Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1899-07-14

Mr.. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle
men: 1t is always a pleasant thing to
meet friends, and today l have found
many faces, and I met on the grounds
a great many oldfriends; some of whom
l have seen nothing of for years and I
hope that before we leave we will all
part friends. When I found that I
could accept your very kind invitation
to come here I did not know whether
| vas to preach or help you to pray, or
to meet the lawyers and discuss poll
tics or religion, but I find that it is
Farmers day and I won't be any the
less at home on that account. 1t is
now nearly l6 years since I first visited
Devils Lake; it was then a far outpost
of settlement, and looking back over
the fifteen years we may find some
standard to govern our estimate of
what the next fifteen years will do for
us. We have in this country about
seventy-ive millions of people, posi-
bly, nearly eighty. The census Of the
country shows an increase of a lit
tie over two per cent per annum, so
that in the mex % years we should
have here in this country in the neigh
borhood of one hundred and twenty or
n hundred and twenty-five millions
of people. It concerns US ALT con.
Germs US all closely to know what they
are going to do. They can't all be
lawyers; they can't all be doctors and
they can't all be like Artemus Wards
regiment, brigadier generals. They
must be working, producing people,
and a great majority of them must be
of this class.
If we are to go on progressing as a
nation our people must be employed.
The United States will never, 1 hope,
be a country with classes, with people
who are higher or lower than their
neighbors; let US hope we will never
see peasant classes in this country.
II we are no to see a peasant class in
this country every man must have his
fair opportunity to win his livelihood
the earth-everything that's in the
world that is worth having comes from
the earth: all the wealth of the world,
everything that makes man happy,
wise and good comes from the earth,
mine. North Dakota has no forests
have broad fields and a climate that
walton of the soil to secure everything
IIoI VAL q wv "loCg PlOSPClOuS
and happy. All the people should have
interest in North Dakota, whether it
is the merchant, the banker. the law
yer, or the man outside of the state.
All of them depend upon the cultiva-
ton of the soil. If your soil is not cul-
tivated in the way that it will enable
those living on it and c%ultivating it to
be prosperous all the balance Of the
people in the state will be DOOR,, for on
that M foundation turns the prosper
ity of the entire state.
remember when l first came up out
of the valley about 1881, people said,
"Oh, it is too dry, it won't do" [ ar
ried a spade in the wagon and tested
the soil for a days ride. 1 made up my
mind it would do and you have dem
onstrated since it does do.
Now, to cultivate the land success
fully you must use modern methods,
better methods possibly than we have
been in the habit of using in the ear
lier days. You no longer get the price
for your crop that you formerly got,
and while l am a firm believer that you
can again have dollar wheat it is better
that we should learn to cultivate the
soil and to raise all that it gives us in
the intelligent way. And there are
men here today whose lives are devot-
ed to experiments in that direction
and they will give you the results of
their experience. However, while you
are restricted to the cultivation of the
fields you have in that the foundation
of all the wealth that is necessary to
build up your community, making all
prosperous and happy, covering your
hills with churches and schools and
making your children and their child
rem happy and prosperous in North
Dakota.
You have here, as l said before, a
first rate soil; you have a climate that
will enable you to from the
soil a part of your labor. Sometimes l
think if you get your blowing done a
little earlier in the fall the spring seed
ing would go better.
You may begin with me ortake a man
settling on a piece of government land,
or if he in here and buys him
self a farm what 1 have to say will ap-
ply to him equally. You have modern
improvements, you have appliances
for cultivating the soil that will enable
a man doing this to do from five to six
times what ne will do in other coun-
tries that are competing with us today
in the markets of the world. The old
fashioned sickle is still in use in por-
tions of the world that are competing
with you and the cradle is almost an
innovation. You have markets at your
door. When you have carried your
grain to the nearest station you can
ship it to a terminal market for less
than it is carried the same distance in
any portion of the country between
Manitoba and Mexico, west of the Miss
issippi river. Now with a good soil,
with a market at your door, with trans
portation to a terminal market, what
more IS it that you want? When you
60 to the terminal market you will find
that the world is not as big, CONNER
cially speaking, as it was % or 50 years
ago. Your grain enters into competi-
ton with other grain producers in the
world. Remember there is nothing in
the world that can be reached that can
long be very scarce or high. Somebody
somewhere will produce it, and it will
appear to anyone who is willing to pay
the price for it.