here in less than two years, a good deal poorer than you are now. He thinks that between the drouth and the grasshop- pers you can't raise enough out there to live on. And John Richards came up just then, and said if he were as comfortably fixed as you are, he wouldn't pull up and go to Dakota for the best section of land 14 TOM'S EXPERIENCE in the Territory, with a house and barn on it. And you know Sam Bright is considered one of the most level-headed men about here, and and he joined in and said he hoped you wouldn't go, for if you did you'd be almost sure to regret it, and he would be sorry to see you make such a mistake. And he is one of the best friends you've got." ''If I was as well fixed as the Squire and Mr. Bright — owned good farms as they do, and had plenty of money besides — I don't think I'd go, either. But as I am not so fortunate as to own a farm here, and probably never could, I propose to go where 1 can." GRASSHOPPERS AN^D DROUTH. '' And take the chances of the grasshoppers and the drouth?" " Yes, and all other chances. There have been no grasshoppers there for some years, and may never be again; and, although there have been one or two short crops on account of drouth, there has never been a failure. And counting in those years you wiU find that the average crops were larger than they have been right here. I may not succeed out there. I cannot see any farther into the future than you and the rest of my friends; but I shall make a hard fight for success, anyway." '' Well, Tom, I see you are fully determined to go. We're awfully sorry, though, to have you leave this neighborhood, and wherever you go I know you'll have the best wishes of all your old neighbors here." /,V DAKOTA. 15 •^ Thank yo\i.aiid I ho}H' always to deservf* tlieiu.'' This conversation took place one clear, cold iiioni- ing m January, 1879, in front of my house — or rwWwv the house I was living in, for I was only a tenant — on a large farm in Central Illinois. A FEW WORDS FERSOXAL. Fm Tom — Thomas Taylor, when written in full. " The man I was talking with was Jason Moore, a ten- ant on an adjoining farm. T had been l)r()nght up in that neighborhood, and had worked all my life on a farm. I had^ during my boyhood, gone to tlie district school three or four months in the winter, and had tried to make the most of these rather meager educa- tional advantages. T wrote a fair hand, and was pretty well up in geography, grammar and arithmetic. My last winter at school I tackled algebra, and, hav- ing considerable taste for mathematics, managed to get about half-way through Davies' First Lessons without the help of a teacher, as our teacher that winter— though one of the best I ever had — never had studied algebra at all, and so could give me no assistance in it. My success in algebra came near changing the whole current of my life, for it set me seriously think- ing of trying to get a term or two in the Greenfield Academy, and from thence into the study of the hiw. l^ut the spring woi-k came on and soon drove these professional notions out of my head. Perhaps it is as well. Yet there often comes to me a great longing for the mental training a college IQ TOM'S EXPEJtIEXCE course — or even a couple of years in tlieold Academy under good old Doctor Williams — would have given me. I would not change my farmer's life to-day for a professional one, but I can t see why a college course isn't as good for a farmer as a lawyer. WELL-TO-DO — FOR TENANTS. At the time the conversation above reported took place I was in my thirt3^-first year, and had been mar- ried six years and had two children. Those six years had been spent on that farm; my wife and I had both worked hard and economized as closely as we knew how, and at that time were considered pretty well off and well-to-do, for tenants. But we were both tired of being tenants, and for a good while had been seriously thinking of going West and trying there to make a home of our own. A LITTLE INVENTORY. Wliile we were considered by our acquaintances well off— for tenants — our worldly possessions seemed to lis rather meager for six years of hard work and close economy. They consisted principally of the follow- ing: Household furniture, about $250 00 Four good work horses 400 00 Four head of cattle 100 00 Six head of hogs 50 00 Farming implements, about 350 00 Money in bank 850 00 Total 12,000 00 IS DAI*i)T.[., 17 When we were married I had two horses and $350 in money— total $550., Deducting this from the $2,000, leaves $1,450 as the net result of our six years' work— about $240 a year. FIFTY-THREE YEARS' WORK. I was not satisfied with this. Land in that vicinity was worth, on an average, $80 an acre, so that my net profits were just three acres per year. At this rate, it would take me about fifty-three years to earn a farm of 160 acres. This outlook was not satisfac- tory, and I think the reader will not blame me for being dissatisfied with it. The advice of my neigh- bors to ^'let well enough alone" was honestly given and well meant,, and generally it is good advice. But $240 a year for two industrious, hard-working people is not " well enough." PLANNING AND LOCATING. I did not decide to go to Dakota without careful consideration, and as much investigation as I could make, and having decided I set about making prepara- tions for the change. I need not enter into details, further than to say that as I had not exactly fixed on a location I thought best to leave my family in Illinois, and, taking three of my horses, go out my- self, select my land, do as much breaking as I could during the season for that work, build a house, and then return for my family. I started in April (1 thiuk it was the 4th), and IP TOM'S nXPKniKXCE spent three weeks in examining the conutry. T took a homestead of 160 acres, and adjoining it a tree claim of 160 more. LA XI) AftENTS. ' T do not give my exact location nor my real name^ because 1 know that I should be overrun with letters of inquiry, which I have not the time to answer I am not in the real estate business, further than to cultivate that which I possess to the best of my abil- ity, and that takes all my time. There are plenty of good men in every town and village who will bp glnd U) give inquirers any information they may want. They are generally well posted and trust- worthy. There are some *' land sharks '' in the busi^ ness, it is true, but not so many as is generally sup- posed. As a rule, it is better to see your land, if possible, or liave some reliable friend see it for you, before buynig a deeded tract or locating a claim on govern- ment land. If this is not practicable, you need not have any difficulty in getting the address of a reliable man, to whom you can entrust the business. T may add, that, at that time the nearest railroad station was twenty-three miles distant. I could not get government land any nearer the railroad than that. There was " talk," however, of a road being built, which would run within a couple of miles of my claims. This has since been done, and I am now three miles from a railroad station and good village^ 7.V DAKOTA. jg GETTING TO WORK. Having secured my claims, I at once set to work breaking the sod. Half a mile away was my nearest neighbor, with whom I boarded — that is, I took my meals there and slept in a tent on my claim. I pushed my breaking vigorously, aad by hiring some help got ninety acres broken during the season. I had not, at that time, much confidence in sod crops, but at the persuasion of my neighbor tried the experiment, and it was successful beyond my highest expectations. SOD CROPS. T put 20 acres in corn, 15 in oats, 10 in flax, and 3 in potatoes. My corn averaged 21 basliels to the acre, oats 28, flax 9, and potatoes 86. My corn, at the then prevailing price, was worth $147, oats $2 10" flax $90, and potatoes $109; total, $556. I paid out for seed and for hired help and board, in planting, gathering and marketing these crops, and for assist- ance in breaking, $263, leaving me a margin of $293 profit, an average of $6 per acre. Of course, [ did not realize all this in cash, for a part of the corn ai» ( oats I fed to my horses, but I could have had the cash for it, and so it is correct to credit the land with it. I was more than satisfied with this result, and do not hesitate to recommend to other new settlers to cultivate as much of their sod in crops as possible. 20 TOM'S EXPKIilENCE The only investment of money required is for seed, and the only labor is the planting and gathering of the crops — no cultivation being required. My success with sod crops has always been good. PLANTING TREES. As soon as possiljle I selected a site for my house, and during the spring got nearly one handred young trees, which I planted around the building site for future shade. I had heard that trees could not be made to grow if planted in sod, but this is a mistake, provided proper care is taken in the planting. First take the sod off to the depth of three or four inches over a circle, three or four feet in diameter: then, with a spade, thoroughly loosen the earth to the depth of eighteen inches: plant your trees a proper depth in this loose earth, jjacking it carefully around the roots, and they will grow as well as if planted in old cultivated ground. After planting, cultivate them very much as you would a hill of corn, occasionally loosening the earth around them, and if the weather is dry giving them water in the evening. Of coui-se, this takes some extra work, but if you could see the beautiful shade trees around my house now, you would say that it paid better than the same amount of work would have done in the wheat or corn field. IN OUR OWN HOME. During the summer 1 had built a house, small, but warm and comfortable, and situated so that when I IX DAKOTA. 21 got ready I could build a larger one in front of and connected with it. It cost me $344. I also built a sod barn, with a small granary at one end of it, which cost me f>68, and dug a well at a cost of $12. In September I returned to Illinois for my family, and we reached our new home in Dakota the first week in October. It was a beautiful evening, and although we were all tired after our twenty-three miles ride in a com- mon farm wagon, yet the pleasure we enjoyed in feel- ing that we were in our own home, and on our own land, can only be understood by those who have had a similar experience. Our furniture, what we had, was plain and cheap, and as yet nothing was in order; but it was our home^ and as such it was to us the sweetest spot on earth. We had as yet no cooking stove, so I kindled a fire out in the yard, and my wife prepared supper. Of course, it was a simple and very plain meal, but we all enjoyed it more than we could have done the most sumptuous feast in a house that was not our own. MAKIi^^G THE HOME PLEASANT. It would make this paper too long to go into de- tail as to my operations, but I will give such an out- line as may be of value to others in making homes in the Northwest. The first thing I did was to make my home as cheerful and comfortable as possible. I expected cold weather during the winter, and prepared for it 22 TOM':S EXtBBIENCE before it came. I added such articles of furniture t©- the somewhat limited supply we had brought with us as seemed necessary for our comfort in any kind of weather. I laid in a sufficient supply of fuel for any emergency. During the warm days of the fall we used very little of this, for we found that with a lit- tle preparation, in the way of twisting and tying in knots, we could make prairie hay answer the pur- pose, and the cost was very small. And so we saved onr fuel for colder weather. And right here is as good a place as any for me to say a few words of simple justice to my good wife, to whose brd,ve heart, wise counsels, and cheerful bearing I owe so much. How much she did with our meager stock of furniture to make our little home bright and cheerful; how bravely she labored, and with what courage she met all discouragements and reverses, I have not words to express. She has been more than a helpmeet, and to her is largely due the credit for whatever success has attended us here. Her work was hard, for help could not always be had when needed; but she did it bravely and cheerfully, and with never a word of complaining. I suppose she was homesick sometimes — it wo ild be but natural — but if so, the feeling was hidden beneath a bright smile or a cheery song. In our home there was always sunshine. BACKSETTING. As soon as possible I went to work backsetting the ground I had broken in the summer, and with some IX DAKOTA. 