The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-01-03
BURN BARNS FOR FUEL.
Many Dakota Farmers Have Nothing
Left hut Their Homes.


All the world now knows of the dis
tressing privations on the great western
prairie just passed through by the ambi-
tious settlers owing ito the coal and fuel
famine, but few realize the utter destitu-
ton caused by the need for fuel.
There have been many times in history
when people were forced to burn treas
ures to keep warm, but never before on
the prairie has fuel been SO scarce. One
hundred and fifty miles southwest of
Fargo, y. d., is a settlement of Russian
farmers who have recently come to the
State. When the coal question came up
and the railroads could not supply fuel
there was nothing for them to do hut to
chop up their outbuildings for fuel to
cook with. The question of keeping a
steady fire for heating purposes was at
an end.
One family named Roustoff, which came
to the State in the spring, had no fuel
in the house nor oil for lamps. The sta
bic was used for cooking purposes and
the other outbuildings followed. The
horses and the cattle were turned loose
to seek shelter on the prairie and to be
victims to any blizzard that might over
take them. Then the platform around the
pump was made into fuel, then the wag-
on boxes and later the wheels.
Everything about the farm except what
was needed about the house to keep out
the cold was sacrificed to keep the kitch-
en- stove burning long enough to cook the
beef and make the coffee. The family are
well after the awful ordeal. They say
it is worse than in Russia, for there they
have plenty of fuel.
At Granthem, a small town, the fuel
shortage was as bad. Two families NOV.
ed into one house and chopped up the
other house, for fuel. One day a train
went through and forty men attacked the
crew, but found extra locks on the coal
cars and the coal of poor quality, so let
the train proceed. A man named Wall
dram traded load of wood for three
horses. At Renning several families
burned bushel after bushel of oats and
said that it held fire like coal.
The farmers had plenty of money and
went to the stores and purchased suffi-
cient supplies of canned and dried fish
and fruit, so that with what the house
wives had in store the question of food
was not a serious one. The cold weather
was the most difficult ~ endure. Many
settlers and old farmers hauled ont the
old hay burners which were in vogue
many years ago and used the long wild
grass in their barn yard stacks for fuel.
This did good service.
One of the luckiest things connected
with the coal famine was the fine weather.
While it was very cold through South
and North Dakota, there were no storms.
Had a blizzard swept over the country
while the scarcity of fuel was at it's
height there would have been great loss
of human life and of live stock.
Real estate men fear a fall I'm land
prices owing to the fuel situation this
winter. They claim that inasmuch as the
railroads have been unable to haul coal
to them and the grain from them there
will be much greater shortage of cars in
the year to come unless something is done
to relieve the congestion. No one can
devise a plan.
In South Dakota the great elevators
are overlooking with wheat and corn and
other grains are being stored away on
the farm in the best way possible. The
stock is the only thing the farmers and
ranchmen are able to move. This pro-
vides them with plenty of money. but
money cannot buy coal.
In the western part of North Dakota
are many hundreds of people who went
there last summer to secure cheap lands.
They went with small amounts of money
and spent it in getting much land as
they could. They built insufficient houses
TO keep out the cold, and thus when the
cold snap came and the coal and wood
ran out the suffering was intense.