The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-12-03
THINK BEFORE GOING WEST.
The Trials and PrivatIons of Poor Men
Who Take Up Homesteads.

The Trials and PrIvations of Poor Sen
Who Take Up Homesteads.
Clearwater Neb.) Cor New York sum-
do not wish to discourage any one
who wants to come west to get home,
for home is one of the grandest of
earthly blessings; but every man ought
to think it over well before selling
home in the east to come west to get
more land, as those say who come
here when asked why they left good
home to emigrate to this desolate
country. Any uninhabited prairie Is
desolate, and if man wants home
stead he must go to an uninhabited
country, for vacant land is becoming
scarce.
Hundreds arrive here with less than
$500. Some weather the financial storm,
and become well to do; the remainder
are lost in a sea of hard times and
debts. The majority of hOmesteaders
are poor. You may say that they are
land poor, because a man often has $50
acres of land, and no team or farming
implements, nothing but large family
of small children to support, in coun-
try where few men can afford to hire
help.
Eastern folks know little of the pri-
vations of western life. Those who
came to Nebraska twelve or fifteen
years ago understand it in all its phases.
They were besieged by grasshOppers for
four or five years, and for variety there
were prairie fires, hail storms and biz
Yards The last named are the most
numerous and dreadful of all storms in
this part of the west.
The one great evil here is the scarcity
of wood and coal. A very little timber
IL, 81,
a few lucky individuals, who ask
cottonwood, which makes very poor
fuel. If man wants load of willow
brush or a small pole he must buy it.
Coal is shipped into the state, and
ranges from So to $40 per ton 1t is
very expensive TO the homesteader,
whose purse is often empty, and whose
winters are long and severe. The only
cheap fuel is hay and corn stalks, and
hundreds of families have nothing else
to burn in our Arctic-like winters
Another trouble in newly-settled re-
gions is poor crops and lack of fruit.
You sometimes meet persons, born and
raised here, who never saw an orchard
in bloom or an apple on a tree. Apples
are shipped from the east, and when
the farmer goes to town, if he possibly
can, he buys or 10 cents worth to take
home to the children. So most of them
know what apples are when they see
them.
There are a few advantages along
with the many disadvantages. Almost
everybody has home of his own, and
all are on an equality, because the most
of them are poor, and no one thinks
himself too good to associate with his
neighbor, if he has one. The homestead
law is boon to many poor men who
come here for homes. 1t is a hard
country to live in, and, if buying land
were added to the many other expenses,
ninc-tenths of those who come would
never have homes.
There has been so much said and
written about the beautiful west that
hundreds and even thousands have been
induced to sell all they possess and
come west. Little do they know of its
privations. Men become bankrupt
from numerous expenses, great and
small, on a new farm, and women
grow old and haggard from incessant
work and loneliness. In summer, farm
ers and their wives are so over
worked that they seldom go to church
or visit the neighbors, and in winter
they are content to stay in the house by
the fire, safe from the bowling blasts of
this treelesS desert. 1t will not ALWAYS
be treeless desert, for ten acres out OF
every $40 are being planted in trees.
The farmers only recreation is when
necessity compels them to go to town to
sell their produce and do some shop
ping. This is gala day. The hus-
band dons his best overalls and clean
shirt, and the wife puts on a neat-look-
ing calico dress and plain hat and
they are ready.
In the older counties of the state folks
live like white folks. The time will
probably come when the homesteaders
in the new counties can live comfort
ably.