23 help, which I procured at $1.50 per acre, got it all done but about ten acres before the winter set in. I had been told that backsetting would not pay, but all my experience proves this to be a mistake. The more thoroughly the ground is prepared in the fall, the better the crops will be. There is no exception to this rule. winter's avork. During the winter I hired a carpenter for about ten days, and with his help built a '' lean to " alongside my house for use as a summer kitchen, and a small milk house by the well. The latter was simply a cheap frame with a good roof, and boarded up with the cheapest lumber. In the spring I sodded the sides, and my wife planted some rapid-growing vines all around it, and early in the summer it was com- pletely covered with vines and flowers, and even in the hottest weather was delightfully cool inside. I also built another granary, to be ready for the ■crops I hoped to raise the coming year. And there were a good many little things that I did to make the house and its surroundings pleasant and convenient. There are literally thousands of such things that (tnj/ man with a hammer, saw and plane, a little lumber and some nails, can do, if he ivill^ which will add largely to the comfort and convenience of his family, and the beauty of his home. There are man^^ de- lightful days here during the winter, when such work can be done, and I have no patience with the man who will lazily lie around his house during the 24 TOM'S^ EXPEJilEycE wintor; or, what is worse, spend the time loafing at some store, grocery or tavern, when there is no end of things he might be doing which wonld add so much to the convenience, as well as ))eaiity, of his home, and greatly lighten the labors of his wife and family. Such men seem to think that when the crops are raised and cared for, their year's work is done, and that they have nothing whatever to do with making the home convenient, comfortable and beautiful. I have a great contempt for such men, and always pity their wives and children. SPRING WORK. With the opening of the spring (1880), I went vigorously to work putting in my crops. I put 45 acres in wheat, 30 in oats, and 15 in corn. I hired help enough to do this work in good time, and to do it well. I want no " slouching " in such work. In fact, I don't want it in any kind of work, and it is the poorest possible econoniy to try to save time and labor in sowing and planting one's crops. I think most of the poor crops we hear of in Dakota are due to poor farming. Of course, drouth and wet weather will injure crops in any case, but they are always much less injurious to fields that have been well-tilled than to those that have been poorly cultivated. It is especially true on a farm that whatever is worth do- ing at all, is worth doing well. THE summer's crops. As soon as my crops were planted I went to work TX DAKOTA. 25 breaking more sod. I also lure I TO acres of breaking done, at $3 per acre. I did only about 20 acres my- self, making 90 acres for the season. Of this I put 40 acres in oats, 25 in corn, 10 in flax, and 3 in pota- toes; total, 78 acres. This sod crop turned out as fol- lows: Oats, 36 bushels per acre, corn lo; flax 8, and potatoes 90. At the prices then prevailing they would have brought $dS(S. The cost of seed and labor was about $6.50 per acre, giving a net profit of over $5 per acre. This, for a sod crop, T considered very good. The crop on my " old land,'' as it is called — that is, the 90 acres broken the previous year — turned out as follows: Wheat, 21 bushels to the acre; oats, 74 bushels; corn, 52 bushels. A.t the current prices these crops were worth $2,27-2. Add to this the value of my 78 acres of sod crops, as above stated, $986, and we have $3,258 as the value of the crops on the 168 acres. * EXPENSES AND BALANCE. My expenses this summer for hired help and board for same, and for seed, were $794, besides the $210 which I paid for breaking 70 acres, making a total of $1,004 for seed and hired help. I had bought a self-binding harvester, for which I paid $280; one additional horse, $125; two good cows, $75; one plow, $40; one seeder, $60; and one mower, $60, and other incidental expenses were $44, making a total of $684. 26 TOM'S EXPERIENCE I regret that I kept no account of what are usually called living expenses; but they were not large, al- though we lived as well as we ever did in Illinois. After selling all my crops, and paying the above and all other bills that I owed, I found myself with $1,295 cash on hand, and entirely out of debt. A MISTAKE. I now decided to " commute '' my 160 acres home- stead, pay for it at |1.25 an acre, and get my patent from the government. I don't know now why I did this. There was no need for it at all, for I had not the slightest notion of selling out; in fact, would not have sold for twice what anybody would have given me for my land, and as long as I remained there my homestead claim was just as good as a deed from the government. But I had never owned a foot of land in my life, and I wanted to have a quarter section that was mine — really, wholly mine, without any proviso or contingency in favor of Uncle Sam or anybody else. It was a whim, I guess, and the gratification of it cost me $200 that might as well have been saved; and yet I never saw a piece of paper in my life that looked as l)eautiful to me as did that patent from the United States of America to Thomas Taylor, his heirs and assiAAOTA. 29 more work than J luifl yet done since I came to the Territory. I had 180 acres of "old ground" all backset and in good condition for the spring crops. Encouraged by my success the last year, I concluded that by putting ninety acres of this in wheat and ninety in oats, and by raising crops on the sixty or seventy acres of breaking, which I expected to do during the season, 1 could safely count on crops that would realize from $3,500 to $4,000 gross, and leave me a net profit of about $2,500. There was nothing extiavagant in this calculation. A TEMPTATION. One day a carpenter and builder from the village that was springing up on the new railroad line, three miles distant, came to see me. After talking over several other matters he suggested that 1 ought to have a better house, and that he was then in a situa- tion to build me one on very favorable terms, as he had more men over at the village than he had work for, and rather than keep them idle he would put them at work on a house for me at just about what he was paying them. There was also a fine lot of lumber at the village which could be had very cheap, as the parties who had intended to use it in bui;ding there had made other plans. The idea of a new and handsome house struck me in a weak point. To tell the truth I had for some time been a ir'iWv ashamed of the little one story, 12 X 20 fnnue in which we were living, and was 3|0 TOM'S EXPKIilENCE rather impatiently looking forward to the time when I should be able to build what should be generally known as the *' handsomest and handiest farm house in the county." Mr. Cook, the builder, had brought with him the plans of a house he had built for a farmer in Iowa the year before, and which was a model in its way, PRIDE vs. PRUDENCE. My better judgement told me that I ought not to assume the financial burden of the new house at that time, but pride, and a desire to give my wife the com- forts and conveniences of such a home, argued very strongly in favor of making a contract with Mr. Cook at once. I was soon absorbed in the plans he spread before me, and the more I examined them the more my bet- ter judgment weakened until at last it yielded en- tirely, and I commenced negotiating with him as to terms. After building that little tenant house I had not money enough left to carry me through the sum- mer until I could realize on my crops, but that gave me no uneasiness, as my credit was good, and if I should need a few hundred dollars I could easily get it at the Bank in our county seat. But this new hc^jse would cost at least $1,200, and if built must be pfiid for as the work was done. Mr. Cook was ready fgr that emergency : a capitalist in the new village would lend me the money at a moderate rate of in- terest, taking a mortgage on my 160 acres of land. IN DAKOTA. 31 At the sound of that word '* mortgage " the picture of the fine new house vanished like the fabric of a vision. Should that (to me) beautiful patent for this land be superseded or covered over by a mortgage ? Never. Bat then that handsome house. I could not give it up. Mr. Cook proposed that we go and talk the matter over with Mrs. Taylor, and we did so. At first she declared that she would, un- der no circumstances, consent to a mortgage on that farm ; she would live in that little house ten years first. But Mr. Cook understood his business well. Again the plans of that handsome Iowa house were spread out, and its beauties and conveniences and comforts dilated on. My summer's crops would pay for the house, and all my expenses, and leave me at least a thousand dollars over. Mr. Cook had evident- ly studied up on his subject in advance. I could see that my wife was weakening, and I was sorry for it, because I had given up an hour ago. PRIDE CON^QUERS. There was one thing that weighed more in favor of the new house than Mr. Cook's attractive plans and adroit arguments. That was^ that the coming fall we were expecting a visit from some of our Illinois friends, and what a grand thing it would be to take them into that new house, and show them over our broad, rich acres — all paid for. And what stories they would tell on their return to the old home about 32 TOM'S EXPERIENCE " Tora's^' prosperity ! That argument in Mr. Cook's favor carried the day — ■although he didn't know it. AND KOW THE MOETGAGE. Two days hiter he returned in conii)anY with Mr, Grimsley, the capitalist. Mr. C had the contracts, for the house, and Mr. G. the mortgage and notes all properly drawn. The lattter w^ere judgment notes, and at first I refused to sign them on that ac- count. But Mr. Grimsley assured me that was " nothing but a mere form " on which his partners always insisted, and so 1 signed them. There w^ere three notes of f 425 each — just the cost of the house, payable respectively in five, six, and seven months aftej- date, with interest at ten per cent. I didnt sleep well that night. I dreamed that somehow 1 was fast under a very large house, w4iich was resting on me with its whole weight, and on to[> of it were Mr. Cook and Mr. Grimsley holding it down, and grinning and laughing at my agony. Af- ter awhile I awoke in a cold sw^eat, and slept but lit- tle from that time till morning. Next day Mr. Cook came on with his workmen and lumber, and the house was commenced. This was the first week in March, and as the weather was favorable, and Mr. Cook knew how to push things, the w^ork made rapid progress, and in what seemed to me an incredibly short time the house was under roof. IN f).