St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-22
LIFE ON THE DAKOTA FARM
1t Is the Place for the DEVELOPMENT oil
the Best Brain Forces.
WHAT A FARMER HAS TO SAY
Which Is Good Reading for These In
clined TO Stop in Big
Cities.
Special to the Globe.

MANDAN, OAK, Dec. El.-OHe OIL MOI
ton county's most intelligent and at the
same time most successful farmers, said
to the GLGBE correspondent to-day:
THE Dakota farm wants more than
anything else, the smart, active, ener-
getic, brainy men of the time. There is
positive demand for this class of men,
and wherever one goes TO fill a positive
demand, he gets abundantly rewarded.
Your cities are full of men who have
smartness, activity, brains. There is a
glut in the market Of smart Office men,
who are doomed to be successful in life
because they are helping to stock an
already oVercrowded market, and fail
to 90 where they arr the most wanted.
The farms of the West to-day are being
Slapped of their best sons, who are
crowding into the cities. ! refer more
especially to the farms of the states
that are pretty well settled. But
EVEN IN DAKOTA
we see the young men are striving to
get onto the railroad, working as brake
men or firemen, struggling to get TO be
engineers; or some of them are to be
found working in the machine shops.
There is too much of tendency Oh the
part Of our farmers sons to look upon
country employment as being Odlous.
can't see that it is more dreary task
that of breaking of fiery cOlt-than
facing the winter as brakeman on a
freight train. Is it more perilOuS to
tend shorthorn bull than it is to be a
policeman and club burglars? Is it
worse TO do chores as small boy around
the fathers farm than it is to work for
81 week and pay travelling expenses
to reach the Office, where the boy is the
scapeg0at who is always wrong, and at
whose door the shortcomings of every
other employe is laid? Is it harder lines
TO pillow behind your own team, to drive
your own moving machine or do part
of Your own carting than 1t would be TO
work in a factory"
This farmer seemed to be blessed with
a little more good sense than is usually
founder than usually expresses itself
in set and intelligent language. The
correspondent began to ask the speaker,
when lull in his remarks was noted,
just where the brain work would come
in?
"Where? do you ask?" and look of
transitory scorn overspread the speak
er's features. Look at the facts. The
capabilities of our soil are untried as yet
in many directions. The field for eX-
periments is wide. Failure is practical
ly impossible for the industrious man
who works steadily and inteIiigently.
Whether he starts out to breed and
grow cattle or horses, to keep sheep and
market the wool, to establish truck
farm, OF to simply engage i'll diversified
farming, there is no failure ahead, and
there is a limitless field for
THE BRAIN WORK.
There should be 10 more congenial
employment to the Intelligent, thinking
farmer. than making experiments, as a
side issue, on such things as the sor-
ghum plant, sugar beets. the growth of
potatoes for starch making. He will
find profit for himself and the thanks
and respect of the community for any
thing that he demonstrates that will
benefit the public at large. In such a
region as Dakota the development that
is made, and the rapidity of that devel-
opment, depend entirely upon the in
telllgenCe that rs brought TO bear on
the promblems which are constantly
presenting themselves in the domain of
agriculture. The intelligent, p!odding
Office drudge in large city is lost. HI
is enveloped in social maeistrom
where he counts for nothing. Bring
him to Dakota, where the eneryating
influences of city life do not prevail
pat him on farm where he can use his
brains TO the development of the soil,
the cattle and the products of the farm,
and he will be heard from.
"Im p0rtance of this farming business?
| should say SO. The agricultural in
duStry towers head and shoulders over
all others in Importance. 1t matters
not how dull the times are, the people
MUST HAVE FOOD.
II matters not how low freights may
be. there is no danger of the products of
European farms being shipped to the
Northwest. In this large field of Ameri-
can industry there is more room for
intelligent workers than in any other
field of industry. The cities need
youths from the farm. They need
| them for the bracing tonic influence
that they bring with them. But the
farm needs the city youth too, provided
he is made of the right sort of material.
| There are brains on some of our farms,
but not enough of them. That restless,
| inventing spirit which we find at work
III the midst of our large centers of
| population would find ampler scope
| for its energy on the farms of the great
| West, and to me ii seems that the re-
| turns would be greater. That health
! fulneSs of body which is absolutely es-
sential to a happy life is much easier of
attainment on the faIns of Dakota than
in eramped city qu;&ers, and this of
| itself is matter of prime importance.
| Let the parents who are casting around
| for places for their sons, not overlook
the farm. Let them remember that III
| these enlightened days the farm offers
scope for the brightest intellects, and
other things being equal, here as well
as elsewhere, the man who possesses
the keenest and best brains and the
most undaunted perseverance. will sue
coed the best"