Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1906-08-04
HOW TO BUILD up A TOWN.


and we have also often urged the necessity of
manufactures for building up town, but the
Pioneer Press in recent editorial shows how
lit may be possible to build up town even thol
there are many large farms in the neighbor-
hood and without the establishment of factor
les The plan is simply application of the
"homecroft" idea which has received much
attention Of late. The Pioneer Press says
There are numerous towns in southern and
central Minnesota which have apparently ceas-
led growing, whose growth is so slow as to
be scarcely percepitible. There is little Or no
building. Real estate, if it has not suffered
la decline, no longer rises in value. New enter
prises are seldom or never started. The bust
ness of the stores and factories already estab-
lished joys on at the pace year after year.
Yet these towns are crossed by from one to|
three or four railroads. They surrounded
by beautiful fertile country. They offer tol
new corners, not the hardships of life the
frontier but all the attractions of region al
ready subdued, a civilization already perfected.
Most of the residents in every of them are
still hopeful of future growth-ofa time when
lots will be in demand and houses will again
multiply-but year after year passes by with
small encouragement for the hope. 1t is but
seldom that business will grow without growth
in population, and the population doesn't come.
But has it never occurred to the business
men of such places that customer living in
the country close by is good customer
living just around the from the store?
That thousand farmers added to the country
population trading in the town will do much
6 Al,
sand mechanics engaged to work in some new
factory within it's bounds? That it may be ten
times as easy to get the thousand farmers as it
is to get the thousand mechanics?
Those Minnesota towns have stopped grow
ing because the country around them, although
"tenced in is neither half populated nor half
cultivated. The farms of 100 to 800 acres or
more ocC upied by men whose ambition is
satisfied by mere ownership, and who seldom
dream of getting out Of the land all it can yield
even if they equipped with the knowledge
necessary to secure such yield. The disgrace
full fact that the majority of Minnesota farmers
have been content with less than fourteen
bushels of wheat to an acre. when they might
have had double that yield, is supplemented
by the other fact, equally as disgraceful to the
state, that they do not till great part of their
land at all. Until there shall be some change
in the use of the lands around the towns the
business of the towns will remain at stand
still.
The remedy then, is for the business men
in town to form themselves into "booster
association" which shall take up the work of
subdividing available lands and introd ucing a
new farming population. Land in the condition
described can usually be bought. The owner is
very apt to think thai because he gets |
only fourteen bushels of wheat, and CORE |
spondingly small crops of other produce the
land is run down." Let the "boosters" bar
into thousand "crofts' of two to ten acres
each with a little cottage it, and send a com
mittee to New York to offer those little home
crofts, on easy terms, to agricultural immi-
er number of those now pouring into the coun
try They have Gland hunger desire to
make homes for themselves, which will induced
most of them to avail themselves with glad
ness of such an opportunity, especially if it is
shown them that on the big farms near the
proffered "homecrofts" they can get work for
portion Of the year and thereby earn something
III addition to the produce of the "croft,' to
apply in paying for the latter.
No who saw the "shacks" put up few
years ago, by a group of immigrants who
bought little tracts Of from half an acre to an
on lo, %oIC sc