\Ki)T.\. 33 PRIDE GUETU liEFORK A FALL. One morning- 1 went up to tlie second story ; the floor had not been laid, and I stepped on a loose board. 1 remember a crash and then all was blank. When I recovered consciousness I was lying on a bed, badly bruised and stunned, and with a terrific pain in my right leg about half way between my knee and ankle. A doctor had been sent for, and on his arrival made an examination, and reported that the leg was broken. If he had read my death-war- rant to me, 1 don't think I would have been more severely shocked. There was the season for putting in my crops right at hand, and I laid up for three or four months at least. And there w^as that mortgage ! A tiLOOMY OUTLOOK. T had 180 acres of land ready to be sown m wheat and oats, and nobody to do the work : for only the day before the man whom I had engaged to help me had sent me word that he had '' taken a claim " some 50 miles further west, and was going there at once. The man who lived in that tenant house had rented some land that would require about all his time. It seemed that in my time of great need it was abso- lutely impossible to get help for love or money. My wife rode many miles in search of help, but without success. Everybody had all they could do. and more, putting in their own cro|)S. My neighbors. Ikiw- 34 TOM 'S EXPKBIENCE ever, kindly rallied to my assistance, and, busy as they were, put in forty acres of wheat and about thirty of oats for me. But this was less than half that I expected to have done, and it being rather late when put in, I could hardly expect a full crop. And there was that mortgage ! tom's folly. But I need not go more into detail. Mr. Cook pushed the work on the house, finished it, got his money, and he and his men went back to the village. Tt was a handsome house, no mistake, but as I looked at it I named it '' Tom's Folly.'' My crops turned out poorly, and the expense of harvesting and threshing was unusually heavy. Two of those notes were due, and the third would be in about a week, but I had heard nothing from Mr. Grimsley about them, and concluded that, hearing of my accident, he had decided to let them stand until it was more convenient for me to pay them. A CALL FROM THE SHERIFF. T was soon undeceived. About a week after the last note was due I had a call from a polite and affa- ble stranger, who introduced himself as the sheriff of the county, and produced an execution against me for over ^1,300, and said his instructions were posi- tive to levy on the farm unless the amount was paid at once. There was that mortgage! IX DAKaTA. 35 T could not pay the amount, and, the sheriff', as in- structed, made the levy, and a few days later my fine farm was advertised at Sheriff's sale. A LAND SHARK. By this time I was able to go about without using crutches, bnt the broken leg was not strong enough to allow of my doing much work. I rode to the county seat one day to see if anything could be done to save my property. There I learned that Mr. Grims- ley had gone east and did not expect to return, and that he had sold the mortgage to a regular land shark named Richard Bragdon. It seems that Bragdon had heard of my accident, and feeling sure that I would not be able to pay the notes, had bought them, ex- pecting to buy in the property at a heavy sacrifice, and probably also get the relinquishment of my tree claim. " You needn't expect any mercy from Bragdon,^' said a friend whom I consulted about the matter, '' there is nothing of that kind in his composition. He'd sell you out if it turned you and your family out on the prairie without a board io shelter you, if he could make ten cents by it." HIS POUND OF FLESH. Nevertheless, I went to see Bragdon. He was a thin, chilly-looking man ; bis hand was cold as a snake. In fact he seemed snaky, even to his flat, re- treating forehead, and very small, dark beady eyes. 36 TOM'S EXFERIEME I almost expected to see his moutli fly open and a red. forked tongue dart out. And I was in this man's power ! I stated my business, asking a renewal of the notes for a year, until I could raise another crop. He lis- tened attentively and then said he was sorry, but he needed the money and must have it. "' But, Mr. Bragdon, if you buy in my farm that will not give you the money." " No, but I can raise a crop on it next year and get my money in that way, and probably more. I think you have about a hundred and fifty acres of '' old land " ready for crops, haven't you ?" '' About one hundred and forty on that tract," I answered^ " and with the chance to make another crop on that, and what I have broken on my tree claim, T can pay you and have a handsome balance left." " If you can do that, I can. Business is business, and there is only one way that 1 know of for you to save your farm, and that is to pay those notes." I saw that I might as well talk to an iceberg. He was bound to have his pound of flesh. COUNTING UP RESOURCES. I left him and went home with a heavy heart. On the way I figured over, for prol^ably the thousandth time, the resources on which I could draw to raise this $1,400. Before tliis judgment was taken against me, not being al^le to do the work myself, I had made jy DAKOTA. 37 a contract for my frill plowing, 180 acres, at i^l.50 an acre, total, $270. I hud sold part of my wheat to raise this amount, and had about 200 bushels left, which would bring, at 95 cents, $190. Then there were my oats in stack, perhaps 1500 bushels. After keeping out what I would be compelled to have for my stock, and paying expenses of threshing, T might realize for these about $400, I miglit possibly be able to sell a couple of cows and a horse, and thus realize $200 more. But all this would give me less than half the amount necessary to save my farm. That evening my wife and I held a long consulta- tion, and resolved to turn our wheat and oats into cash immediately, and sell what stock" we could. If we could not save the farm the money would, of course, be needed. Notwithstanding the gloomy out- look, my wife was brave and hopeful. " We will save this farm yet," she said. "If faith and courage could do it, you've got enough to save a dozen such farms," I answered, '' but, unfortunately, these are not legal tenders with Richard Bragdon." NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS SHORT. Next day I went over to the village — which for convenience we will hereafter call Kingston, though that was not its real name — to see what was the best offer I could get for wheat and oats. A new eleva- tor had just been completed tbeiv, and I found the [►ropricttn-, Mr. White, ready for business. The cars 38 TOM'S EXFEHIEXVE would not be running to Kingston for a week or twa yet, but he was making contracts and receiving some grain which farmers were in a hurry to deliver. The best offer I could get for wheat was 90 cents, and for oats 35 cents a bushel, but Mr. White made an agreement that if Minneapolis prices advanced be- fore the delivery of the grain, he would give me a corresponding advance. During that week I deliv- ered all the wheat, and the next week threshed and delivered the oats. For both I received from Mr. White $568, out of which I must pay the expense of threshing. We had not been able to sell any stock, and it was now less than a week till the sale. During that time I exhausted every resource to raise the $900 still needed to save the farm, but with- out success. I had not succeeded in raising another dollar. THE BEASON WHY. People in eastern states may wonder that, with my 160 acres of land and other property as security, I could not borrow this amount, but they must remem- ber that there was at that time very little money to lend in this part of the country. Settlers were not capitalists, and had need of all their own means and geuerally more. A new bank had been started at Kingston, but its capital was quite small, and what it had was used entirely in short time loans — two and three months — and mostly in amounts of from $100 to $300. The two banks at the county seat had IS DAKOTA. 39 more capital, but they, too, were discounting nothing but short time paper. Bragdon was a director in one of these, and of course that settled my business there. He did not want me to get the money. He wanted my farm. There was another thing that I have no doubt operated against me : my building that house was regarded as a piece of extravagance, and evidence of a lack of business prudence and sagacity. I was comfortable in the little house, and ought to have lived in it at least another year, and so escaped this embarrassment. Pride built it, and " pride goeth be- fore a fall." Money lenders don't like to make loans to men who have given such evidence of the lack of common business prudence. And so the day of sale arrived. The property was to be offered in front of the sheriff's office, " between the hours of ten o'clock A. M., and four o'clock p. m.," so read the advertise- ment. I resolved to go and see who bought it, hop- ing most fervently that somebody might outbid Bragdon, though that was hoping against hope. Those who had the money and might happen to want the place, would not like to bid against him, for he would never forget it, and he was a bad man to have as an enemy. So I went to the county seat, feeling on the way very much as if I was going to my own funeral. THE sheriff's SALE. At eleven o'clock the sale was "called." There Wiis 40 TOM'S EXPERIENCE quite a crowd in attendance. The sheriff read the legal description of the property, recommended it highly from his personal knowledge, spoke especially of the fine new house, and then called for bids. " Fourteen hundred dollars." sung out Bragdon. The sheriff dwelt on this bid for several minutes. "Too bad, gentlemen," he said, "to sacrifice this property in this way. It is worth four thousand dollars if it is worth a cent. Remember it is less than three miles from the new railroad town of Kingston. Think of getting such a piece of prop- erty for only fourteen hundred dollars. Any man who buys it at two thousand dollars can double his money in six months. Do I hear fifteen hundred for it?" "Fifteen hundred," came from the other side of the crowd. Bragdon fairly leaped from the ground, his beady eyes gleaming with malice, and I am pretty sure his tongue darted out like a serpent's as he hissed, ^' Sixteen hundred.'' " Seventeen/' responded the other. " Eighteen," again hissed Bragdon. "Nineteen," came from the voice on the other side. "Two thousand," said Bragdon in a tone that seemed to say, " there now, that takes it." But he was mistaken. " Twenty-one hundred," responded the other. This spirited bidding had excited the crowd They • IN DAKOTA. 