The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-12-25
One Mans Experience i'm
Going West.

Mr.. Editor At the close of the late
war young man who was reared on
one of the deserted farms in Orange
county, Vt, took his bounty money,
his pay for soldering and his small
family, and went West. He located in
Minnesota, on some of the best wheat
land in the state. There was no rail-
road very near, but there was the PROM
Use of one. Neighbors were few and
far apart, but were settling in nearer,
and so he, with his brave young wife,
commenced life in Lighthouse of one
room, happy in anticipation of the good
time coming. The first year he could
do little more than break the sod for
next years crops and get settled down
to work. The second year his crops
were up to the average, but it was
nearly spring before they could be got
to the market, for want of teams and
good weather. Meanwhile interest,
taxes and help all had to be paid in
cash. The farm machinery and horses
and cows, and seed to SOW, absorbed all
the money he carried out, and he was
at the mercy of circumstances. Just
as he was again making start the
grasshoppers came and swept his fields
clean. Then came dry season, when
the want of water and the heat made
life in one room house a burden. So
year after year floods and drouth, heat,
cold and billiards made crops uncer-
tain and poverty and sickness very GER
tain. He sold out his fine wheat lands
and located in Nebraska. There he
was told he could raise corn at good
profit-and with wheat, too, he must
succeed. There he lived in sod house,
or a dug-out, for timber was very
scarce. There was no railroad within
twenty miles, but one was staked out
right past his door. A brother of mine
told me he had seen men setting
stakes for a railroad and stalking out
town lots where it was certain no rail-
road or town would be built for many
years, if ever. There was no company,
aud it was done by spectators, in order
to sell land. In Nebraska he raised corn,
hundreds of bushels, but again there
was no transportation. Each man got
his own crop to market first, if he had
a sufficient team, and those who did
iOb hoNO ioiSOs hOdNN bSuilo lidu W
wait. 1t was a waste of time and
money to send small loads so far. The
soil is so heavy it requires enormous
teams to haul load, and it is very slow
work. During the winters he lived in
Nebraska his fuel was mostly sound,
handsome corn. Blow succeeded storm,
and billiards swept those treeless re-
gions like bosom of wrath. Fuel was
not to be had at any price. His chill
dren could not go to school, for it was
not very near, and storm was liable
to come on at any time. A family
reared in this way has not much chance
for culture or education. We read of
universities in cities of twenty houses,
and of colleges as plenty, but often only
the building is there, with one room
roughly finished; but they sell house
lots and farms. Large crops can not
be raised there without the help of
men and horses and expensive ma
chinery. Reapng, threshing, sacking
and use of sacks, and the hauling to
market, all cost money, and in a poor
season man is fortunate if his crop
pays expenses, while clothing, ma
chinery, groceries and doctors bills are
enormously high. There are hundreds
of families scattered all over the West
who would gladly come back to the de-
serted farms if they could, especially
in the famine-stricken counties of Da-
kota. $.