St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-16
NEED ROADS, NOT FARMERS.
Opinion of IL Farmer on the I'M
migration Question.
M +l,o U,5;+o, 80 +Lo

Opinion of II Farmer on the I'M
migration Question.
To the Editor of the Globe.
1t seems to me that the SPEAKERS
and letter writer's who took part in
| the immigration convention recently
held in your city should have said
something about the true condition of
| the farming community at the present
| time, but they seemed to overlook mat
| part of the subject and spoke and
wrote as if it was their duty to praise
| their own particular section of country
with all the eloquence that they could
! command; but they failed to say much
about the depressed condition of farm
ing industries at the present time
! which, l think, is hardly fair. There
fore L have waited for a long time,
hoping and expecting that somebody
with more experience in writing about
such matters than l have would write
something about the true condition of
affairs in this country, so that all in
tending immigrants would know just
what to expect when they come here;
but as no one has written word on
the subject, 1 have concluded to do so
myself.
1 have lived right here on the same
farm for twenty-seven years, and
never had such crops as I raised the
past season. Everything was good.
There was not poor crop Of any
kind whatever; and yet it is the hardest
time for farmers to get any money
out of their crops that it has ever
been since have lived here. Wheat is
70, hay 50 and $3.50 per ton, and onions
20 cents per 100 pounds. Cabbage, hub
/ bard squash, .rutabaga turnips and
other vegetables are not worth any
thing. We can't even give them
away, for 1 tried 1t myself this fall.
1 left word at the postoffice if any one
wanted any cabbages, squashes or rut-
abagas to come up to my place and
help HIMSELF but nobody came, for they
all had what they wanted of their
own, and the consequence is that there
is at this moment thousands of great,
| big, solid heads of vegetables that are
rotting within a thousand yards of
where I am writing this letter.
We are not grain raising people
up here, but we intend to raise wheat,
oats and corn enough for consumption
| and depend on our potatoes and vege-
| tables for our money crop.
Potatoes were an enormous crop
in this vicinity this fall. I had four
teen acres, and I had 1850 bushels
dug, and 1 found they were not paying
expenses. So left the rest of them in
the ground to Freeze and I have seen
| hundreds of acres of the very best
| kind of Burbanks that would yield 200
| bushels per acre where there was not
hill dug, and now they are all frozen
solid They are worth eight cents per
bushel at the stations. And corn!
Whoever expected to see corn down to
| Is cents per bushel in Northern Min
nesota? But that is all it will bring
at the present time. I have thousand
| baskets of corn in crib and it is as
| good, sound corn as 1 ever saw in my
| life, and yet 1 could not sell 1t today
! for $780, And yet the railroad and real
| estate men say that we want more
| farmers UP this wayi 1 don't believe
| that there is more than one-sixth part
of the land UP here under cultivation
at the present time, and maybe not
| tnat much. Now, just suppose that
| there would enough farmers come here
| in the spring to make farms of one
half of the land that is not now culti-
waited, what would the result be? 1t
would mean an increase Of farm pro-
ducts four or five times greater than
it now is, and we would have to have
| some more railroads built up through
here, for the st. Paul & Duluth road
can hardly handle the freight at the
present time. There has been many a
farmer that has had to haul his load
back home again, for there were no
| cars in which he could unload.
| There are a great many who say
! that we are going to have a change
before long, that the low prices cannot
| last much longer, and that season of
prosperity will soon come. But who
can tell? We may have better times
and we may have worse. So, therefore,
we must take things just as they are
without regard to the future. I don't
think that it is right nor fair to try
! to induce settlers to come to the North
west by telling them that If they will
only come. here and get some land
tnat they will become rich and indie
pendent in few years, when it is al
| most impossible to do so under the
present conditions. &C. w.
Sunrise, Minn., Dec. 8, 1895.