41 were not used to it. and expected to see Bragdon bid in the property witliout competition. '* Go ahead, build them a ^8 rJM'S EXPERIENCE- «BQall liGuse and stable, three horses for a breaking team; a cow, feed for the stock, a good plow, and something for their own support until the breaking season is over. *'Your total investment will be about $2^500. That will be plenty, and less might do — a good deal less does a great many people, and they manage to pull through. But we will deal liberally with this couple of yours. Suppose they arrive here in the spring, in good time to build their house and stable, and be ready for the breaking season, which is not less than fifty days long. In that time he ought to bfeak at least eighty acres for himself, plant a lot of it in potatoes, flax, oats and corn, and do enough breaking for others to earn $60, or more, to pay liv- ing expenses. " For your investment of $2,500 you ought to have, say ten per cent, interest the first year, and you should let the tenant pay that in breaking sod at the regular rate, and give him the benefit of such sod crops as he could raise. When you consider the in- creased value of your land, you will find that would be a very good investment. Of all crops except those raised on sod you would have one-third. The tenant ought to plant at least ten acres of potatoes, and just as much of the balance of his breaking as pos- sible in flax and oats, with enough corn to supply his stock. If he could get the money to pay for it, he would better hire enough help to put every acre of his breaking in crops. He should also put up enough IN DAKOTA. 69 hay for his stock during the winter. For some of the assistance he would need in doing this, he could exchange work with his neighbors, and during har- vest, with the help of his team, he ought to earn $75. His sod crops, aside from the potatoes, would furnish abundant feed for his stock, and surplus enough to pay for all the supplies needed for the family, and his ten acres of potatoes would yield 900 bushels, worth at 30 cents a bushel, ^270. His earn- ings for the season then would be; From breaking ^ 60 00 From work of self and team in harvest 75 00- From 900 bushels of potatoes 270 00 Total ^*05 00 '' In this calculation you will notice that I leave out all the sod crops except the potatoes, as I allow them to go entu^ely to the family support and the keeping of the stock. And they will do that well. In the fall he does his backsetting and gets his land in good condition for next springs crops, and during the winter he can (and will if he is a sensible fellow) fix up a gi-eat many things to add to the comfort and convenience of his home. In the spring he will have eighty acres in first-rate condition for crops, which he can put in wheat and oats— say sixty of wheat and twenty of oats. Then he will do forty or fifty acres more breaking, and on the sod raise another crop of potatoes, flax, oats and corn. If his wheat produced twenty bushels per acre and his oats sixty» 70 TOM'S KXPERIENt'E and he sold the wheat at ninety-five cents and tha Odts at thirty, these crops would realize $1^500, your third ($500) being twenty per cent, on your in- vestment, besides the increase in the value of your land." He listened attentively to my statement, and then said : " I do not see any flaw in your calculations, but it seems to me you've laid out a good deal of work for that tenant." " On the contrary, I've given him comparatively an easy time of it. If he stays in Illinois and works as a tenant there, he will have to do more work every year than I have laid out for him here." *' But a good tenant," he said, "woald want to know, before coming here, what the advantage to him would be. He would say he might as well be a tenant in Illinois as in Dakota." THE TEN^ ant's SIDE. " The difference to him would be in the lower price of land here, and his much better chance of getting a farm of his own. My calculation gives him $405 cash at the end of his first season's work. At the end of the second season, from the proceeds of his wheat and oats and sod crops, after paying ex- penses of harvesting and threshing, he would prob- ably have a thousand dollars, but say only eight hun- dred, and he would still be twelve hundred dollars ahead. Now do you know of any tenants and their IN DAKOTA. "H families in your part of Illinois who can make such a showing as that?" '* No, I don t think I do," he answered. '' And the second year," I continued, ^'you would have 130 acres under cultivation. With a hundred of this in wheat and thirt}^ in oats, you could reason- ably expect 2,000 bushels of wheat, and 1,800 of oats, which would bring, say $2,500. Your third of that would be thirty-three per cent, on your $2,500 investment, and your tenant will have added eight hundred or a thousand dollars to his surplus." A TENANT NO LONGER. '* And then," he said, " he wouldn't be anybody's tenant any longer." " No," I said, '' and he oughtn't to be. And there's where the greatest benefit to the tenant comes in. He becomes a land owner himself, and soon is inde- pendent. There is a great deal of capital in the east that might be profitably invested in this way^ and there are thousands of poor families who might be thus helped to good homes on these rich lands. It is H practical combination of labor and capital, under which there would be no strikes, and by which any sober, industrious employee can in two or three years become an employer himself, and the owner of a good farm." THEY WANT BACKING. " But why," inquired Mr. Bright, " isn't it better for a poor man to take a pre-emption or homestead 72 TOM'S EXPKRIESVK at once, and thus cultivate his own land instead of mine, or some other man's ?^' '* If he has something to start on, it is. But it takes something for moving expenses, land office fees, a house, a team, a plow, and for the family's living until the sod crops can be grown, and a great many even who have enough ahead for all these things are afraid to make the venture. They think it better to endure the ills they have than fly to others that they know not of. If they had some one back of them with capital for a couple of years, they'd get able to go alone, and soon have homes of their own. Thou- sands of determined men do go on government land with barely enough money to get to their claims, and somehow they manage to pull through, and you'll see them in a few years comfortably fixed and independent. But of course they have a hard time of it for awhile. But even their privations are as nothing when compared with those of the old pio- neers who settled the heavily timbered States, such as Indiana, Ohio and Michigan." " Well, I a!n pleased with yoar plan, Tom," he said, " and think I'll try it on a quarter-section or two, anyway. But it's late, and we all ought to be in bed. So good night." MR. BRIGHT INVESTS. The next mor&ing Mr. Bright decided to purchase two quarter-sections, it they could be had for a fair price, and send out ten an is for them on his return IN DAKOTA. 73 home. After some inquiry we found two that suited him, for which he paid ^1,500 apiece. He arranged for the building of suitable houses and stables upon them, which were to be ready for the tenants early in the spring. And then he went back to his Illin- ois home. A HINT TO CAPITALISTS. The plan which I outlined to him as above given, is well worth the consideration of capitalists and men without means, in the eastern and middle States. To the first it is a perfectly safe and very profitable inyestment, and to the latter it offers a fine opportun- ity for such a start in the west as will soon enable him to own a farm of his own. There is not a man with surplus money to invest anywhere who does not know of one or more industrious, trustworthy fam- ilies whom he could start in this way, and who will never get a start in any other. FALL WORK. My fall ploughing was pushed vigorously, and by the help of several hired teams was all done before winter set in. I reiterate here the great importance of putting the ground intended for spring crops in the best pos- sible condition the preceeeding fall. No work the farmer can do pays better than this, unless it be good breaking. I now had 230 acres under cultivation, and when the plow, and harrow, and pulverizer were through with it, you would have agreed with me 74 TOM'S EXPERIENCE that it looked like a garden. I confess I was proud of it. BACK TO THE OLD HOME. We had decided to make a visit to the old Illinois home this winter, and so the week before the holi- days we packed the necessary trunks and started. We had come out in the fall of 1879, and neither of us had been back in the three years that had elapsed. This, you will remember, was in December, 1882. It seemed really only a few months since, on that bright October afternoon, we drove up to the plain little house I had built during the summer, and for the first time went together into our own home. Then the nearest railroad was twenty-three miles distant, and on all this broad stretch of prairie there were only three houses in sight, and two of these were more than three miles away. Now there are neigh- bors all around us, and as good ones, too, as you will find anywhere, a good school house near by, a pros- perous village with two neat churches within less than three miles, and every few hours during the day we can see from our door the railroad trains rushing into the village and out again. In the progress that had been made it seemed a generation since we came instead of only three short years. But so our great west grows. The children were particularly delighted with the j>rospect of so long a journey, and enjoyed it to the utmost. They could hardly realize it when we arrived at our journey's end, for they had thought that it IN DAKOTA. Y5 was SO very far " to Illinois " that we ought to be at least a week in getting there. ILLINOIS HOSPITALITY. There is no discount on Illinois hospitality, and our reception by the old friends was cordiality itself. During the first twenty-four hours I really think we received enough invitations to '' come and make us a good, long visit," to have taken the entire winter and spring if we had accepted them all. And there was nothing of the half-way, simply formal tone about these invitations, either. They were given in a way that made you feel that they were meant to their full- est extent. Reader, if you don't know what this Il- linois hospitality is, you have missed a great deal. I am sorry to say that there are a good many places in this country where it does not prevail at all. MR. ] [Right's quarter sections. Among the first men I met after my arrival was our good friend Bright, and of course we were all delighted to see him again. " Welcome back to the old home," he said, in his cheery, cordial way ; " we are all glad to have you with us again, and you can prepare for business right ofi"." " Why, what's up?" I enquired. " I came here on a visit and not on business." " Well, only this," he answered, " that about every other man within five miles of here has been at ^76 TOM'S BXPERIIENVE work, ever since he heard you were coming, fixing up a catechism for you about Dakota. Before you get through with half of them you'll wish yourself back on your Dakota farm." "No, I won't. Just let them come on, and if there's anything that I know about Dakota that will be of any advantage to my old friends around here, I'll be only too glad to tell them." *' Better ' hire a hall,' as the boys say, and tell them all at one time, and be done with it." " No, I couldn't do that — couldn't talk to them in that way — and if I could it wouldn't satisfy them. With many of them it is the most important business matter that could come before them — involving as it does the question of a home, and of their future success in life. What men want in such a matter is to sit down quietly and talk it all over with some one in whom they have confidence ; who can give them the information they want, and then ask him all the questions they can think of. You see, Sam, I know how it is myself. A few years ago I would have given a good deal for just such an opportunity, and now if I can help people who are situated as I was then, it will give me real pleasure, and if my ex- perience during the last four years in Dakota wall be of any value to them, they are welcome to it, and T promise not to get tired dealing it out to them." " 'Tom's Folly,' and all?" he asked, laughingly. '' Yes, certainly, ' Tom's Folly ' and all. I shall conceal nothing, although it is a little humiliating IN DAKOTA. r^rj to have to confess to such a folly as that. But what, about the tenants you want for those two quarter- sections out there. Have you got them yet?" ^* No, I havn't selected them yet. I guess I have had twenty applicants, though, since it became known that I wanted them, and all good people, too. I tell you, Tom, if I had a county of land out there, I believe I could put a good family on every quarter- section of it between this and next May on the terms you &Qd I talked over last fall. Really, most of them seem to piefer it to homesteading or pre-empting. Only yesterday, in an interview with one of them he said : ' my means are very hmited, and I am afraid to venture out there with my little family on what I have. But if I could make such an arrangement as you propose, and in that way get what little backings I may happen to need for a while, I know I could in a few years own my own farm. And that's some- thing I never can do here.' And the man fairly begged for one of those quarters I bought in Dako-» ta last fall." '' Didn't you suggest to him," I asked, "that it might be better for him to go farther out and take a homestead, or a tree-claim, or a pre-emption?" '• Yes, and really urged it on him. 