St. Paul daily globe., 1895-11-20
FIELD AND GARDEN
From First Page.


$25, 900 for each state, TO maintain Ia
bureau for the Northwest that will
distribute the information that you
should, that everybody should haYes
prior to 1870 the growth Of the
Northwest was comparatively small: II
shipped, 1 believe. from the statesbI
know 1t was the first wheat thatJwas
shipped from this part of the state. II
was raised in 1860 on the LIE ,Sueur
prairie. There was not enough to make
a small barge load. / think there were
between six and seven hundred 3fbags
of wheat, and the balance of the barge
load was made up of cranberrieS and
hickory hoop-poles that were cut up
near Chaska. 1t commenced in a small
way and within the memory of la
great many of us who do not consider
ourselves very old men, and it. has
grown. to proportions which 1 think
will astonish you. DTS
In 1870, when j. Cooke and his as
sociateS took up the construction of the
Northern Pacific railway through the
northern part of this state, spending
an enormous amount of money for the
time, there was a great impetus given,
people came in from everywhere, and
the first large immigration to OCCUPY
the land north of ST. Paul and Mime
apolis occurred at that time. l re-
member, in 1870, the frontier was at
Evansville. The last store, the last
place where you could buy pound of
nails was at Evansville, Mimi. There
was a stage ran to Fort Abercrombie;
and there were two stations, one in a
little stockade kept by man and his
wife named Burns; the other at the
old crossing of the Otter Tail river,
about twenty-five miles east of Aber-
crombie And 1 made a journey, in
the spring of 1870, from here to what
was then Fort Gary, now Winnipeg.
The stage carried me as far as Burns
stockade. Beyond that 1 made my
way with three dogs; and | found north
of Fort Abercrombie, in the Red river
valley, one, house, and that belonged
to the Hudson Bay company, at the
steamboat landing, where the carts
from st. Cloud delivered the freight to
a steamboat, that made two or three
trips a year. AS late as 1882, 1 drove
from the international boundary line
to what is now Grafton, and I did not
see a vestige of settlement, sign of a
house, and there today, is wealthy,
happy and prosperous population.
Counties that do not owe a dollar in
the world and have an assessed Valu-
alton of six, eight, ten millions of dol
lars. Now, that is thirteen years ago:
and I remember it because [ kept my
Fourth of July there on that trip. L
remember when l got to Grafton there
was a little log house with one room
and a small stove, and l was very glad
after got cup of tea, under the most
hospitable conditions the woman could
give me, to betake myself out and find
a pleasant, open spot ON the prairie
and lie down and sleep. 1t was cooler
and pleasanter in many ways. Qaugh-
ter and applause) and that is thirteen
years ago. Now, following the COM
mencement of the Northern Pacific in
1870, you remember in 1873 the unfort-
unate panic that overlook the country
and compelled that work to stop,
~, Of lYn 2y
associated firms, stopped the construc-
ton of the road until about 1876, when
it was taken UP by Mr.. Billings, Mr.
Wright, Mr.. Livingston and number
of men who had been interested In 1t
prior to that time, Gen. Cass and 9TH
ers.
'In 1879 we organized the old St Paul
& Pacific, an enterprise that had failed
twice. On the 23d day of June, or one
week before the close of the fiscal year,
1 took charge of the property. L re-
from the crop of 1878, 100000 bushels
of wheat. They carried no other grain
No oats, no barley, no potatoes, no
stock, nothing but wheat. If man
wanted dozen eggs, he TOOK them
he took it from here North. If he
wanted pork, he took it from here into
the North. And beef from here North,
and so ON. And if his baby ever got
anything else than its mothers milk,
or condensed milk, it had to take cold
country. And that, just think, how
short a time ago, sixteen years ago.
"Now, | want to impress upon your
minds that when L said there had been
a greater growth and development IN
the Northwest than had ever occurred
in any other part of the country, l
want to reinforce that by telling you
that the present year of the present
crop, we will carry 65, 900 bushels OF
wheat. Sixty,five, million bushels OF
plause) as many bushels as is mar
keted in Chicago this year by all the
roads that run into Chicago. Great ap-
plause).
"And it is over Is per cent of all the
wheat that is raised in the United
States. (Applause.)
Now, let us try to gather figs from
thistles. This country. has within it
self everything that is necessary to
make. it's people happy, prosperous al1S and
They must be intelligent. They must
take. advantage of conditions that are
at their hands, and not seek for some
thing that they cannot do or cannot
find.
'In the very last years of the last
century Great Britain found that her
people were going away to the colo
nies, found that they We're poor, they
could not pay the rent, they could not
remain on the lands, the people were
try, going away; and they appointed
what they called "A Royal Commits
sion,' appointed by parliament to in
vestigate the situation, to investigate
the condition of the country with ref
erence to providing means to keep their
people on the lands, and to use the
lands to the best advantage. That
royal commission has existed from
that time to this, but for the last three
quarters of a century, or more, 1t is
ciety of Great Britain. They appoint
ed intelligent men, who examined the
country. They said to a man who had
a farm, and as they thought was not
farming intelligently, was not doing
his work in the best way, they said to
him, Here, if you will tell us what your
profit of this farm has been, we will
guarantee you the full amount Of your
profit if you will make an experiment
that we ask you to make. If a mans
land was better adapted to 1aisir grass
they asked him to raise g1aSs. If it was
better adapted to raising grain, they
asked him to raise grain.
eff it was better adapted to raising
roots, they asked him to raise roots,
and so on. But they made the founda-
ton of the most intelligent cultivation
of the land-as those of you who have
seen, or will recall, no handsomer ma
tlral face of the country than you will
find in riding through the agricultural
districts of Great Britain.
''The fields are decorated to the very
border of the hedge. There is nothing
wasted. I do not know how it would
be possible for you to institute such
condition, but you may depend upon it,
it is the duty of every one in so far as
he feels an interest in the welfare of
his state, of his neighborhood, and of
himself, it is his duty to see that the
man who is cultivating the soil is doing
it intelligently, and so that he may
make a profit. Depend upon it, if he
does not make a profit, all the rest of
US will be poor. We cannot help it.
From 1870 to 1891 or 1892, little over
twenty years, in this section Of country
between Lake Superior and Puget
sound, as far south as the southern
part of our state, and including South
Dakota, there has been spent for the
construction of railways over
four hundred million dollars. Now, if
you will stop to think, that amount
of money paid out for labor, because
whether it was to make the grade or
the lumber or the rails, it all can be
traced back to the handicraft of man,
somebody got that money for his Ia
bor. That condition was possible be-
cause of the great area of undeveloped
countru M low hor-o at tho tirpo