Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-09-29
THREE York SHILLINGS
That 10 What the Farmers in the
"Good Old Days" Got For
Wheat.
Not in Cash, But in "store Goods"
After a Trip Overland of
Sixty Miles.
Don Stevenson Gives His Expert
ences in This Country and
Gives Advice.

6lVeS AQVlce.
Uncle Donald Stevenson was in from
his Cannon Ball ranch last week. Don
is one of the Oldest and most highly re-
spected citizens on the Missouri slope,
and his old time Bismarck friends will
rejoice to learn that he is doing nicely
on his Cannon Ball ranch. His stock is
doing we'll and he is enabled to turn off
several car of fat steers this fall. He
has saved his entire range from prairie
fire by an extensive system of firebreake
and he has about recovered from the
serious losses of a few years ago.
Speaking of North Dakota Nj. Steven
said: "North Dakota is all right and I
speak from III experience of about
twenty-five years. The farmers are not
working it right however. They ought
to fence the acres IN crops and turn
their herds Of cattle, horses and sheep
loose on the prairies. 1 met a farmer
the other day in Morton county, who
kicked when I suggested that we ought
to do away with the herd law IN this
part of the state. He said the farmers
couldn't afford to fence, although he
admitted that every farmer ought to
have q bunch of stock. I asked him if
he had stock He said he had forty
head. 1 said, very we'll; how much does
it cost you for q herder? He told me
SIS a month and board. This is about
s25 a month. Then I says to him sit down
and figure out how. much wire at 81
cents and cedar poles at 6 cents you can
buy for that mans seasons wages I
tell you a farmer can fence his land for
what it costs him to watch his herd and
then see what he has got. He can range
over the school sections, the railroad
lands, the bad and broken lands that
eve will be settled, and no expense for
a herder. tell you we want to utilize
what nature gives us. Every farmer
ought to fence his land and then turn
his stock loose. 1t would be we'll, of
course, to have a community herder.
But the proportion to each farmer would
be slight.
"Another thing. This is a sure corr
crop region. I raised 700 baskets, or
$50 bushels of shelled corn this season.
I have forty hogs, and T]lmake that corn
worth over so cents a bushel to me. I
have always raised corn in this country,
and it yields 80 to so bushels every year.
"Hard times. did you say? Why the
farmers who live in this generation and
the laboring men, too, for that matter,
do not know what hard times are. Why,
when I was a boy my father was clear.
ing up q farm in Canada. We thought
three acres a year pretty good. We
hauled the wheat sixty miles-overland,
mind you-and got three York shillinge
-37H cents-per bushel for it-not in
cash but in store trade. Everything
else was sold in proportion and a good
harvest hand got but Z shillings a day
many of them only so cents. Who
would want to go back to those good old
days? e tell you what's the matter
We are living pretty high these times
and don't know it-don't appreciate it
OF course h%ardships are experienced by
many settlers in a new country, but
am satisfied with the knowledge We now
have OF this region we ought to get along
more comfortably. The farmers ought
to raise more stock, and they ought tc
utilize the thousands upon thousands Of
acres of unoccupied and unused lands
The few acres they crop they can vel
afford to fence. The trouble is they
don't figure out the benefits to be de
rived from the profits in stock raising
as an adjunct to miscellaneous farming
A Prophet Is Not. Etc.
Fargo Republican: The Bismarck
TRIBUNE was so good a news
-o-.. - - 900, ooI o1,,,o,,e o~oo11ook