The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-05-15
led astray by false prophets and tales
ton of the party.
THE MANLESS LAND.


1t is reported that many of the
farms of Iowa are without renters
this year. and that the prospect for
next year is that more will be without
tenants than is true of the present
season.
The reason seems to lie in the fact
that thousands of those who have been
renters in that state for years have at
last been converted to the possibili-
ties of the future in the northwest,
especially in North Dakota, and have
abandoned the renting for the owning
of the farm.
The last few years has witnessed a
remarkable change of sentiment in
the people of the older states in refer
ence to this state. The stories of
crop failures and drouths were so
persistently told that those who had
not investigated them were certain
they were true. The climate was de-
scribed as something worse than that
degree of the Inferno pictured by
Dante in which the lost souls were
frozen in the ice of the fearful lake,
there to remain throughout eternity
1t was supposed that the men who
ventured out in the winter in this
climate would certainly freeze to
death.
Hunting for a living was regarded
as being attended with as many dan
gers and hardships as would be hunt
ing for a fortune in the gold fields
beyond the Arctic circle.
But as the hardy and courageous
men who had faith in the state and it's
future have amassed snug fortunes
and returned to their former homes
with proof of the same, the truth has
been gradually forced on the skep-
tics that there was something in the
state after ali. 1t took long time
for this belief to become sufficiently
strong to be acted upon, but once it
did the result was evident
The class of people who are always
ready to take hold of a proposition
because it is good business, are COM
ing to North Dakota.
They have been convinced that a
country where the regular business
of the community is transacted every
business day in the year without in
terruption by the low temperature
and where the individual who is en-
posed to the weather suffers less than
he would in Iowa, New York, or even
Ohio, is not so very dangerous after
all. They have learned, too, that
where farming communities are able
to support cities of ten thousand pop
ulation, while surrounded by neigh
bors of three and four thousand so
close that talking over the backyard
fence with these neighbors is possible,
there must be some richness in the
pursuit of the pillow. More than this,
they have learned that farm which
will pay the cost price in half dozen
years from the profits on the crops
alone is not the worst place in the
world in which to seek a home.
AS a result of this education there
has set in from the older states a tide
of immigration, not like the rush to
new country, but like the location
of conservative business men in a
promising field.
The vast majority of the peUL,e who
are now coming are those who have
been renters in the older states, and
who have not been able to accumulate
more than few hundred dollars if
anything. and they are abandoning
the farms where they paid more rent
IAoh lACy Soulu pOoSlUlS uOpG "
realize from the land. AS a conse-
quence the farms in the older states
are becoming tenantless. They will
become more 80 as the truth about
the golden opportunities become bet
ter known. There will never be
repetition of the early boom days
when men rushed to the country like
miners to newly discovered gold
fields, but there will be a constant
increase in the farmers who are seek
ing permanent homes for themselves
and their families in the best climate
for the industrious in the world, and
where untold wealth will reward the
plowman's toll.