The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1907-10-31
LOST in LAND DEAL.
Iowa Real Estate Increased In VAL
ne Faster Than Canada.

is now taking his rest preparatory to
picking his corn, and as pastirne he
is attending one or two sales day.
In and around here there have been
ten sales in week. Many closing
out sales mean retired farmers for
some town, or settlers for some new
country. The prices are generally
high, horses especially SO. Although
good cows are bringing from sz5 to
$50, hogs are slow sales-so much
sickness that the farmers are afraid
to buy.
Hay is selling in the stack for IS to
50 per ton and the clerks tell me that
but few notes are being given.
The corn through here, the farmers
say, is as good as last year, and one
feeder told me he had contracted q
900 bushels at 40 cents. which would
indicate continued high price for an
other twelve months, or until another
crop could be raised.
Land is higher in price in this i'm
mediate vicinity than any locality that
| know of. An eighty-acre farm four
miles from town without good inn
provements, is held at $4,000, a sixty
acre farm seven miles from town was
bought at $40 per acre by real estate
men as a speculation. And SO it is
all around here. But they do not farm
as they do in some localities. Nearly
every farm has a good orchard and
they keep it up, too. They raise cat
tie and hogs, and nearly every man
has sheep. They raise grain simply
to feed. Ihe class of stock is particu-
larly high grade, and they say it pays.
William l.. Way, a few miles east of
town, had his herd at the Iowa state
fair and took fourteen first premiums,
which would indicate quality. He has
them now at the live stock show at
Kansas City, where he no doubt will
land many firsts.
One farmer here had his mind filled
by the agent of Canada land, sold his
farm here and went there to live, and
staid two years, sold out at good
price above what it cost him and came
back and wanted to buy back the old
home place. He found that his own
farm in Iowa had increased in value
faster than his Canada land, and he
could buy with what he had sold for,
plus his profit on Canada land, all but
twenty acres of what he had sold.
Many profiting by his experience are
staying in Iowa and adding a little
more land each year to the home
place. That is what makes land high!
Mr.. Beaver is building him new
double corn crib, with capacity OF
1900 bushels, with wide driveway
sufficient to hold his farm implements.
| asked him If he was not extravagant
with lumber selling so high. He
laughed, and remarked that he was
selling oats at 40 cents bushel that
was not fit to feed and he guessed he
could stand it if the other fellow
could. But corn-that was different
With big crop last year, and selling
at 55 cents, and short crop this year,
corn was going to be worth something
and he proposed to have good place
to keep it. Farmer logic for you. He
had ten or twelve big horses running
in a lot close to the house, and ! sug-
gested with everything he fed them
costing so much that he ought to sell
some of them and save the feed. He
said they make more money than SO
many head of cattle and it takes less
feed to fatten and keep fat than cat
tie. What Mr.. Beaver does is not true
of him particularly, but is common
practice among all farmers through
here. All have big teams, although
many are raising mules also Five
hundred teams are doing the work in
the fields, and on the streets of New
Sharon Saturday were tied more good
horses than | have seen in many a
day.