'But he has very little money, and is afraid to venture with what he has. ' If I were alone,' he said, ' I would not hes- itate a moment, even if I had only enough money to take me there and pay the Land Office fees. I'd ^o and get my claim and live in a dug-out until I could 78 TOM'S EXPERIENCE get something ahead. But I can't think of taking my little family to such a life as that.' I tell you, Tom, that man has the right kind of metal in him.'' '' Yes, and we have lots of that kind in Dakota. They are heroes in their way." AKOTHER HINT TO CAPITALISTS. Capitalists are again respectfully referred to this suggestion. There is money in it for them — a much larger per cent per annum than any bonds or mort- gages will pay them, and just as safe. And a man need not be a very large capitalist to do something in this line. From $2,000 to |2,500 will be enough for an experiment on one quarter-section, and he will be surprised at the handsome returns he will realize, and the rapidity with which his " quarter " will grow into a beautiful farm, and double and quadruple in value. And if he cares for such things — as I hope he does — he can all the time have the consciousness that he is helping some worthy family up to an inde- pendent position in life. There are as many open- ings for this kind of investment as there are deeded quarter-sections for sale, and I have often wondered that capitalists of both large and small means, as they rode over the broad and rich prairies, did not see, and make haste to improve, these golden oppor- tunities. No actual residence on their part is re- quired. If they wish they can continue to reside in their homes in the east, while their Dakota farms go on increasing in value, and yielding handsome re- IN DAKOTA. 79 turns year by year. Fuller outlines of this method of investment, the reader will find in a former con- versation with Mr. Bright on this subject iu the pre- ceding pages. MY FEIEND SNYDER. When I had concluded my conversation with Mr. Bright, my old friend, Robert Snyder, came along. '' Come and see us," he said, in that bluff, hearty way of his, '' and come to make a long visit, for I want you to tell me about Dakota, and I know it will take you a week to tell me all I want to know about it. They tell all sorts of stories about it here, and a fel- low don't know what to believe. Unless you have changed a good deal since you went out there, I know you'll tell me the truth." ^' What kind of stories do they tell, Rob ?" I en- quired. '' Well, one side will tell about blizzards, and cy- clones, and drouth, and sod houses, and dug-outs and all that, and the other will tell about forty bushels of wheat, and a hundred bushels of oats, and eighty of corn to the acre, and big squashes and turnips and potatoes and melons till you can't rest. I want to know just how it is, anyhow, whether I ever go there or not. And I don't think I will." AN ILLINOIS SUPPER. And so a few days afterwards we went to Rob's and had a grand good time, as everybody does who goes there. The first evening, after supper— a gen- 80 7'OifVs EXPERIENCE uine Illinois supper^ too, it was, with tender fried chicken, done to a turn, and cream gravy, a big plate of broiled ham of Robs own putting up, delicious fried potatoes, bread white as snow and light as a sponge, butter, the rich fragrance of which you. can never forget, coffee with rich, bubbly cream in it that made it like nectar, and so on. I mention these thmgs to show you one strong reason why a good many people don't want to go west. They are afraid they can never have such living there as they do "at home." They forget that wherever they are is " home." So that evening after supper we were all gathered around the blazing soft coal fire, and I asked Rob what he would like to know about Dakota. BLIZZARDS. " Well," he answered, " tell us about the blizzards, dnd the dug-outs, and the forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, and — well, everything." '' The blizzerd first, then," I said. "I've not seen but one, and that was not one of fhe worst, though it was bad enough. First there came a high wind, then in two or three hours a heavy cloud, not very black, and then the snow, first in scattering flakes, and then thicker and thicker. At first I lost sight of my neighbors' houses — they were shut out by the driving snow — then my barn was hid, and a little later I couldn't see ten feet from the house in any direction. The snow didn't seem to come down — it IN DAKOTA. 81 just swept past us — and yet plenty of it did reach the earth in drifts. Sometimes it would let up a litr- tle, and then, as if to make up for lost time, com- mence again with renewed fury. And that's about what a blizzard is.'' "And how long does it continue?" he asked. *' From two hours to two days. The one [ have de- scribed lasted about a day and a half." "Were any lives lost?" " No ; people can judge pretty well from the char- acter of the wind and the appearance of the clouds,' whether there is going to be a blizzard, and so they get their stock into shelter, and themselves also. Of course if a man should he caught out on the prairie in such a storm he would have a hard time of it, and some years ago, when houses were far apart, some lives were lost, but I have never heard of any since I have lived in Dakota." " And you've had only one blizzard since you lived there ?'' he inquired. '* Why some people think you have two or three ever}^ winter." "I am giving you my own experience," I said. *' Of course we have some cold weather there when the mercury gets down to twenty or thirty degrees below zero, but this don't last very long, and while it continues the air is so dry and still that you don't feel it as much as you do here when the mercury is a good deal higher. I never knew a high wind to blow ifchere while this cold weather lasted." 82 TOMS EXPKRIESCE A DUG-OUT. " And what about a dug-out," Rob continued^ " What kind of an institution is that?'' ''Well, we will suppose a man to arrive on his homestead with his family, an ox-team and wagon, a few articles of household furniture and no money. He can't buy lumber to build a house, and so he se- lects a convenient hillside and goes to work digging into it. A few days' work make a sort of side-hill cellar as large as may be necessary for his family, with the door in front and the floor on a level or a little above the level of the ground outside. He manages to get a few poles, lays a foot or two of sod around the top to make a place for windows and ven- tilation, lays the poles across and covers them with prairie grass, and the house is done, except the door and chimney. The latter is built of stones and sod. Of course a dug-out is warm in winter, and, if large enough a family may get along quite comfortably in one till they can do better. But they generally get out of them as soon as possible. If their house is ever so small and humble a Dakota family prefers to have it all above ground. And they trenerally can if they are reasonably industrious. But this shows you the earnest and determined spirit of many of our Dakota pioneers. The man who wants a farm of his own so much as to be willing to live in a dug-out a while in order to get it, is pretty sure to have one sooner or later. Many who commenced in a dug-out IN DAKOTA. 83 are now in comfortable houses on their own well-im- proved farms. But I don't advise a man to begin in a dug. out if he can help it." ABOUT BIG CROPS. *'Well, what about those big crops out there — forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, a hundred bushels and more of oats, five hundred bushels of potatoes^ and so on ?" " As a rule you want to take those stories with a degree of allowance, just as you do the wild stories about blizzards and the mercury getting down to fifty and sixty below zero. Such crops have been raised, there is no doubt about that, but they are ex- ceptional. A man may get forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre from a few acres of his ground in a very favorable season^ and with everything else fa- vorable. x\nd I have seen a hundred and five bush- els of oats taken from an acre. But if any man has secured any such averages from any considerable number of acres, I have never seen it or heard of it. Now last year I took all possible pains in putting in my crops, the season was a tolerably good one, and from 90 acres of wheat I got an average of 28 bush- els per acre, and from 90 acres of oats 71 bushels per acre. I think I had a few acres of wheat that might have turned out forty bushels, and an acre or two of oats that would have gone very nearly a hundred. But the right thing is to take the averages." 34. TOM'S EXPERIENCE THE DROUTH. "Aud they tell stories about the drouth out there," continued he, " and say that the summers are too dry for successful farming." '^ Again I will come right down to my own exper- ience," I answered. " The annual rainfall is not so heavy as it is here in Illinois, and in Indiana and Ohio. The official reports settle that. But they also settle another thing, and that is this: that our heav- iest rainfall comes in May, June and July — just at the very time the growing crops most need it. Here in Illinois you have a good deal of rain in winter, and your heaviest rains are in the early spring months, when it can't do the crops any good. One year, since I have been in Dakota, the summer was too dry for first-rate crops, but there was nothing near a failure of crops on account of the drouth. In fact we raised what would be called in most of the States fair aver- age crops. In some of the States you have heard of complete failures from drouth, not one alone but a good many of them. But you have never, truthfully, heard of such a failure in Dakota. " Now, Rob, I am not saying this to induce you to go to Dakota, for I don't want you to go. You know I'd like to have you for a neighbor, but you own a splendid farm and are doing well enough here, and had better stay. But you wanted information about Dakota, and I'm telling you the truth about it." "And do you really like the climate there ?" he asked. IN DAKOTA. 