The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-10-11
THE VESTS PROSPERITY
IT IS INDEED WONDERFUL AND
 UNPRECEDENTED.
Letter From Former New Haven Law yer and Journalist Tells of the Boom ,rp Times-The Wonderful Crops and the Vast Increase in Land Values.

ing Times-The Wonderful Crops and
 the Vast Increase in Land Values.
 Eol1owing is a portion of private 1o++e, received by Jerome B. Lucke from Lawyer Lorenzo w. Housel' Yale ,9S formerly of the Journal and Cour- fer and who was member of the Connecticut legislature from this city Ia few years ago. It tells graphically
 the great and wonderful progress
 ne west is making. MT Housel says: R It is certainly a glorious sight to look across the prairie farms as far as tile eye can reach or until the scene Is lil- tsrrupted by the horizon,t the sky dlp- ping to the prairie and shutting luf- ther view beyond, green fields ana golden fields of grain ripe for the har- vester, or cut and stacked in golden heaps, the vista dotted with the artlll- cial, l. e., planted groves of box eloer' willow, soft maple, ash, mulberry ca talpa, etc., which surround the pulla- ings of every farm, great stretches ol corn extending to the limit of vision and all set in the bosom of a gently rolling prairie with not hill or moun- tain to be seen, just a continual stretch of fertile garden stretching for miles upon miles practically from the Missbs- i sippi on the east to the Missouri on the west, all as beautiful and fertile and rich as the finest level lands of the best part of the Connecticut valley. and even more fertile with natures own fertilizer and no artificial tertlli- zation. Oh, the "Rock Bound Hills ot New England" are beautiful, they ap- peal to the sentimental nature of every one, as they should, but the home Of prosperity, the source of the nations s wealth and strength, the garden of the world are the prairie states of the middle west, and I wish you might see them at their best as they are now at this season of the year; and they are especially fine now, as this is such a good year. They say here that the best year they ever had here for bum- per crops was in 1901, and this year most nearly approximates that of any year since. I have some crops myself this year, planted and attended by tenants of course, have about 110 acres of oats, from which I got about 5.00C bushels; about 75 acres of corn, from which I will get at least $500 bushels; and have about 100 tons of hay stacked ready to have pressed for market. ] an, convinced that there is no better investment in the world, both from the standpoint of security and income than good Iowa land. But it is so high now that man could not afford to buy it with the idea of making on raise in price, that is in my opinion, al- though good conservative men say it will go to more than one hundred dol lars per acre. It is now commanding from sixty-five to eighty dollars or eightyl1ve dollars per acre, and some acreages have sold for close to one hundred dollars, but those were excep- tional cases. There are men here who bought land for five dollars per acre and up who have been made wealthy by simply holding the land and letting natural causes and demand boost the land value to present prices. You can easily figure their profits in fifteen years, the advance in many instances being as much as seventy-f1ve dollars per acre, and during all the time they held it they were getting rents and re- turns from the land more than enough to pay taxes and interest on the origl- nal investment in the land. One must see the soil here and then he will un- derstand the high prices which the land commands. The lands are all di. vided by government surveys into townships, sections, quarter sections and forties, the township containing 36 sections. the section $40 acres, the quarters 160 acres and the forty being quarter of a quarter section, i. e., forty acres. Each township is num- bered, as is also each section, and the quarters are designated by the posi- tion which each occupies in the section. To more securely designate the town ship location there are at regular in- tervals of six miles lines running due north and south across the entire state surveyed, and accurately designated lines called ranges which are num- bered, and then to more accurately de- sigDate the ranges there at greater in- tervals covering a whole tier of states lines called principal meridtans, sc that mans farm, instead of being described by mates and bounds, as in the old eastern part of the country, is described in this manner, viz: Suppose he has a quarter section it may be de- scribed as follows: The northwest quarter of Section No. 27, Township No. 92 north Range No. 29, west of the fifth principal meridian of Iowa. This would probably not convey very 1n- telligible idea to an eastern man not familiar with the government surveys but if he could get warranty deed with such a description therein foi twelve thousand dollars, he would bt getting 16O acres of the finest land ir the world at a bargain.
 Talk of spectators, you never saw such lot for speculation as the west erners are. Land speculation is the chief medium of their activity in that direction. A friend of mine here about a year ago bought a large tract o1 land in eastern Washington at a bar gain, held it for less than a year and sold at an advance and cleaned uT $13,000 net on the deal
 Before I came west I had heard so much of western real estate mort