St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-02-02
PENCIL FARMING.
A Humorous Account of Some of
the Early Wheat Booming Peri
DDS in Dakota,

"A n ufnOfOuS hCCOuut VI SOIue Ol
the Early Wheat Booming Peri
DDS in Dakota.
At the recent session of the farmers
institute at Casselton, Dak., Hon. j. B.
Power: former land commissioner of
the Northern Pacific, and for several
years a successful stock farmer i'm the
southern part of the Red river valley,
read paper on this subject. treating
humorouSly OF the visionary anticipa-
tons in wheat growing and the need of
careful accounts. We quote from the
report in the Republican:
Pencil farming and the use of the
pencil ON the farm are two different
things, and usually bring two vastly
different results.
When the land of the Dakotas first
began to attract the attention of set
tiers, of capitalists and all sorts of
would-be spectators, it was quite
question which was the best and easiest
way to make the everlasting fortunes
that everybody was after.
The settler was satisfied to try his
luck by tilling the soil in the good old
fashioned way taught him by past eX-
periences i'll the land he left behind
him, but the others were not content
with his slow, humdrum methods, and
were always on the lookout for more
rapid ways of accommodating SOrdid
wealth.
we'll remember when, in the fall of
1872, one of these 100 acre plodders
brought into the Fargo market some
1000 lshels of wheat, the product of
forty acres, from which he realized
clear $1,000. Just think of it-S5O an
acre from one years crop! What bo-
nanza! A quicker OF easier way of rak
ing in the
DOLLARS BY BAsKETsFUL
could not be conceived. 1t was the big
gest thing OH earth. Forthwith every
merchant, every clerk. every mechanic.
gentlemen at large, men with money,
men without money, men without any
visible means of support, except their full
knowledge of the. contents of a little
book of fifty-two leaves 1--WE had few
of that kind those days; even many of
the gentle sex brought their pencils
into requisition, and began to figure
what they could do in the way of rails
ing wheat. The pencil told tlattering
tale. Soon every real estate and rail-
road land agent had all they could do,
selling and making out contracts for
half sections. sections and q thousand
or more acre lots. The era of pencil
farming was at hand; the country was
full of farmers in top buggieS, all intent
on defacing the fair surface of our
blooming prairies by process poetic
ally spoken of as "tickling the
virgin bosom of the soil with a
plow," expecting of course that the
bosom would readily respond by pro-
ducing the regular forty bushels of dol
lar and quarter wheat from every acre
that had been SO gently caressed as to
hardly show plain furrOw. Then
again the pencil was put i'll operation in
anticipation of the $50 per acre produc-
it. For one it figured out trip to Eu-
rope; another could go to the vineyards
of California; even the pencil farmer
with but half section could revel
among the orange groves of Florida. All
could go with palace car accOmpani-
ments. Why not? Was there not clear
$40 per acre profit? That is what our
pencil says.
We all had it more or less. The rail-
roads caught the inspiration. lmmigra-
ton documents were printed and scat
tered broadcast over the land, telling
the wonderful story and demonstrating
by simple calculations, easily under
stood, how quickly
FORTUNES CAN BE MADE
in this new valley of the Nile by wheat
farming with pencil. 1t was an easy
process. Only change the surface of un-
broken prairie into wheat field and
the fortune would surely follow. /
fancy some of the present audience had
a touch of the fever fOr see faces that
were familiar in the days of which /
speak,, and commenced their agricult-
ural life in the glamour of the bright
of the days of pencil farm
ing.
1t was a picnic while it lasted, but,
alas, how short were the days of glori-
Gus coin-producing anticipations! But
it did not work just that way. Why it |
did not no one can tell. Perhaps there
was some grave defect in the mechanism
of the pencil with which we farmed. q |
think by mistake we got hold of those |
intended for use at the present time in
Washington territory.) Perhaps the gen.
tie manner in which the virgin was APP |
preached by those soft-handed sons of |
toll was not ardent enough, but what |
ever the cause of failure, the fact soon |
became apparent that the bosom from |
which so much was expected did not re- |
spond to the tickle worth cent, and in |
a very short time thereafter our streets |
were full of pencil farmers. anXlOusly |
looking for some new arrival who had |
just caught on and was eagerly waiting |
for chance to try the tickling process |
for himself.
SUCH WAS PENCIL FARMING;
and the result-how sad! No Europe,