Morning journal and courier., 1885-10-13

One-CrOp TerritOry-Other Attrac.
 tIons.
 CLARK, Dakota, Oct. 5. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 When I wrote you from Kansas it was comparatively quite warm weather, while up l here they are having quite 8 cold wave, and | I find that riding with a buffalo coat but | toned up close around me is not uncomforta- ble. This travelling up across the country | by rail is quite different matter from going either east or west, for there is seldom but one train day, and they seem to make the time tables with but one object in view, and that to fail to make any connection with trains that it would seem quite easy to do.
 The life of Dakota farmer is somewhat different from the life of a Kansas farmer. The weather being different and the air be- ing more bracing, they require better food and have it. There is quite difference also in their houses. The Dakota farm houses as a rule are very good buildings, built to stay and to keep the occupants warm in winter. In fact all the improvements in Dakota that ' have seen give me the impression that the inhabitants that are now here have come to stay. There is not that changing about and moving from one place to another that we see in other places. For that reason it is much more difficult to get at the actual val ues of the farms, they seldom sold.
 The emigrant to this territory who comes without money can acquire four hundred and eighty acres of land. First he settles and improves quarter section lone hundred and sixty acres), which if selected in the form of 1x-I11 hn 1ef ho1e oe roiI sqnare They sometimes are in the shape of an L or of g Z. This land they are obliged to live on for six months. If the emigrant has family they are obliged to be with him and their actual home must be the land. He must have house, and well and often that house is but house in name. Built of boards it is called shanty; if of turf with a hay roof, a sod house, and the latter are very warm and comfortable, and durable as well. He must have broken out some land and have raised crop. At the expiration of the six months if he can satisfy the land office that he has made sufficient improve ments and intends to make it his home, upon the payment of one dollar and quarter per acre the receiver will issue to him what is called the final receipt, and then he is the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of land at a cost of two hundred dollars and some fifteen dollars in dues. This land is worth from five hundred to one thousand dollars,
 
 it's location. He now goes to the loan agent and borrows two hundred and fifty dollars, giving a mortgage on the land (and these mortgages are sought after by the English capitalist.) Then he settles on another quar- ter and files his notice of his intention to homestead by improving this quarter and living on 1t for five years. He gets a title to it upon the payment of small amount for dues. The timber claim next claims his at tention, and by this law he files on another quarter section and plants out certain num- Der of young trees and improves a certain amount of land. If at the end of seven years he prove that he has made the re- quired improvements, and has the required number of living and thrifty trees, he is giv- en title to the land and thus becomes the owner of farm of four hundred and eighty acres. The emigrant of course has been working out" for other farmers more or less all this time, thus obtaining the money wherewith to sustain himself and family. Labor is scarce in this section and good hands readily obtain two dollars per day and board Soon the old shanty gives way to good sub stantial house, neat in appearance and fin ished inside, and the space between the plas- ter and clapboards is often filled with mud, which serves the double purpose of keeping the inmates warm and of making it heavy, so that the blizzards will not blow it away. These sod shanties gave rise to a favorite song which is sung with much gusto through out the territory, commencing:
 T am looking rather seedy now while holding down
 my claim"
 The chorus is as follows
 ''The hinges of leather and the windows have While the roof it lets the bowling blizzard in;
 And l Lear the hungry coyote as he sneaks up Round my little old sod shanty on the claim
 We attended the Territorial fair at Huron, and if anyone had doubts as to the ability of Dakota to raise anything but wheat it would
 have been dispelled by the sight of her pro ducts as there displayed. Nearly everything
 that is grown in the State was shown. Sweet potatoes, water and mush melons, veg etables of all kinds, such are shown at any of our county fairs in Connecticut. The growth of Dakota is something wonderful, and as it grows her people find what she is capable of producing. There was shipped from the little town of Vermillion in the year ending September 1st, 1885:
 1s1 carloads of corn,
 62 carloads of small grains
 26 carloads of butter,
 24 carloads of cattle,
 | 1SO carloads of hogs.
 ! 47 carloads of miscellaneous.
 Potter county was settled in March 1883, | and to-day has forty five thousand acres un- | der cultivation. Its population in June of | this year was two thousand three hundred ! and seventy In September it was three
  | county made a fine display at the fair and | had placard conspicuously displayed read l ing, Remember we compete as two -year-olds l only" One farmer who had very fine dis ! pla of potatoes informed me that he plant | ed seven bushels of seed, and he had already l dug three hundred (500) bushels and was only half through, he had no place to store l them. He used about one acre and half of | ground. They were so large that they only l cooked three potatoes for dinner and there were six in the family. This was a pretty big story, but his samples were the largest ! potatoes have ever seen.
 l Dakota is proving-the southern portion | especially she is not crop coun | try, as has been often asserted, but they car raise nearly anything that grows in other parts of the country. Of course wheat is | the principal crop and it will be for some \ time to come, and it is the most profitable | One farmer had just finished threshing his
 wheat raised on one hundred and fifty acres
 and it measured out four thousand bushels \ and it was his first crop on the land. Dakota is destined to be great stock coun l try, and her farmers are fast finding it oui l and getting all the stock that they can. The | country is well watered by large number oi ! small lakes, and water is also easily obtained by digging wells from twelve to fifteen feel | deep.
 | This must be the hunters paradise, fol
 such game as wild geese, ducks and prairie chickens are very plenty. The roads art very good indeed, hard and smooth, and you
 can easily make long drives. We went ou to take little ride one day and drove fifty
 miles in the afternoon, and I was told tha the same team we had was driven sixty mile | the day before. The people are intelligen | and work harder than in any other section O. | the West have ever been. You see very few idle persons, and I have seen but one in toxicated man in the territory, and he wa
 an eastern drummer who was celebrating hi
 discharge and recall by having four days l spree.
 | English capital has done much to develop 1 this territory, as it has in fact all through
 the West, and the agents of the English loa1 companies are travelling here continually. met one of them at Sioux Falls and he in