Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1882-03-02


aud Enterprise Tive Examples OF
Successful small Farms
Correspondence of the Inter-Ceean.
An old Spanish proverb has it, that
''he is benefactor of man who makes
two blades OF grass to grow where only
one grew before"
There is plenty of room for be.,e.ssso-
tors in this part of the country. Stretch
ing for leagues, north and south of us,
lie millions of acres of rolling prairie,
great pillows of earth, covered with
ripened buffalo grass of a beautiful gray,
waiting for benefactors of men to come
and till them; and if he who makes two
blades OF grass to grow where only
one grew before does such g. service to
mankind, what shall be said Of him
who replaces these miles of useless, but
rich soil, with fields of grain, bearing
twenty-five and thirty bushels to the
acre of mo. hard" and sells his crop
at 81 40 bushel as President Hayes
did last year.
Verify, he hath his reward
asked a gentleman who mad been
successful at farming, the other day,
why this country, with its
INExHAUsTIBLE MINES OF WEALTH,
lying only two inches or so under the
surface, was not filled with men reap
ing the harvests, and storing away the
easily gained thousands, like himself.
| His only answer was remark that
men were reluctant to become pio-
neers. But the pioneers are here.
They have tried the country, anu found
it good, and while the growth of popu-
lation has been comparatively slow, |
Judge that this year will see the great
est advance.
| asked Colonel Lounsberry, the gen.
ial postmaster at the booming town of
Bismarck, haw the place got its name.
| He said that about the time of the
international exhibition at Vienna, the
Northern Pacific was completed to the
Missouri river, and Jay Gould attempt
ed to settle the country with foreign
Emigration. The new territory was ex
tensively advertised, and as a trick of
the trade, the name of the great Ger
man chancellor was given to the new
town, then the terminus of the line.
The scheme did not succeed, as the
Bismarck of to-day, with its $500 popu-
lation, has as little of the German ele-
ment as any town in new England. 1t
is purely and distinctively American
1t is
THRIVING, BUsTLING PLACE,
with genuine Chicago enterprise, and
It's promise for prosperity are based
upon the development OF the rich
acres around it, and not upon the
frontier trade, which has been its main
support. With the extension of the
Northern Pacific to the Yellowstone
Valley, the distributing point for the
Northwest, which has been at
Bismarck, has been lifted 200
miles further on; and while this city
which, from its natural advantages in
touching water navigation on the Mis-
souri,, will always be more or less
shipping point, must depend upon the
magnificent but undeveloped agricul-
tural and grazing resources that sur
round il.
1t still keeps its place, however, as
the commercial metropolis of the far
northwest, and when the time comes,
and it must come soon, to divide Da-
kota into two territories, Bismarck is
the natural capital of the northern sec
ton. The Northwestern and the Mil
waukee and St. Paul railroads have
their heads pointed this way, and with
in few years there will be three rail
roads instead of one at this focus, and
the lands that are now sold for song
will be worth fortune.
The Mayor Of Bismarck is q Chicago
boy, w. H. Thurston, who used to be
| with Gray Brothers, the grocers, and he
| is now the proprietor of a large and
fiourishing wholesale grocery business.
THE HAYES FARM.
Ex-President Hayes owns farm
about six miles north of Bismarck near
the Missouri river. He purchased it in
| 1875 with Northern Pacific stock, which
was then at dead low tide in the market,
being quoted at about Is cents on the
dollar; so the land cost him but tritie,
the stock being interchangeable for land
at the rate of S. an acre par. The land
thus obtained at about 60 or IS cents an
acre is now worth about SIS, SO that
the ex-president's faith in the Northern
Pacific has been we'll justified.
The farm is managed by Mr.. Cush-
man, the collector Of customs here--a
relative of the amiable w X. Rogers,
who used to be the Presidents private
secretary. 1t is said that Mr.. Cush-
man manages the farm for nothing,
and it looks as if he did. While the
crops are always superb, and the farm
has paid for itself many times over
every year it has been cultivated, none
of the profits have been spent in i'm
provements, md the buildings are
| IN VERY POOR SHAPE
Mr.. Hayes, in his farming, exempii-
fies his well-known disposition to make
all he can and save all he makes-the
Yankee rule for getting rich. The
house is shanty, the barns are worse,
and there is none of that neat attrac-
tiveness that is seen so commonly
among Dakota farms. 1t is the most
shabby place have seen in Dakota,
But the farm is famous for its big
crops. Five hundred acres are IN
wheat Last wear the WELD was TWEEN