85 I ** Yes, and no. If I could make the climate I am to live in, I would have it neither too hot nor too cold, too wet nor too dry, but just right. I don't like a blizzard, and I would rather the mercury didn't get down quite so low as it does out there sometimes in the winter, nor go quite so high in the summer. And if I could have the rain just when I want it, and just enough of it, and never too much, that, of course, would be delightful. But we can't have those things just as we want them anywhere that I know of in this world, and so take it all in all, I like the Dakota climate better than I do that of Illinois. We seldom have any mud there in the winter, and not much in spring or fall. And the climate is in- vigorating and healthy. With many persons it acts like a tonic. I never knew but one case of chills and fever there, and in that case the man brought the malaria in his system from New York, and, like some of the evil spirits of old, it gave him the worst shak- ing up just before it left him, for it did leave him, and he has had no sign of the disease since, and that was more than a year ago. DOES NOT CURE EVERYBODY. " Still the climate does not agree with evei7body. Some cases of nervous troubles grow worse there : the doctors say the air is too stimulating for them; but other cases get well. There isn't as much rheu- matism in Dakota as there is in damper climates, and yet some rheumatic cases grow worse there. The ^Q TOif'S EXPERIEXCE • same is true of consumption and other lung troubles. A great many recover in that invigorating air, and the doctors all tell me that a case of consumption never originates there, and I am inclined to think that is true, or nearly true. Colds and coughs are much less frequent there than here in Illinois. I think that is because there are fewer sudden changes. It isn t a low degree of temperature that gives peo- ple colds, but sudden changes. Yet people do have coughs and colds there, and you needn't take any stock in that old story that you never hear anybody cough in a church or other assemblage of people. It is not true. If you go into a crowd you will very likely hear sonsebody cough, but not so frequently as here. I am not a doctor, but I don't believe much in sending people away from home when they are sick, unless they have enough money to afford to travel a good deal. Florida will suit one, and Dakota another, and they can't tell which will suit them best till they try, and people of limited means can't af- ford to go traveling up and down the country to find the place they feel the best in. I know some con- sumptives in Dakota who would no doubt be dead if they had staid in their old homes, or gone to Florida. Now they seem entirely well. No doubt there are those in Florida who got well there, but would have died if they had gone to Dakota. As I have just said, there is no wa}'^ to know about what climate will suit any particular case but to try, and I would try Dakota first." JX DAKOTA. 87 SOME PEOPLE WHO OUGHT NOT TO GO. " I should think," Rob continued, " that you would strongly advise every poor man to go to Dakota, as well as many who are in good circumstances." '\ No, I don't — not by a great deal. Some men fail there as well as elsewhere. Some are like a lo- comotive: they have a great deal of power in them, but they need somebody to direct them; otherwise they soon get off the track and smash things. Such of these as are on a good track, and have a good en- gineer to keep them on it, had better stay where they are, because they may not hnd another so good a track nor so good an engineer in Dakota or anywhere -else. Then there are a great many people in good circumstances, from the well-to-do to the rich, who ought not to move. Generally every man must de- cide thie matter for himself. If he has a wife he should consult her, of course, and often her judg- ment will be worth more than his, and she will give him ' points ' that he had never thought of be- fore. '' There is no doubt at all that there are thousands and tens of thousands of people, in the eastern and middle States, who would greatly improve their con- dition and their children's by going either to Dakota or some other part of the great west. And they are going every day. The railroads are full of them, the hotels are full of them, and even the great, broad prairies are getting full." ^ TOM'S EXPEHTENCE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THERE. "And what kind of people are they, generally?'^ he asked. " As good a class as you will find, on an average,, anywhere in this country. A majority of them, are Americans, and they come from all over the north- ern States, commencing with Maine and ending with Minnesota and Iowa. They are generally wide- awake, earnest, energetic people, determined to make good homes for themselves and their children in the great new west. '' You will find plenty of college graduates among the men, and among the women are the graduates of many of the best female colleges in the United States. I have seen a cabinet organ in a dug-out^ and a piano in a sod-house, and you will find plenty of the best newspapers and magazines in the houses of most of those prairie pioneers- Wherever such people plant themselves you will see the church and the school house springing up almost as soon as you see their sod crops showing green above the black soil. NEWSPAPERS. " And the way local newspapers flourish on those Dakota prairies is simply a marvel. In one county, a hundred miles west of my home, in which three years ago there was not half a dozen settlers all told, there are now eight weekly newspapers. In another town, of not over 600 inhabitants, not long ago J A //AAOJA. 8y xaw one of the latest improved power })mitiu«; presses run by steam, and printing a paper larger than any yon have in this part of Illinois. What a luagniti- cent population that will be in a few years ! 1 don't mean great in numbers, although it will be that, too, but great ill the moral power that carries a people rapidly onw^ard and upward to the highest and best in civilization." , AND SATAN CAME, ALSO. '' But I suppose you have saloons out there as well as churches and school houses," he said. '' Yes, I am sorry to say we have. ' And Satan came also among them,' was said of a notable gath- ering a good many thousands of years ago, and he has kept on ' coming' ever since whereyer anything good was going on. But you seldom see a drunken man. And a vigorous effort is now being made to have a prohibitory clause engrafted on the constitu- tion when Dakota comes into the Union as a State. It may not succeed now, but it can't be put off many years." ''Well, Tom," continued Rob, "you've told me more about Dakota to-night than 1 ever knew before, and what's better I know it's all true. It wouldn't take much more to carry me into a regular fit of the Diikota fever." EMPHATICALLY NO. '' No, Rob, you mustn't take it. If there was any way of being vaccinated against it, I'd have you oj)- 90 To.yrs kxperib:nce erated on riglit off. You are well enough off here ; you own a splendid farm and have a charming home. Your parents are here, and it would be a sad blow to them to have you move away. Y^ou mustn't think of it. If you have any surplus money to invest, go and talk with Sam Bright, and see the scheme he is working up to do good and make money at the same time. There are openings of the same sort for you, without moving away from your pleasant home and associations. But see, it is away past your usual bed time, so good night." " No matter about the usual bed time. We don't often have you here to talk Dakota to us. Good night." SEEKERS AFTER TRUTH. And SO it went on from day to day and night to night. There was an eager desire among all classes to learn the truth about the Territory into which people are so rapidly flocking. '' We can get circulars and pamphlets and no end of other documents," said one, " from railroad and land companies and real estate agents, but of course they are interested parties, and we don't know how much of their stories to believe." A CALL FROM A MECHANIC. I was deeply interested one evening in a call from a Mr. John Harmon, a carpenter. He was a quiet, unassuming man, well liked by everybody, who had as much work at his trade as he could do, and was supposed to be in comfortable circumstances. IS nAKUTA. 91 *' 1 hadn't niiicli acquaintance with you. Mr. Tay- lor when you lived here,'' he began^ " but I wanted a little talk with you about Dakota, and to ask your advice about some things. You see we — my wife and [ — have been talking a good deal for a year or two back about going out there to try and get a farm, and we have heard so many different stories about it that we've been afraid to venture. And so when we heard that you were back on a visit to your old friends, we said we knew that you would tell us just how things are, and whether we had better go or not. And that's what I've called for." "I am glad to see you, Mr. Harmon, and will cheerfully give you any information about Dakota in my power. But you seem to be well-situated here. Are you not doing as well as ever?" " Yes, I presume I am." " Laying up some money every year?" " A little, not very much." *' You own the house you live in, I believe?" '• Yes, sir." '• And have a snug sum laid by for a rainy day, I suppose?" *' Not very much, sir. You see we concluded to buy that property we live in, so as to have a home we could call our own, and that took most of the savings." " But you have something besides that. About how much? You know I don't ask out of idle curiosity, but that I may be able to give you sound advice." ;92 TOM'S KXrKfiJKNCE *' Certainly, I understand that, sir. We have now about nine hundred dollars in the savings bank." '* And your property here is worth how much ?" " I paid |1,800 for it, and have made a good many improvements since. I think I could sell it for $2,000, maybe a little more." " And you have been in business here ten or twelve years?" " Yes, nearly fifteen." " So that, besides supporting your family, you have laid up about $200 a year." " Yes, sir, that's about it." " And you have generally lived well?" *' Yes, sir, we have lived plainly and comfortably, but we have economized closely and worked hard, and we feel that, somehow, we ought to be getting ahead more than two hundred dollars a year. I am not quite forty years old, have good health, and if I keep it I can do a good many years' work yet. There are three or four other mechanics in town who feel very much as I do about this matter, and we have talked together a good deal about it during the last year or so, and had almost made up our minds to go to Dakota, when we met with an article in a Chicago workingman's paper that rather discouraged us. I wish you would read it and tell me what you think of it?" And he handed me a well-worn paper containing the following: *' It takes money to start a farm; it takes training ry DAKOTA. 93. and experience to carry it on successfully after it is started; and not all the men in tlie world are adapt- ed to farming, any nore than all are adapted to engi- neering, painting portraits or preaching. These fel- lows who are always advising workingmen to ' go out on a farm and become independent,' seem to think a a farmer can grow clothing, groceries, wagons, har- rows, threshing machines, feeders, sulky plows and doctors' bills along with his other ' garden sass/ They are mistaken. He can only possess himself of these necessaries by exchanging the thing's he can produce. Somebody must make the clothing, thresh- ing machines, etc., and supply the farmer, taking in exchange the products of the farm. If all the cloth- ing and threshing machine makers went to raising wheat the farmers would have to go without clothes and the wheat* would rot in th^ fields for want of means to turn it into flour. Are those people who advise all the workingmen to go west and get farms prepared to show how a poor devil that is barely able to buy bread and pay the landlord, can become pos- sessed of the $1,000 or $1,500 that is necessary to take him and his family out there, put up a shanty and support them until a crop can be raised, to say nothing of buying tools, wagons, horses and seed? Are they prepared to show all the workingmen of the cities the exact location of those same rich lands that are not already held by railroads or other land- grabbers, and to gain ])ossessi()n of which a few hun- dred dollars more will be required?" 