The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-08-17 00:00:00

EMIGRATION TO NEBRASKA.

The following letter, which has been sent to The
Tunes for publication, imparts valuable information to
intending emigrants :

You did me the honour to insert several letters of mine in
The Tines last March regarding the climate of Kansas and
Nebraska, and facilities for aettlement in Western Amer.ca
generally. I thsn spoke about the severity of the winter
season in those States being greater even than in Ci.inada, on
account of the fierce and bitter winds which prevail from
October until March, and which, at a temperature consider-
ably below zero, were far harder to be borne than anything I
had ever experienced before.

Since then I have again visited the same districts on my
way from Missouri hither, and have hail an opportunity of
noting the results of the winter upon settlers, most of whom
were Immigrants of but short experience of the country, who
bad been induced to come out there by the glowing accounts
of the climate and soil spread abroad everywhere by specu-
lators and railway companies, naturally anxious to dispose
of their land grants to the best advantage.
These results were what might have been emily predicted
by any one acquainted with the country. The necessities of
the winter had exhausted the slender means of the great
majority of the settlers, many of whom, after enduring the
severest privations and hardships throughout that season,
found themselves in the Spring bereft of all means to carry
on their farms ; tools, furniture, cattle—everything they
were possessed of having been parted with, at a great dis-
advantage, in order to provide means to keep up the supply
of the necessary but expensive requisite of prairie life, fuel.
At the time I was passing through I could have purchased
half the farms of the country at considerably leas than the
houses and improvements set upon them most have cost in
the first instance. Yet even at these prices the unlucky
settler found it extremely difficult to dispose of his property,
the number anxious to sell being conaiderably greater than
of those who were willing to buy.
The statements circulated throughout England are rml
nently calculated to mislead people respectiog the nature
and opportunities of the country While much is said in
them about toe richness and fertility of the soil—that it is
rich enough in itself for anything I am willing to allow,—
nothing is added about the winter cold, which nips, or the
summer droughts, which destroy more thau one-half of the
farmer's hopes; nor even in a favourable year, when the crop
is heavy and the yield good, is there a very large margin of
profit to he reaped : for Ins region so far away Irene all cen-
tral markets the prices actually received by the farmer are
very low, and barely pay him wages for the labour ho has
expended, in addit to the cast of working his farm. Thus,
last autumn wheat fetched barely 9ec , and corn, %hid' is the
at iple produce of the country, only. 20c per bushel.
It may be as well to mention here that the average rate of
taxation throughout those ',Tates is from 5 to 6 per cent,
levied not on the annual value of a man's house and Income,
hut on the total upset value of his whole property. Thus, if
the estimated value of his farm, cattle, chattel*, money In
the bank, etc., came to 5.000 dois , the taxes would amount
to from 50 dots. or 350 dole annually—a harden which,
coming upon the struggling farmer at the close of the year,
seldom fails, it the season has been a poor one, to complete
his ruin.

I do not wish to discourage people from coming to America.
It is a erect country and affords many opportunities to the
poor man but to come out without taperience or capital to
take up the wild lands of the West is a folly which Invariably
ends iu di,appointment and disgust An Englishman ac.
customed to his own country, in which the value of the said
has been enhanced hy improvements the result of centuries,
and by the high pries its m,lnce fetches, is apt to imagine that
valueb intrineicto theland itself,instead of to its improvements
and condition, and that it he ...lid only obtains good stretch
of territory of his own he will be on all equal footing with
the English! si downers he envies. It cannot ho too strongly
impressed upon him that this is not th,i case. The land it-
self is worth little or nothing in either country if you remove
the population that creates a market, destroy the roads, level
the fences, ant overthrow the buildings Reduce it to its
original wild condition, and land in England might he ob-
tained and be as worthless to a poor man there as it is now
In Western America.

The real oppr rtitnities for the labourer or artisan consist
lu the blab wages and plentiful employment he can obtain,
not in the wild western districts, but further east, in the
more Populous States, where he can save, if he Is sober and
economical, enough in a few years to make him Independent,
and where he sill not have to put up w ith one-tenth of the
hardships incidental to the settler on

am now on my way to apart of our own dominions v.hich
have lately excited son. intereat both in e ,na,la and Eng.
land—l mean the Red River Settiement—and intend to
establish my head-quarters at Fort Garry for sorne time.
Should anything strike me as worthy of communication
will venture to trouble you with another letter dated from
that place.—FaiLldolly yours, W. FRANK LYNN,
lirearintidge, Minnesota, United States, July 15.