St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-10-14
ST. LOUIS COUNTY FAIR.
The Agricultural Possibilities OF the
Third County in the
State.
A Creditable Exhibit of Vegetables-Needs
of the COunty-The Various Farm
ing Settlements.
[special Correspondence Of the Globe |

lHeE were aSIOnlS0eQ at the eX0lDlI Haue Oy
the farmers, as perhaps others not Duluth
ians will be surprised to hear that anything
else besides pine stumps, granite boulders
and election rows could be raised in this re-
gion. But the fair, which came to so sue
cessful d close tonight, demonstrates that
st. Louis county can raise wheat, oats, bar
ley, and vegetable of all kinds, and equal in
quality to the productions of any other county
in the state The fair was gotten up on
three weeks notice. The farmers were not
told to prepare especially for it, and yet
Commissioner Young says the exhibit would
do credit to any county in the northwest
The general conception of the upper coun-
ties OF the state is a wrong one, founded
upon insufficient knowledge and hasty gen.
eralization. 1t is thereupon and therefore,
concluded that they are fit for no other than
numbering purposes. Yet the most produc-
tive farmes in Michigan and Wisconsin are
found where once the melancholy pine
waved its tops to the passing breezes, and
there is no reason why the same should not
be true of Minnesota. As is formed of veg
etablc loan has not usually been considered
barren, and the history of every state where
farms were started in clearings proves, that
while the pioneers may have had hard and
unremuneratiye life, their successors reaped
abundant harvests and made money.
st. Louis county is one OF the largest in
extent in the state. 1t comprises between
four and five million acres. mostly covered
with pine, cedar, tamarack and other
woods. The surface is divers
fled by mountain ranges and
mills, and is profusely dotted with
lakes ranging in extent from a small pond
to bodies of water miles in length or breadth
There are whole stretches of swamp land,
some of which is swamp in fact, others are
swamp only for railroad land grant purposes.
Here as elsewhere, land would be described
as swamp when u railroad wanted it if pint
of water were found in one corner while the
rest may be on the slope of a hill. Along
the banks of the rivers and lakes there are,
in places, wide reaches of meadow land upon
which wild grass grows to great height and
in immense quantities. Nature seems to
mark these spots out for stock farms, and
there is no doubt that before another luster
of years goes by, there will be many stock
farms in this county. The success of Maj.
Smiths farm at Mahtown, in Carleton
county, shows that stock will increase and
multiply and thrive and flourish in this re-
gion as well as in the southern part of the
state. Similar conditions exist in St. Louis
county, and there is no reason why this
county should not become famous for its
stock and creameries. The possibilities in
this line are scarcely suspected, simply be-
cause no one takes the trouble to examine
the nature of the country. Minnesotians
know more about the polar circle than about
their own state, and the upper counties es-
pecially are terra incognita to all but few
explorers. 1t is remarkable that even the
people of Duluth were ignorant of what
farmers could do in the county, and one of
the best results of this, the first fair, will be
to make the agricultural resources of the
county matter of general knowledge.
Small portions of the county have been
under cultivation for twenty years, but the
methods of the farmers we're primitive in
the extreme. Those who have the hardihood
to face the gloomy forests and make clear
ings, had usually more courage and muscle
than money, and hence the results they had
to show were not startling. Gradually few
1
is from these the samples on exhibition
come.
These settlements are, Hermann town,
Rice Lake, Gnesen, Pike Lake, Oneota,
Fond du Lac and Midway. None of them is
very large, nor is auy of them at present
particularly hourishing, but in all the first
rough work has been done, and the results
henceforth will be more refined and more
remunerative. Hermann town is German
settlement containing about sixty families,
and shows evidence of German thrift and
perseverance. Rice Lake and Gnesen each
of about fifteen families, are settled by Poles.
who are hard working. painstaking people,
but with backward methods of farming.
They were all originally homesteaders, and
have succeeded in turning the pine woods
into smiling and budding plains. Pike
Lake, as a farming settlement, is not two
years old, but it promises to become an i'm
portant element in the wealth of st. Louis
county. The soil is very rich, the country
slightly rolling and not rough, easily worked
and generous in results.
Oneota and Fond du Lac are older and
better cleared settlements, but farming is
the occupation of only a few of the inhab-
itants The fair, which is the first genuine
fair ever held in the county, was the result
of the efforts of p. Benetean, a French Cana
dian citizen of Dul1th. Last year he kept a
coal ward in st. Paul, and is known to some
of your citizens. While scarcely anyone
here believed that proper or presentable
exhibition could be arranged, everyone was
willing to help, and the farmers especially
responded with alacrity to the call for sam
Piles and specimens. don't inted to burden
the columns of the GLOBE with detailed
Of Of ehd
am not Rutherford B. Hayes, and therefore
know not how to wax eloquent over
a pumpkin, nor grow ecstatic over
a turnip. l will merely mention
some figures in the vegetables exhibited,
and the intelligent readers of the GLOBE
can form their own conclusions or grow elO.
quent in their own account if they like. The
fair was held in one of the skating Kinks.
On one side of the hall was the agricultural
exhibits, on the other the display made by
the merchants Of Duluth. The agricultural
exhibit shows potatoes, turnips, beets, cab
bages, rutsbags, caul flowers, celery,
pumpkins, squashes, peas, and in short
every kind Of vegetable that it was supposed
could not be grown in these hyperboriaD
regions. A few facts about these. OF one
dozen cabbsges exhibited by one man, the
average weight was twenty-five pounds. The
same man exhibited celery three feet high,
as crisp and tasty as can be found in any
market. l don't like to say how large
the turnips were from all parts of
the country, but l saw some
that several men tried to span the upper
surface of it with both hands and couldn't
touch the extremities. And the hands Of
Duluth gentlemen are not considered as
small as Chinese women's feet. As to the
potatoes don't need to say anything. Some
eight years ago potatoes raised in st. Louis
county took the prize at the state fair, and it
is sufficient to say that the farms Of the
county in this respect would not suffer from
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