94 DAf'.'^ KXVKRIKNdE I read this carefully, and when I had finished he aisked: '' Well, what do you think of it, sir?" AN ANSWER TO A NEWSPAPER. '' There is a good deal in it that is true, and a good deal that is not. The writer of that article puts all mechanics in one class, and they don't belong there. No two are alike or situated alike. Now I am very far from advising everybody to go west; on the other hand I advise a great many not to go, and there is not the least danger that so many will go that there will be nobody left to ' make the clothing, the threshing machines,' etc., as this paper says. There are plenty of men working at these and all other trades who are doing better where they are than they would do in the west.. They ought not to go, and many of them never will. " Then, on the other hand, there are a great many who could do much better in the west than where they are. Thousands of these have gone and are doing well, and thousands of others are going. 0£ course some of those who ought to have remained where they were have gone, too, and others of the same class will go. People don't always get into the place that fits them hest, and many who do get there don't stay. That man does a good work who helps people into the places they can host fill and helps to keep them there^ " But let us return to vour cnse. You could land /A DAKOTA. 95 in DtLkotu with §3,000 cash in yuur pocket. You don't know much about farming, but you have a fair knowledge of general business. Now the question is, had you better leave a business here that is paying you a living and ^200 a year besides, and go to Da- kota? Would you be better off there in five years from this time than if you staid here? In all human probability you would." ^'Theii, if I should decide to go," he said, "the important questions come up, where and when shall I go, and what shall I do when I get there?" " You should secure a farm, by all means. If you don't do that you had better stay where you are." '' But I am no farmer. Do you think I could suc- ceed on a farm?" " You would not need to go to work on it with your own hands. You could earn more, for several years to come, anyway, at your trade, and hire your farm work done. And the same is true of mechan- ics in other branches. A FARM AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT. " Get your farm, if possible, near enough some good town for you and your family to live on it, so that you can carry on your business in the town. Not only there, but in all the country around there will be a great deal of building to be done for many years yet. And as you were speaking of your friends, 1 will say that there is plenty of work in those towns for goml mechanic-^ of all kinds. But every one who 96 TO M 'S EXP K K fK N^O E Sfoes slKHild aim to i^ret a, farm at once while land is cheap. If he can t do that he is just as well off', per- haps better, where he is. If he can get a farm, and as rai>idly as his means will permit, bring it under cultivation, he will soon find himself independent. If he can make his home on the farm so much the better, for it will save rents, and lie will tind his family expenses rapidly running down, as the living will be largely drawn from the farm. If he attempts to work the farm at first, and never was used to that kind of work, he will find it very awkward. It will certainly pay him better at first to work at his own trade, which he knows how to do, and hire men to cultivate his farm who know how to do that work. ''In your case it might be somewhat different, for a man who can drive a plane wouhl soon learn to drive a plow. But very generally the mechanic will find profit for awhile, anyAvay, in sticking to his trade and hiring his farm work done. Gradually he can work into it, if he wants to." '• But can I get good land near a good town now?*' BAILROAl) LAND. '' Not government land. But you can generally buy deeded land at a fair price. And right here I want to say a word in behalf of the land-grant rail- roads. I am not in favor of any more land-grants, and it is not likel)- there will ever be any more. But most of those we have are a great benefit to a great nuniy people. They will sell you what land you /\ DAKiri'A. 97 want — an J when' from forty acres u]) — tor a low price and a very small payment down, and the bal- ance on such long time that any man can pay for it out of the crops and scarcely feel it. And now, while the government lands are generally taken for from ten to twenty miles back from the railroads and towns, you can get choice tracts of railroad land very convenient to good towns. Then you have from the start, and always will have, a good market. Of course if you take government land, and in a year or two a railroad comes along somewhere near you, then you are all right and have saved the cost of the railroad land. I say this to you solely in your own interest, and not in that of any railroad company." "Would you recommend to me any particulai- location?" " No, there is not much difference. Get as near some good railroad town as you can. Generally the county seats are the best, but not always, for capital and energy sometimes do more for a town than the location of the county offices in it." CHOICE OF LAND. '*Is there much difference in the quality of the land?" '' Not much, but of course there is some. You either want to select your land by seeing it yourself, or by having some friend in whom you have confi- dence, see it. But as this is to be your home, I would advise you strongly to see it yourself. You 99 TOMS EXPKIilKS'CE will sometimes find a tract of thi)i, stony land^ while the section or quarter section adjoining it will be of the best." •' When is the best time to go?" " Generally the early spring is best, and most pecv pie prefer it. Some, however, go in the fall and put in the winter getting ready for the spring work. In your case I should say decidedly go in the spring, for you would then be there in time to make con- tracts for the season's building, and to arrange to get some work done on your farm. It would be better for you to make a trip before moving your family out, to look at the countr}^ and vselect a location. Three or four weeks- spent in that way would pay well, and you would always afterwards be better satisfied with your location." ^'I thank you for the information you have so cheerfully given me. It is practical — just what so many of us need, and do not know whei'e to get." And so these things went on during all our visit. People in every station in life were anxious to learn the truth about Dakota. So many wild stories had been told them on both sides that they did not know what to believe. THE CLIMATE AND VERACITY. One good old Presbyterian brother, who had been diligently seeking information for almost a year, (iame to me totally perplexed, and said: "There must be something iu the air out there that stimu- jx i)AK h'.\ /'/■:/: I hwoE at 10 per cent mterest, on good security. Now, make a note for §300, payable two years after date, sign it yourself, and then see if you can't get five of your friends to endorse it. You may count me as one. 1 think Sam Bright will be another, Squire McCreary another, Rob Snyder the fourth, and I guess you can find the fifth. It will not be much for each if we should happen to have it to pay, and I am sure you have four friends besides myself who are willing to take that slight risk for the purpose of giving you a chance to get a start in life and secure a home for your- self and family.'' The tears came into his eyes as he took my hand and said: "Thank you, Tom; a thousand thanks. This is the first gleam of sunshine that has bright- ened my future for a long time, and if I only can get this chance to work out and up, and secure a foothold once more, I will show you and all my friends that Jim Hardy is worthy of their confidence, and knows how to appreciate a favor.'' That afternoon he came to me with a note properly made out. He had seen Squire McCreary and stated the case to him. '' I'll not sign the note^ Jim," the Squire said, *' because I don't endorse notes for anybody; but 1 will lend you sixty dollars for two years on your own note, without any security, and you just make the other note for $240, get four names to it instead of five, as you proposed, bring it to me and I will let you have the money.'' /.v ItAhOTA. 105 .1 wonder if the i^^enerous-heartecl Squire ever knew what a great hnnleu that little speech lifted off from Jim Hardy's heart, and wliat a flood of sunlight it caused to fal upon his future. Jim tried to tell him but broke down in the attempt, and so left him with a few broken words of thanks. The balance of the business was easily arranged, for Jim's neighbors all had confidence in him. and seemed glad to take what little risk there was in giv- ing him a lift into better prospects. And Jim him- self seemed another man. The sad, discouraged expression left his face, and a brightness that was all the time ready to break into a smile came in its stead. and he seemed, in a single day, to have grown ten years younger. It was decided that his family should remain where they were for the present. " I can live in a dug-out or any way,'' said Jim, until I can make things com- fortable for them out there, and then I can send for them.'' Col. Worthington, on whose farm Jim had lived for eight years, said they (ioidd have the little house and two or three acres surrounding it free of rent as long as they wanted it, and he would alSo see that they had plenty to live on while they stayed. Jim protested at first that this seemed too much like making paupers of them, and he could not permit that, but the Colonel would not listen to such talk. "See here, Jim,'' he said, '" you've worked for me mor^t of the time for ei^ht vears now. and tliere never lOCy TO MS KXPKRTF.SiJK was a time when you liesitated to work late at night, or before daylight in the morning, when my interests seemed to require it. Now I have the opportunity of paying you back in kind, and am going lio do it. It will simply be paying a debt I owe you, and there is nothing like charity in that, I'm sure. While your family remains here they shall want for nothing.'' If Jim hadn^t accumulated any mcme}^ in those eight years, he had certainly made a good deal of capital in the way of true friends. AN0THP:K PltOBLEM. My problem had now changed somewhat, and could be stated as follows: Given, a man in Central Illi- nois with a wife and two children, and $300 borrowed money, to be paid back in two years, with interest at ten per cent; how can he and his family be trans- ferred to Dakota, put in a way to get a home of their «)\\ai, and repay this money when due? ■Tames Hardy would follow my advice implicitly. Indeed he would look to me for advice, and expect it, for some time to come, until he should be fairly started and able to take care of himself. Experience in a new country counts for a good deal, and \w. knew it. If there had been any government land in my neighborhood I could have settled the matter very easily. But there was none, and with Jim's 6300 the purchase of a relinquishment was out of the question. I could send him out some place where government land could be had, but feeling responsible /A' DAKOTA. 