The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1906-04-05
SOUTH DAKOTA 4 WEALTH PRODUCER
Stale Adds More Riches TO the Nations Hoard Annually, I'm
Proportion 10 Population, Than Any Other in the Union.

ton OF the town Is only 500, yet 1t
ships yearly 81. ZOO, 900 worth of cattle.
The choicest beef Is produced without
care or feed, winter or summer, except
as nature has provided, the cattle graz.
ing all winter on the famous buffalo
grass, and taken from this feed and
placed on the market in competition
with the corn-fed article. The snowfall
in winter is very light, and some win
tiers there is scarcely enough to make
good sleighing.
Land is plentiful in South Dakota
and prices are cheap. When the state
was organized nearly 5000. 900 acres
were set apart for the school fund, and
a great portion Of this has not yet been
sold. Settlers can obtain this land
with a snail cash payment and fifteen
years time for the balance due. From
$40 up is the prevailing price for land
that in Iowa or Illinois would readily
bring 500. The influx Of settlers is
steadily encroaching on the big cattle
and sheep ranches, and it is only a
matter of a few years when these will
have disappeared and the small farmer
will occupy them.
l. Early Obstacles to Progress.
1t is thirty years since the railroads
began to come to South Dakota, and
the mining discoveries in the Black
Hills country, with the great traffic
that this assured the roads, made their
extensions imperative. But there We're
obstacles to their advancement. For
one, the western bank Of the Missouri
river was dotted with Indian reserva-
tons. and across these the steel rails
were not allowed to cross Beyond
these were the semi-arid regions of the
Bad Lands" and beyond these the
mines.
AS the railroads could not go
straight across the country to their OBJ
~jective point they were obliged to go
around. Hence it followed that east,
ern South Dakota was occupied. but
no filled, while the Indians and the
cowboys had an unObstructed range
between the river and the hills.
These Instructions to railroad devel-
opment had a retarding effect on South
Dakota's growth, while her sister on
the north, because free from them, grew
faster, although beginning later. But
conditions have changed in the past
few years. The Indians are now re-
ceiving their lands in ~severalty, and
the barriers which operated to hold
back the farmers and the railways are
fast being removed.
Time for a Change.
Meanwhile the pioneer work has
been done with soil and climate. The
farmer no longer has to learn what to
raise and how by the failures of expe-
rience. The land is ready for more
than pioneer occupation. 1t is ready
for its second planting with men and
their homes in the spaces left untitled
by the pioneers. For ten years it has
prospered greatly, but it now needs
more men to perfect its prosperity.
The intellectual leaders of South Da-
kota see that the existing conditions
about them have become abnormal and
ripe for change. They see for in
stance, 1865. 900 COWS in the state that
have never known a milk pail. and that
while tnOSe COWS were well enOuSn ar
one time, it is well to replace them
with another kind-with farmers
cows. They see that their lands are
cheap compared with the farm lands of
Illinois, and that the only way to in
crease their value is to get more peo-
pie on them. And to their call the peo-
pie are responding.
A movement full Of interest and ben
eft is this movement to fill up the va
cant spaces Of the Northwest, SO intel
ligently fostered by the common
wealths interested. It means much
for them and more for the country, for
it means more prosperity for the peo-
pie there already and larger opportuni-
ties than they had Tor the people who
come. 1t means diversity of crops and
intensity of cultivation. 1t means en-
largement Of the production of wealth
at first hand.-Herbert Vanderhoof, in
Minneapolis Journal.
Elizabeth Hochhalter, wife of Fred