The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-10-21
RED RIVERS RICH LAND AREA
Wheat Raising World Since $780,
Became Famous-A Top notcher in Every Sense.
Heavy Black Soil the Valley Can Be Told GlancYeds Of
100000 Bushels Year by No Means Uncommon.

dency was permanent and bound to con-
tinue. - E..z-
"The Population Of the United States"
he said, sis increas sing at the rate Of 1000
daily. We are growing at the rate Of
nearly 10000 a. year. We have doubled
in every thirty or forty years Of our his
tory. Inside Of fifty years we will have
$50, 100000. Where are they going? Are
we sending them away? Are they emf
grating to other lands? No: we are TAX
ing care Of them at home. Where is this
extra million and-a-half a year going?
Where else but into the new lands Of the
west and into the northwest above ALT
Where else are cheap lands, fertile soil.
hcalhful climate transportation facili-
ties to good markets and conditions favor
able to human energy and enterprise SO
abundant and ready to hand as right here
in the northwest?
rs there anything of boom character
| about such e. condition as this? Not Z
bit. It is not only normal and natural, It
Is necessary, it is compelled. What else
can this population do, where else can
they go? The cities cannot absorb the
so, coo, 900 increase of the next thirty years.
The bulk Of the population must be en-
gagged in productive occupations. They
must be at work providing that great and
fundam entail necessity of mankind every
1where-food for subsistence. The great
absorbing industry, the most important
! from a practical material standpoint, II
| the production Of food, and food comes
from the SOIL The cities flourish and
prosper and our civilization is enduring
only when the vast majority of the peo-
pie Is on the soil, toiling by sweat Of the
| brow to produce food, on the one hand.
| and the raw material for manufacture.
| trade and transportation on the other.
The bulk Of this $4,000, 900 human increase
| ~ In cot Nd iY1fF
the northwest as naturally as water flows
down hill. This population movement into
| the northwest is as normal and natural al
the fact that water seeks level"
More Expert Opinion.
| On the point Of land values the Com
mercial West of Minneapolis recently said:
| If the actual rise in market value OF
the farm lands Of the west during the past
six years were computed, the aggregate
increase Of wealth of the west from this
item alone would be almost beyond be-
lief This increase cannot be estimated
to exactness, but IS per acre for every
plowable or pasturable acre, this to in
clude wild land, is not too great an esti-
mate. Lands in North Dakota, for ex-
ample, are reputed to have doubled in
market value since 1900. They doubtless
thaye doubled since 1895. The increase in
value of lands in the older western states
has probably been more per acre than In
the Dakotas.
'And at these increased prices western
farm land is not 'overcapitalized.' Its
earnings in a fair crop year at the pres
ent level Of farm produce prices, justify
the market. This increase In the land
values of the, west brings the west, and
, the farmer OF the west, very far up in the
scale of credits in the financial world
The farmer. his land, his personal note
4 ana his mortgage, the farm town n1er-
chant the country banker all have taken
"a better rating in the credit books" =