Barbour County index., 1907-05-15
INDIANA PEOPLE IN WESTERN
CANADA.
What Shall We Do?-I've Got to Build
Granaries.

A letter written to a Canadian Gov
ernment agent from Upton, Indiana
is but one of many similar that are in
the hands of the Canadian governm ent
agents whose privilege it is to offer
one hundred and sixty acres of land
free, and low railway fares. But here
| is a copy of the letter:
"Tipton, Ind, Nov. 2s, 1906.
"At your earnest solicitation a party
| Of us from Upton left May 15 for
| Western Canada. Our interviews with
you and a careful study of your liter
| ature led us to expect great things of
| your country when We should arrive
there, and we were not disappointed.
| We went prepared to make a careful
| examination of the country and its re-
| sources, and we did so. At early dawn
| the second morning out of Upton we
awoke in a new world. AS far as the
| eye could reach was an apparently
| limitless eXpanse of new sown wheat
| and prairie grasses. The vivid green
| of the wheat just beginning to stool
| out, and the inky blackness of the
| soil contrasted in a way beautiful to
see. An hour or two later we steamed
| into Winnipeg. Here we found num-
| Der of surprises. A hundred thousand
souls well housed, with every con-
venience that goes to make a modern
up-to-date city-banks, hotels, news
papers, stores, electric light, street
railways, sewerage, waterworks, as
| phalt pavements. everything. With
eyes and ears open we travelled for
two thousand miles through Manitoba
| Saskatchewan and Alberta, going out
| over the Canadian Pacific railway, via
Calgary, to Edmonton, and returning
| to Winnipeg over the Canadian North
| ern railway. In the meantime we
made several side trips and stopped
| off at number of points where we
| made drives into the surrounding
| country. On every hand were evil
| dences OF prosperity. The growing
| wheat. oats, rye, flax, barley, not lit
| tie patches, but great fields, many Of
them square mile in extent, the
| three, five and sometimes seven-horse
| teams laying over an inky black rib
| bon of yellow stubble, generally in fur
| right angles from the roads stretching
| into the distance, contrasted strangely
with our little fields at home. The
| towns both large and small were dou-
| bly, conspicuous, made so, first by
| their newness and second by the tow
| ering elevators necessary to hold the
| immense crops OF wheat grown in the
| immediate neighbOrhOod.
The newness the thrift, the hustle,
| the sound of saw and hammer, the
tents housing owners of buildings in
various stages of completion, the piles
of household effects and agricultural
implements at the railway stations
waiting to be hauled out to the
Claims" the occasional steam plow
turning its twenty or thirty acres a
day, the sod house, the unpainted
house of wood, the up-to-date modern
residence with large red barn by, all
these were seen everywhere we went
an earnest of prosperity and wealth to
be. We talked with men and visited
their places that four years ago was
unbroken prairie. Their houses,
barns. implements and live stock were
the equal OF anything in Upton Coun-
ty, and why not, when they were rails
ing five, ten and twenty, yes, in one
instance, forty thousand bushels of
wheat year. The fact that such
large yields of wheat are raised SO
easily and so surely impressed us
very favorably. And when we saw
men who four or five years ago COM
menced there with two or three thou
sand dollars, and were now as we'll
fixed and making money much easier
and many times faster than lots of
our acquaintanceS on Indiana farms
nifty years cleared and valued at four
times as much, we decided to invest.
SO we bought in partnership a little
over two thousand acres, some of it
improved and in wheat
Before leaving Indiana we agreed
that If the opportunities were as great
as they were represented to be, that
We would buy, and own in partner
ship body of land, and leave one of
our number to look after and operate
1t. This we accordingly did.
Just before time to thresh l re-
ceived letter from him. What shall
We do?" said he; I've got to build
granaries. There's so much wheat
that the railways are just swamped.
We can't get cars and the elevators
are all full. l never saw anything
like it, In reply We wrote, Good for
you. Go ahead and build; your story
sounds better than the letters we used
to get from our friends in Kansas
when they bewailed the fact that the
hard wheat had been destroyed by the
chinch bugs and the corn by hot
winds. and that they must sell the
stock for means to live on Yes, build
by all means" And he did, and our
wheat put in by renter made twen-
ty-seven bushels per acre.
Very truly yours,
(Sd) A. G. BURKHART.
(Sd) ]. TRELOAR-TRESIDDER.
(Sd) WALTER W. MOUNT.