The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-11-15


are so loaded with apples that the
branches must be propped to keep
them from swapping off. He has been
used to the more commonplace things
of the East, and. he cannot be expected
to comprehend at once that this land
will some day, if properly cleared and
cultivated, produce for him $3.50 per
year per acre. 1t takes time for him
to learn these things. Just at that
moment he may have happened to mi
CRATE from the State of Missouri,
where they also grow apples, albeit
not quite SO abundantly per acre. If
he has not yet bought this land, he
is likely to hesitate a long time over
it and perhaps turn it down, merely
because he hasn't been fully informed
about it in the first place. And if he
has already bought the land, and is
forced to settle on it, he is likely to
become a dissatisfied settler at that.
If he has not many resources and
is dependent entirely upon what he
can make out of this land, think of
what he is up against. He must set
tie down on this tract in the heart
of the wilderness, even if it is only
through several long years to get
these great stumps cleared off. One
man working alone and without capt.
tai has no other alternative but to
take an AK in one hand and match
in the other and chop and burn one
mammoth stump at time. Clearing
a ten acre tract under these circum-
stances is a task that will require
several years, and in the meantime,
what is the man without money to
live on going to do? He cannot get
income from his farm, at least until
he has cleared several acres, and this
is no mean task with the facilities he
has at hand.
Settlers of this sort are too likely
to find the task of clearing their land
a heartless, wearisome and thankless
work. Working in the wilderness
away from other neighbOrs and en-
countering single-handed such a her
culanean task is not by any means
an encouraging undertaking. The odds
are too great for one, weak human be-
ing And then, if to all this must be
added poverty; an actual need for the
necessities of life, because the man
self and family during the year or two
while he is removing these great
stumps with his insignificant AK and
his little bonfres, the life is indeed
discouraging, and it cannot be won
dered at that settlers of this character
often give up the task before it is
more than started, and FORGETTING on
their payments on the land, go back
to their own country, dissatisfied and
unfriendly toward the newer coun-
try.
The Snohomish County Idea is to
give this man chance.
The Snohomish County people be-
lieve that they need this man as a
permanent settler and booster, and
therefore they believe in treating him
right and letting him get along
Therefore, they intend to do this:
To promote better understanding on
the part of the people occupying these
lands of the modern and economical
methods of clearing; to encourage real
estate firms and individuals who have
these lands for sale to clear them, at
least in part, before they are sold to
the homeseeker from the East; to
encourage groups of settlers who are
together on these lands to clear large
tracts in cooperation by the joint
purchase of donkey engines and other
modern stump-pulling equipment; to
do everything possible to aid this set
tier on the stump lands, instead OF
selling him the land and letting him
shift for himself.
They are pointing out to the real
estate men who are selling these
logged off lands that they can well
afford to clear the lands because the
eattler will he willing to pay as much