The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1873-08-01
BY rRCF. .. u. BUTLER l.. T., d..
LINCOLN, CAPITAL or NEBRASKA.

more than twenty years ago, an Eng
fish colony came into STAFFORD, bencsee
County, n. ", and bought some OF the
farms. They paid Is high as $50 per
acre. The persons who sold went west,
and many OF them located on govern
ment land at a. 20 per acre. To-day
the profits are larger on the Cenesce in
vestInenis than on those made in the
west. Many Of the farms sor which $50
per acre was paid would sell for $50
per acre, &c."-LBudalo Commercial
Advertises.
Where in the west could those who
sold out in Stafford 30 without finding
lands rising Easter than that?
Did they take up farms in Iowa! The
average rise in value OF farms there in
The score o. years ending with 1870, was
much more ,han is claimed by Staiiordi-
an lands, namely three hundred and
twenty-ohe per cent. and the average
value per acre was S25 26, though most
OF them had been bought since 1850, and
oitcner for less than for 0 than ~
single dollar.
Where then did the wanderers from
Stafford settle? Was it in Nebraska p?
Then il would have been still harder for
them to make worse investments than
the English did who had bought them
out. Al meeting OF the American In
stitute Farmers Club, Feb. 18th. 1873.
one j. Sterling Morton stated that in
1854, lie pre-emptcd 100 acres near Ne
braska City for $500, just what four acres
in Stafford had lately sold for; and that
ne had been offered 5000 an acre for an
unimproved portion OF the same land.
But perhaps the Stafiordians were
among the Nebraska homesteaders, 49,
3O4 of whom had fled their claims in
Lincoln alone previous TO the last New
Years. But then they obtained farms
of so or l60 acres apiece, each whole
farm costing less than half as much as
they sold every single acre of their old
farms for. But all land in Nebraska
farms was valued in 1870 at Sl4 SO an.
acre.
The more I think of the Staflordians,
the more / am puzzled as TO where in
the wide west I'shall think of their local
h%abitation. They remind me of the
letter the postmaster knew not what to
do with, when he read the superscrip-
tion "John Smith, Valley of the Miss
issippi."
When l preceive that the average.
valuation of each farming acre while
rising in Genesee County one hundred
and two per cent. and in New York at
large, from S29 in 1859 to S57 50, in
1870. has risen throughout Illinois from
81 SO to S35 90. in Iowa from So to &25-
26, and in Nebraska from nothing at all
to Sl4 So, i cannot fail to echo Greeley's
slogan, $50 West!" | cannot wonder
that of the only ten States which have
each more han 100000 foreign immi-
grants, seven lie west OF the Allcghanies,
and that three times as many native
Americans who had their birth near the
Atlantic, rise to a higher plane beyond
the Mississippi.
The only hint / wish to give to an
European just landed, and urged to buy
on the Atlantic slope, is: Find out
the real reason the Eastern farmer
wishes 10 SELL" In nine cases out of ten
it is because he wants himself to go
West. But why be content with his
~leavings,-a sort of last years birds
nest? Go yourself where he longs to
go, and will go as 500 as he Is as free
as you are. He is. Ksop's fox at the
bottom of a well, c~oaxing goats and dom
keys to jump in, hat he may jump on
their backs, horns and ears, SO as to get
out himself
Mother Goose sings:
There was an old fellow VINO lived in his skin.
When he pops ou,do you pop in"
Bnt his slough will prove a poor fit
keep you-own skin, and go where you
can fashion all surroundings to your