The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1895-09-19
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY.

1t is a safe statement to make that
that out of every ten men living south
Of line across the State from this city
who were asked their impressions of
the country included in Mile Laos,
Aitkin and Itasca counties, nine of
them would say that they were made
up of granite ranges pine barrens and
swamps. They have read something
of their pine lands-and rings-and
they know that there are iron mines
up there; and, latterly, they have
heard a good deal about contests for
swamp lands between the State and the
federal government. Iron means
rough country of rocks and swamps,
and pine means a sandy soil, capable of
producing big timber and small crops.
And so they have set that whole region
down as very desirable place for the
man to avoid who cares nothing for
iron or pine, and wants merely to get a
good. productive soil out of which, put
ting toll in partnership with nature, he
can get sure and more or less profita-
BILE return on his investment.
No greater surprise awaited the nine
men who held these impressions of
that country than we're the exhibits of
agricultural products made by these
counties to the north of what has been
always regarded as the farming belt of
the State. Corn and watermelons,
those children of the hot sun, brought
to ripeness away up in that region, as
ISOLATED with cold winters and early
and late frosts, settled beyond question
the climatic fallacies; while the grains
and vegetables showed that the county
in the wilderness is not a whit behind
the southern counties in fertility. No
less erroneous is the conception of the
timber of the region. Pine there is
leading lumber in the markets, it is of
that which one hears most. But the
counties abound in great stretches of
hardwood timber, embracing every
variety known to Minnesota lands.
Birch trees, from which board can be
sawed of clear lumber wide enough for
a dining table top: oak in all the varie-
ties of that species, and sugar naples
in profusion, with Eastwood and elm,
are fully as plentiful as is the pine.
Mistaken also is the idea of the steril-
~, of 1o,, wy, al, no rir,o Is
cut. The grains and vegetables grown
on such soil, shown in the Itasca ex-
hibit, puncture that misconception.
These delusions have been removed by
the energy and public spirit of the citi-
zens of these counties, from Mile Laos
to Itasca, who have gathered the ex-
hibits of what their farms and gardens
can produce.
That the great tide of immigration
has been sweeping past these regions
for the past years to take up farms on
the treeless regions, is due to two
causes. Chief, doubtless, is the pre-
disposition to prairie land, with its
ease of conversion from sod to field.
There is, in the ability to run a break
ing furrow straight across a field with
out having first to remove the timber
and, for years, to dodge the stumps, an
| allurement that obscures the many and
manifests disadvantages to all except
the man with large and ample means.
! It seems as if the Almighty had made
ready the fields for the husbandman,
and left him only the task of opening
and cultivating the soil. Secondary as
| a cause of the avoidance of the north
ern counties, is the impression of ster-
ility referred to. Experience soon
| shows the prairie settler that the law
of compensation holds good there; and,
if the land is more easily brought into
subsection, there are disadvantages
| that counterbalance. Timber is want
| ing, lumber and fuel are dear and the
| long winters offer no remunerative
field for labor. To the man who starts
| with ample means these drawbacks
count for little; but to the man just
''making START" with limited or no
capital, who cannot subsist while get
ting off his first crop, a start on a prai-
RE farm is a hard one to make success
full. So nature, who never gives some
thing for nothing, exacts that the man
who would go partners with her in
farming her prairies, should bring into
the partnership as much capital as she
has advanced in clearing the land.
Every year there are thousands of
young men graduating from the farms
in the southern part of the State.
Thousands more come to us from the
| Continued on page s.