Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1893-08-03
THE WORLDS FAIR.
An Interesting Letter From the Hon. James
Fergus.


EDToR ARGUS:
To one who has lived sixty years on
the irontier-thirty-one OF them in
Montana-a trip least" now for the
first time since, offers much food for
philosophical reflection. The writer
crossed the plains with the Fisk ex-
pedition of siXtytwo; taking about
seventy-fve days from Little Falls,
Minnesota, to Fort Benton with OK
teams, and fifteen days from there to
Baunack-ninety days in all-buffalo
and Indians plenty, but not a settler
in what is now North Dakota and
none to Bannock except a few half
breeds at Deer Lodge. He has just
made the trip least. from Big Sandy
station to ST. Paul, nearly the same
distance and over nearly the same
ground by the Great Northern rail
road, in a comfortable railway coach
in forty-eight hours, and finds the
same plains, particularly in the Red
River valley, dotted over with grain
fields, settlers cabins and embryo
towns. Great empires have been sup
ported with less good agricultural
land than the valleys OF the Red river
and its tributaries possess. Mime
sofa, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois,
under their different circumstances,
show the same progress as the Da-
kotas. Large cities where there was
only hamlets or Indian traders, the
dog train, Red river cart and emigrant
wagon has given place to the railway
coach. "shank's mare" to the street
car, the buffalo and deer to the culti-
waited farm, with all it's pleasant sur
roundings.
Our forefathers were timber-de-
stroying race. Brought up with axes
IN their hands, hewing farms out o:
the forests and not realizing the value
of timber, they cut down all in their
way. From necessity the new settlers
on the plains are changing all this;
thinning, trimming and preserving the
natural growth and planting new
forests to act as wind-brakes, add to
the beauty OF the landscape and wealth
to the owners and the state. THERE'S
more timber growing in the prairie
states than there was a generation
ago, and it has changed the landscape
so much that your correspondent was
unable to recognize some OF his "old
stamping grounds" where in his
hurry to take good old Horace Gree
ley's advice to $50 west, young man,
he let fortunes slip through his hands
and passed through them all now as q
stranger. There is still much vacant
land between the Mississippi and the
Rockies, but at the present rate o
settlement how long is it going to las'
and when all is gone, what then
With no more room, no more lands tt
conquer. we must either immigrate tC
other unsettled lands, if any, or stoI
increasing and become stationary lik,
the Chinese or American Indian. vii
we do it?
The place where we bought tive
wagon loads OF yellow pumpkins iron
squatter in Minneapolis tor a dolla
in 1854 is covered with business
blocks and the old trading post OF st
Paul is n thing of the past. 1t is nov
metropolitan city and the steam
boat whistle no longer frightens tn
timid squaw, the nine miles between
it and st. Anthony is no longe
trudged over on foot; the old French
man with his halfway house ant
drunken wife is gone and the Twill
Cities of st. Paul and Minneapolis ar
linked together by railroad and ca
and soon will be by continuous line
of streets.
Chicago, the trading post and CARR
son OF sixty years ago. The writer
first introduction to it was payin
fifty cents for the privilege of sleepin
between two strangers on a straw be
in a garret and refusing 100 acres {
land at little over government pric
i in what is now the heart of the city
Now, he has just travelled twelv
miles along the lake front in a cab