The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1906-10-05

four wears. is another fortunate one. His
crop this year will be very large, he
having about 200 acres in one piece. He
told us he only had about 5000 acres
left, as he had just sold 422 acres at
SIS per acre.
Another farmer, whose name we do
not now recall has 400 acres in crop and
he says he will be disappointed if he
does not get $1,000 bushels of grain.
And so it goes, these being only in
stances of what has been done and will
be again.
The wells in this section are all dug
wells, and water is procured in ample
supply at a depth of from 40 to Is feet.
Further east, toward Kansas, they have
to 90 deeper, at Burlington the average
depth being about 200 feet. The water
is soft and very pleasant to the taste.
At Limon they are trying for an arte-
sian well, but had not been able to
get it at depth of 800 feet.
This is country of fences, for every
one who owns land and wishes TO pre-
vent trespassing is obliged to fence it,
the laws of the state requiring this.
Otherwise you have no recourse if
your neighbours stock eats the grass on
your land But the wire fences that
are everywhere serve another purpose,
for with them every farmer has his own
telephone system. An instrument is
installed in the house, wire is run out
and connected to the fence, and "hello,'
you talk with your neighbor, one or for
tv miles away. or with the hired man in
the field. Each farmer respects the rights
of the others. and there is no breaking
in to learn the latest gossip, something
that we cannot say of the farmer lines
in this section.
A year ago you could procure
homestead within a mile and half of
the railroad, today you have to 90 back
nearly a dozen miles, and even this will
not last long. One colony of forty
families homesteaded and bought land
this spring in one bunch about eight
miles from Genoa, and these will ar
rive soon to locate permanently on their
land. In every direction you can see
homestead "shacks" springing up, only
the majority of the shacks are substan
tial buildings, built to remain perma-
nently. That is the difference between
the homesteaders of this section and
that of other sections in which we have
been. iTl~i|
Anyone who desires to homestead will
have to do so soon, as there is not a
great many more to be had.
Perhaps you ask why, if this is such
productive country, has it not been
settled up ere this? Answering this
query we will say that one of the rea-
sons has been that up to four years ago
the railroad land had been leased to the
ranchers. Settlers who went onto the
government lands were bounded so by
the ranchers and their men that they
were glad to leave and let the ranchers
remain in full possession.
Then, too, it has been proclaimed that
the land would not raise anything, that
it was too dry. etc. until people had
begun to take the report for truth. and
have accordingly let it alone. Now when
you ride over the land and see the fine
crops growing you realize that someone
has been doing some prevaricating re-
garding the productiveness of the soil.
What is needed is someone to turn the
ground over, plant the seed and harvest
the crors, the land and the climate does
the rest.-Cottonwood County (Minn.)
Citizen.