Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1903-03-13

OAK. OPPORTUNITIES
Land is Becoming Scarce, but North Dak-
ota Has a Slice for Thousands Of New
Settlers and Prices Are Low,

aE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. tFE@a H@E.aIs 80 4@H.AW 5s%Ftftg
Very few people realize the magni-
tude Of the development in progress
in North Dakota. In a general way
they know that the state is growing
IN population and wealth, but actual
contact is needed to drive home the
fact at the present is an era OF com.
mon-wealth building and soil subiu.
cation. The r W resources of the
country are being developed in al
wonderful manner. Values are climb
ing upward and there is not a section
of the state that is not bursting with
business activities. New towns.are
building and thousands of new agencies
are at work adding to the wealth Of
the country. No pen can make these
facts as patsft as can personal obser-
walton and investigation. A vast do
main has practically been settled
this year.
No state has profted more by the
great population and land buying
movement Of the last few years than
North Dakota. That state found it.
self most happily situated when people
everywhere began to realize that land
was scarce and a good thing to get
while still cheap. The hard times Of
the early nineties caught North Da-
kotaS before it was found to have mil
lions of acres of good government or
cheap privately owned land waiting
through all the centuries for men to
come and take it.
The h~omeseekers O realized this
fact. There ensued a great rush to
get free or cheap land-5O, 900 people
in two years. Practically all the
good, arabic easily accessible gov
eminent land was soon taken, but
large amounts Of virgin prairie still
remain in the hands of companies and
individuals that have for the most
part secured it from the original
land grants of the Northern Pacific
railway. Land values were so ridic-
ulously low in North Dakota a few
years ago that even though there have
in some parts of the state been in
creases of 100 per cent within a few
years intrinsic values have not yet
been exceeded anywhere.
Evrey state is so much interested in
putting itself forward as a region OF
surprising fertility that it is we'll to
seek for the verdict of an u~nprejudic-
ed authority. The United States cen
sus reports ought to be such authority.
In the bulletin on agriculture in
North Dakota the bureau says that
except for some of the southern coun
ties, especially adapted to grazing,
the soil throughout the state is un-
usually fertile. being nearly every
here a wrich, black loan, varying in
depth from a few inches on the high
est hills to from five to fifteen feet in
the valleys. It is easily titled and as
its composition favors the absorption
and retention Of moisture it is espec-
tally adapted to the production of
wheat and barley. The subsoil is
strongly impregnated with lime and
alkaline elements. which serve as per-
petual fertilizers.
North Dakota is essentially a prairie
state, yet with great variety and di-
veristy of surface. It has the fat
plains of the Red River Valley in the
east. the hills in the Coteaux re.
gions west of the first bench land
above the valley, the higher prairies
that decend to the Missouri River on
the west and south, the rolling coun-
try west of the Missouri, with the
rough Bad Lands still furthre west,
AID the bold, billy country of the
Northwest. The state abuonds in
lakes and rivers, many Of which are
bFdered by timber, and in the Turtle
Mountains in the north boasts some
considerable attitudes.
Many counties of the state, includ-
ing Ward, Mclean, Burleigh, Oliver,
Morton, Billings and Dunn, are for
.,tunate in the possession Of %inexhausti-
ole stfn*o nf Ignite coal underlying
the surface at sucd shallow depth
that It is easily mnied. This coaT
affords a very cheap fuel and many
farmers are their own coal miners.
Washburn and other places it is being
mined on q very extensive scale.
North Dakota has q total land area
OF about 70, 0OO7 square miles, and a
rapidly increasing population, which,
however, by the census Of 1900, was
only 319. 04O. It has q, 200 miles of
railway, 200 newspapers, spends 3d.,
oO q year on its public schools of
it has over 5000, with more
man =, OOO teachers. Its school prop.
erty is worth IS. 0O0, 600; the state is
assessed ia about $12O, 600, 600 and the
600, 600.