River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1901-09-12

AEAp through lanuuA.
The Department of the Interior at
Ottawa has just received from Mr..
Z. /. Holmes, the Agent of the Gov
eminent stationed at Indianapolis,
Indiana, the following letter, which
requires no comment. 1t is only nee
essary TO state that Mr.. F. Fisher,
the writer of the letter, is one of the
most prominent of the DunkardS and
a man upon whose word the utmost
reliance can be placed His home is
at Mexico, Indiana, and he viii be
pleased to substantiate verbally or
in any other way all that he says in
his letter.
Anyone desiring information apply
to nearest Canadian Agent, whose
addresses are here given:
M " McInnes, Avenue Theater Block.
!. James Grieve, sault Ste Marie, Mich.
j. S. Crawford ga West Ninth street,
Kansas City, Mo.
T. o.. Currie. Room u, B. Callahan's
block, 2O3 Grand avenue, Milwaukee. Wis.
C. ]. Broughton, go Monadnoek building
w. y Bennett, SOL New York Life build
ing. Omaha. Neb
W. H Rogers, WATERFOWL, S. D.
~ Bartholomew, S06 Fifth street, Des
N J. IL NJ N. Parker, $50 Chamber of Com
merce. Duluth MINI.
e. T. Holmes, Room s, Big -Four build
ing, indianapolis, Ind.
Joseph Young, 5llk State street. Column
bus, o.
To my many friends:
/ am pleased to make report TO
you of the pleasant visit my wife and
/ had in Western Canada.
We visited the territories of AL
berta, Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan,
and found them far surprising our
imagination, but little did / expect
to find such rich, loamy soil, so much
of it, and so uniform in it's level
prairie lay. / do think the soil of
Canada as a rule equals if not eX-
GELS the finest prairie farm lands of
Indiana. These lands are immense in
their richness, and when once the
sod is rotted and pulverized, it is as
pliable and as easily cultivated as In
diana sandy soil.
Western Canada, from my point of
view, offers as fine opportunities for
mixed farming as any place in my
knowledge. The long, sunshiny days,
together with the rich soil, produce
very fine wheat, oats, barley, flax
and other cereal products. There is
scarcely any attempt to raise corn,
except early varieties for table use.
The season is too short to depend
upon maturing field corn. From the
standpoint of getting this land ready
for the pillow, 1 must say that 1 never
saw such vast extent, practically
all ready, so all that one has to do
is to hitch up the pillow and go to
work. This is not the case with all
the Canadian land, however; some of
it has quite bit of timber, much
of it may be called brush land, and
some of it has lovely forest groves.
dotted here and there, thereby COW
ering q hundred and sixty acres.
l have no doubt but that this coun-
try excels as a grazing or ranching
country, because they have such rich
grass, having an abundance of rain
to keep it fresh. They, also have
plenty of water streams, and as a
rule water may be reached at depth
of from 20 to 40 feet. From this you
see there can be plenty of hay mown
for winter feeding, and / have had
reliable farmers to tell me that their
stock will feed on hay alone, and be
ready for market in the spring. Upon
inquiring about the expense of rails
ing a steer, farmer replied that
he did not consider it would cost
any more than $500 or 5000 to de-
yelop three-year-old steer.
l truly think Canada offers a fine
opening for a young man or a man
who is renting land in Indiana. One
hundred and sixty acres of good black
land will cost you only $1,000 at
the time you enter it, and by blowing
and cultiyating five acres each yeaS
for three years, gives you one hum
dred and sixty acres of good land for
$1,000. This land can be bought from,
the Railroad Companies, private cor
porations or the Government for
$500 to $500 per acre.
From financial standpoint, / be-
lieve that for series of years (five),
a young man can make $1,000 in
Canada, whereas he would only make
$1.00 here, and l feel sure that l
spent more money to get my eighty
acre farm in White County, Indiana,
cultivated, than it would cost me to
cultivate eight hundred acres in Cam
ada. This may seem a strong view
to take of the matter, but when you
take into consideration the clearing,
ditching, fencing and the expensive
breaking in OF the stumps, and then
compare the expense to that of land
needing only the breaking, you will
conclude that it is not such q wild
or exaggerated statement as you
might at first think.
1 enjoyed the balmy, breezy atmos-
phere, which was bracing and refresh
ing, and the cool nights which made
it so pleasant for sleep.
On making inquiries regarding the
winters in this country | learned
that the people never suffer from