107 for his success, I wanted to have him near nae so I could render him assistance, if necessary. I thought the matter over very carefully, and finally decided to have him buy 80 acres of railroad land. There was a quarter section near my farm that could be had for $5 an acre. I would buy half of it myself and Hardy could take the other half. His first payment would be $90, and there would be nothing more to pay, except a small amount of interest, for two years. He would be near a good market, and where I could help him if he should need it, and for the present 80 acres would be enough. If he got able to take more land after a while no doubt he could get it. I told him what I had decided on as best for him to do — told him that by going farther out he could get a quarter-section of government land free, except the land office fees, and he might possibly get a tree- claim also, giving him 320 acres in all — and laid the case before him as fairly as I could. H« decided at once. '' ril take the 80 acres now, Tom," he said. '' It will make us a good home — something we've been hoping and striving for a long time. After we get that if we want more land I presume we can get it." WAS IT BEST? Some readers will criticise my advice to Hardy, and say it would have been better for him to have gone out and taken government land. Possibly it might, but there would have been some risk in it. The man 208 TOM'S KXPERIKSCE had been " down/' for some years, and had grovvn discouraged. He needed some bracing up, and the revival of iiis ho|)ef:'uliies.s and courage — he needed success for awhile to give him self-confidence. When he gets these he can, if he wishes, go out and use his homestead and pre-emption rights and get more land. The money invested in the railroad land, and the work he puts on it, will not be lost by any means, for lie will be able to sell, if he should ever wish to, at a handsome advance on the cost of the land and what- ever improvements he may make on it. Personally I felt in a measure responsible for his success, and therefore wanted to have him near me so I could ren- der him some assistance if that should become neces- sary. '' Well, what was the result?" I presume a great many readers will ask, and I may as well finish James Hardy's story hero as anywhere else. HOW IT TURNED OUT. rt was only last January (1883) that these events occurred. On my return home I bought the quarter- section of railroad land referred to — eighty acres for Hardy and eighty for myself. He came out about the middle of April, and was anxious to go immedi- jitely to work, but not much could be done at that time except to get ready for the spring work. On my advice he bought a good yoke of oxen, and in a few days had a very comfortable stable for them made of posts planted in the ground, ])oles laid ac^-oss y.V DAKOTA. lOil the top and these covered with straw, the sides also being well-protected with straw. The entire expense of this was less than $4. His outlay up to this time was as follows: First payment on land $ 90 00 Yoke of oxen and stable 109 00 Breaking plow 28 00 Feed for oxen 10 00 Travelling expenses 21 00 Total ....S253 00 I arranged for him to board with the^f amily living in my tenant house. He commenced his breaking early in the season — rather too early, I thought, but when I told him so he said: "You know, Tom, an ox team is rather sIoav, and 1 want to turn over as mudi of this sod as possible this year, besides earn- ing some money doing breaking and other work for the neighbors." A MOONSHINER. And I never saw a single ox team do more work than his. They w^ere well fed, well cared for and well worked. One day, the latter part of May, he came to me and said: " Tom, I notice you are not using a couple of your horses much just now, and I want to hire them when you will not be working them yourself." "All right, Jim. but what are you going to do with them?" "I want to tit out another breaking team. 1 can IIQ TOM '.s a; X P K li J K .V( ' K get one horse oi: neighbor Hurst over there, an«l tliat with two of yours will make a splendid l)reaking team." " But who is going to run it for you?" . " Well, you see, Tom, these are beautiful moon- light nights — almost as light as day — and T can just as well as not run my plow till about midnight if [ have another team." '' But you can't stand it to work that way, Jim. Youll break down.'' " Tom, my wife and two children are back there in Illinois, in that little house on Col. Worthington's farm, and I want to get them out here with me, in our own house on our own land, just as soou as pos- sible. I can get all the breaking I can do besides my own, and it pays well at %Z an acre; but you know the breaking season is rather short, so I am going to work nights. It will enable me the sooner to send for my wife and the children. '^ ANKIE AND THE BABIES. And for weeks Jim Hardy drove that breaking team of his till midnight six nights in tjie week. Such a man ought to succeed — and will. He broke fifty acres of his own land, and over thirty for his neighbors for which he received more than a hundred dollars in cash. He planted twenty-five acres of his breaking in potatoes, fifteen in flax and ten in oats, and at the time I write this, (July, 1883) his crops all look well. If \ were troiny: to make an estimate rx ft A K or A. Ill 1 would say he would have over 2,000 bushels ol' potatoes^, 175 of flax and 300 of oats, worth alto- f^'ether not loss than §800. Of course it will cost him <'()nsidera])le to gather and thresh his crops and get tlieni to market, but he will still have a handsome margin left — euougli anyway to build a comfoi'table little house and send for Annie and the babies. And there luis been a complete transformation in James Hardy since that morning 1 met him in Illi- nois. His e\es are bi-ight, his step is elastic, and even w^hen he was working from earl}^ morning till midnight he never seemed tired. Hope and faith in the future have created a new world for him, and when his wife and children come I don't think there will l)e a happier man in all this w^orld. COULD 1 no THAT? Other men in the Kastern and Middle States situ- ated as James Hardy was, will ask the question, ''Could /do*as well as he did if I were to go west?' In answer I say frankly that no man can tell but yourself. If you will do as he did I can see no rea- son why you should not. The same soil is there, and the same sun that shines and the same showers that fall on his fields will fall on yours. 1 have sim- ply told you what one man witho-.jt a dollar of money actually is dointr, and hoir he is doing it. It is well for you to remember that he is very much in earnest, and such a man will generally succeed, while another less earnest mav fail. And remember, also, that his 212 rj.\rs KX'rHurKs'rE is not an exceptional case: there are hundreds, y>erhap3 thousands^ of such cases to be found on these prairies. I know personally of a great many, and selected his because I have been more intimately connected with it than with any of the others. WHAT A WOMAN CAX DO. One mornini^, during our visit in Illinos, Mrs. Sanford called to see us. I had known her some years before as the wife of a merchant who seemed to be doing a good business in the town near by, but after his death it was found that there was but little left after the debts were paid. She had opened a small millinery store, and its profits af- forded her and her three children a support. T think it was a meager one. and there seemed to be nothing better ahead. "I came to inquire about Dakota. Mr. Taylor," she said, " and to ask if you think there is any place out there for me." '' There is certainly plenty of room there," I an- swered; " but whether it would be best for you to go is a hard question to answer." " That is the quesbion I want answered," she said. " I work hard here, and am barely making a living. Busines gets no better, and I don't think it ever will. In all that great territory it seems to me there ought to be .some place where a woman who is able and willing to work can lay aside something from year to year tor the tim? when she can no longer work."^ 7.V D.ih'rr.i. li;j " And I presume there is if we knew just when; to look for it," I answered. ''What would you like to do if you should ^o there?'* •'Anything that 1 can do that would alford me a prospect of a home of my own sometime. I can not do a farmer's work, of course, but 1 was brought up on a farm, and if in some way 1 could get a start I have thought I might manage a farm, with the help of the advice of friends and neighbors. But 1 don't know how to take the first step in the matter myself, and I came to ask you to show me the way, if there is any way." " You could not go alone out on the prairie and take a homestead and live on it five years. That seems out of the question. You would have to make a living, and you could not do it there. You might take a pre-emption, live on it six months and then '' prove up " and get your patent by paying tw^o hun- dred dollars. But even then it would be unproduc- tive. It is true you might hire some of your neigh- bors to do some breaking for you and plant some sod crops, and they would pay you something. But this plan hardly seems to me adapted to your needs — though women sometimes do it and manage to get through. But it is a hard life, and I could not ad- vise a woman situated Jis you are to undertake it. If vou had some friends who were going, and you could get a homestead or pre-em})tiou near them, it could all be managed well enoui^li. Often the houses ou three or foui* cluiuis ure Iniilt iie;ir u corner and with- 114 r^/i/s EXPh:iiiK\(i: in a few feet of each other, so the new settlers get along very pleasantly, and situated in this way a lone^ woman has no trouble about living on her claim and gradually getting it cultivated and realizing an in- come from it." " But 1 do not know of anybody who is going with whom I could make such an arrangement," she said. " Then possibly you might buy a relinquishment," I suggested. " What is that?" she inquired. " Well, it is where a man has takeu a claim on government land, and for an agreed price surrenders it to somebody else. Sometimes these are to be had convenient to a good town. Now if you could get one of these near enough to some town to enable you to carry on your present, or some other, business in the town, and at the same time manage to have your land brought under cultivation as rapidly as possible, it seems to me you would greatly improve your situ- ation. Of course such a relinquishment would cost a good deal." ''About how much?" '' W^ell, from $300 to $500, and often more, if near a town/' " But if 1 bought one of these relinquishments wouldn't I have to live on it, the same as if I had taken it originally?" '' Yes, of course. You would simply take the place of the person whose relinquishment yon bought." " F3uT I cou];43,7o9,49() Wiiolesale Trade, including Flour and Lumber. - - 97,0(K),000 Heal Estate Hales, ------- 18,7(in,'2.-iB Building, -------- 8,375,075 Live Stix^k and Pork Packing, ----- 3,835,000 Retail Trade, _._---- 30.000,000 Number of new firms since January 1, 1883, - - - 805 We solicit corresponrlence or personal interview with all interested in the Northwest. FARNSWORTH & WOLCOTT. A^'