Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-03-17


sive resume of the emigration, foreign and
domestic, which showed most fattering
compliment to our own section, in the very
high percentage of emigrants that had
chosen the New Northwest as
their future aud permanent home
and at the same time we were bold enough
to predict continuation of the favorable
conditions which tend to promote and main
tain the influx of additional capital and
labor to the state of Minnesota and ada
cent territories. The various factors which
enter into the problem of emigration
and which in great measure governs its
ebb and flow are sufficiently clear
to the GLOBE in discussing
at this time the approximate result
of emigration for the present year to our
state. 1t must not be assumed that emil
grafton moves voluntarily to that section
which offers the most advantages or oppor-
tunities to the newcomer. On the contrary,
sometimes artificial stimulants temporarily
control the auxiliary arteries, if not the
main Current, and for the time being emil
grafton moves III almost opposite direc-
tions from what could reasonably be ex-
pected. It is but few years
ago when the volume of
domestic and foreign emigration flowed
to the West and Southwest, nothwithstand-
ing the fact that millions of the richest
free lands on this continent in the North
west invited the husbandman's pillow. The
reason of this diversion of emigration
fro the Northwest was the fact that the
majority of the people of our own state,
much less the world at large, did not then
know the incompatible richness of the soil
in the northwest portion of the state and its
inexhaustibles nature and adaptability
to all branches of diversified farming.
Many of our readers can easily remember
when the primitive Red river carts hun
dreds in the caravan, annually came to st.
Paul laden with fur, but none could then
predict the boundless resources of the
country from whence they came.
Like the early pioneers years ago from
Ohio and Pennsylvania who rejected the
rich lands in Illinois, now known as the
"Great Corn Belt, "and proceeded to Iowa, or
Wisconsin, and to-day these very lands are
valued at a hundred dollars per acre, and
will yield the owners no greater crops than
the lands of the Red river valley.
1t required something more than the
naked unsubstantiated assertion to
convince the land-hunter that
this section of Minnesota and
North Dakota with the richest soil, healthy
climate, good water, plenty of timber,
offered the best inducements and would
actually improve instead of deteriorate in
continuous cultivation. It remained for
''the arteries of trade" that great civilizer
and emigration agent, the railroad, to solve
the problem, and hold up to public ga re
the result.
1t was only when the railways had &C.
tually penetrated this district that the
more adventurous pioneers took courage,
with much misgivings and doubt, to come
and explore the land. Meanwhile the
farmer in the older states who possibly
at first acquired 100 acres, has through
sales and division of land among his own
family, diminished his holdings to eighty
or forty acres and in many instances even
less, finds it uphill work, if not indeed i'm
possible, to make both ends with the pro-
ducts of his small and impoverished field,
and the younger members of the family
begin to feel uneasy and talk of emigrat-
ing. 1t should not be forgotten that ID a
great portion of northern Indiana, Wis
cOnsin, Iowa, and southern Minnesota it
has cost the farmers on an average
of S25 per acre to clear their
lands of the timber, leaving the fields
studded with stumps, and that it has taken
many farmer the prime of his days to
clear field of forty acres.
Right here comes into practical results
the well organized and systematic efforts
of the railway companies in furnishing and
distributing reliable and Trustworthy
information about the great Northwest.
With some, noticeably the Manitoba
company, this is a special work, a regular
department, whose business it is to gather
all interesting information about the
country covered by its trunk lines and
branches, and which includes the pictur-
esque park region with its thousand, of
lakes and streams, the unduIating prairies,
the famous Red river valley, and
the now much praised DEVILS Lake dis
trict.o north Dakota, where millions of
acres OF free lands can be had even
now. After having gained all obtainable
information possible at home, the would
be pioneer packs his gripsack, and the
good wife provides a bountiful luncheon
for the journey for fear the traveller might
60 out of range of civilization to secure
land hunters ticket at reduced rates
and starts for the new country. Reaching
st. Paul he calls at the emigration Office
for further detailed information and con-
tinues his journey. A ride of ten or twelve
hours in a comfortable railway coach on
an express train brings him to the ''land
of golden grain"
He proceeds to look about, examines the
soil, follows in the wake of the pillow, digs
down through the deep, rich, black loan,
clear down to the mari clay bed
talks with the people, or, it in harvest
time, he watches the steam thresher pour
out the heavy No. hard wheat, which his
experienced eye readily distinguishes from
the No. 2 or possibly No. 3 raised in his
section. He finds that where two years
ago was nothing to mark the habitation of
man, to-day stands a young, prosperous
village of several hundred people.
all kinds of business represented.
with complete town and county organi-
cation, schools and churches every hodv