The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-10-23
WHERE FARMING PAYS.

FROM MONTANA.
My dear governor: When leaving you
at the Park Hotel, in Great Falls, last
Thursday, you asked me to supply you
with the Great Falls market quotations,
and other facts proving my assertion;
that the irrigated land in our Teton val
ley settlement offers more and better
conditions for profitable farming than
any other known locality. Not wishing
to be suspected of exaggeration, l had
Senator Beasnau to find out for me what
prices were actually paid for farm pro-
duce in Great Falls, last Thursday, and
here are his figures: Wheat, at the mill,
SOC per bu.; oats, 36c per bu.; potatoes, 35c
per bu.; hay, blue joint and timothy, $14
per ton: live hogs, S. per cwt.; live beef
cattle, $3.50 and $3.50 per cwt. butter zoe
and &c per Id. ;eggs, 25c per doz.; onions,
$1.00 per blu.
These prices are unusually low here, on
account of the very poor prices in and
heavy transportationS from the eaSt-Our
farmers getting eastern prices with
freight and other costs of importation
added, while eastern farmers gets sea-
port prices less freight and other costs OF
expectation, and this makes quite diff
ference, in our favor, oats, hay, potatoes,
butter, eggs and pork will be worth con-
siderable more here, before spring.
Still some farmers here grumble about
low prices, but how happy and contented
would not thousands of farmers in Min
nesota, the Dakotas and other eastern
states be if they could realize even our
lowest prices for their produce!
But, aside from the high prices on all
kinds of farm produce, our farmers. in as
favored localities as our Teton valley set
tlement, have two other great advant
ages over their eastern brethren, tOWit:
/. With our rich soil, with proper TIL
lage and judicious irrigation very large
crops are sure thing here, every year;
in fact failure Of crops is something
unknown on irrigated land in our most
favored villages. We are Independent of
droughts, and neither swear nor pray for
rain as the melting snow on the lofty
tops of the Rocky mountains endows our
valleys with swelling brooks and rivers
yielding us an abundance of water for
our growing crops, to be employed when
ever and wherever needed.
2. Our climate being too dry to make
agriculture safe and profitable, without
irrigation, millions of acres of public
land, and the best pasture land in the
world, that never can be irrigated, and
never will be used for anything else than
grazing give farmers here an almost
boundless free pasture, enabling them to
combine stock raising with agriculture in
an easier, more profitable and on a far
greater scale than anywhere in the east;
especially as our cattle roam out and
feed themselves on our very nutritious
native grasses-the whole ground, winter
as we'll as summer. Knowing all this to
be strictly true, and reading about the
ruinous low prices on all kinds Of farm
products in the east, where an unusual
rich harvest appears to be more of
curse than a blessing to the farmers, as
it does not even cover the bare cost of
production, and augment instead of de-
creasing their care and financial difficult
ties-how my heart does ache for them,
and wish them all we'll settled here, as-
pe cially the many of my personal friends
in Minnesota and the DaKotas who under
my personal observation for large num-
Der of years have struggled on against
all kinds of Universities, hoping in the
very face of cause for despair, dragging
on a miserable life of endless toll care
and privations to find at last, as their
sole reward, youth, strength, and hope
blasted property incumbered beyond
hope of redemption, debts growing like
the Russian thistle around them and
their only prospect of relief reduced to
very, very sad one, indeed.
If they only could be induced to pull
out and settle here, before reduced too
much in means and vigor, contentment
and prosperity would yet be within their
reach; but it seems as rule, a thankless
and useless task to try to benefit them in
this way. Wherever have succeeded in
awakening passing interest, and some
faith in our resources here, all the hui
man vermin in such localities, from the
loan agents to the perpetual office hold
ers, gorging the substance of the farm
ers toll and gain, have united in invent
ing and circulating such dreadful lies
about Montana that their stupid vic
Tins have thanked God that they did not
follow my advice, but remained in their
willy fleecers yoke.
At your summon, governor, 1 make a
last attempt to benefit the suffering
farmers in the east by my advice, and
will concentrate it in these lines.
FellOW-farmer: If your land was To-
Gated in thriving settlement, like ours
here, only As miles from rapidly grow
ing city like Great Falls, Montana, sur
rounded by gold Mines silver mines,
lead mines, iron mines, and coal mines.
with abundance of timber to be had for
the cutting and hauling, with mild. solu-
brious climate, rich SOIL pure water and
five Of the greatest water falls in the
world; if, furthermore, your land was If
rigated, insurng very large crops every
year, of you got our high prices for all
your produce, and if you had our oppor-
tunities for combining cattle raising with
grain raising in our easy, profitable and
extensible way-how much do you think
your land would be worth to you, then?
Your answer fixes the true value of the
irrigated land here, in the Teton valley.
Still, you can yet have it at the low price
of from $12 to SIS per acre with perpet-
ual water right, and easy terms. if YOU
hurry up; otherwise you cannot, as this
chance will soon be gone. Will you heed
my advice and come, or follow the adj
vice of your banker merchant, and
others living in ease from your toll. and
stay where you are, until they have
squeezed the last dollar out of your
pocket?
do not want you to follow my advice
blindly, nor to move out here without
further investigation or without the nee
essary means for a safe and prosperous
new start. Our settlement is not Utopia.
it is only considerably less of an abode
for drudgery, care of livelihood and gen
eral misery than many a farming com
munity in the east; nor can anybody
prosper here neither, without work, and