Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-01-07

Rapid as has been the development
Of the agricultural resources of this
county during the past twenty years.
there still remain thousands and thous-
ands of acres of rich and fertile lands
which have as yet been untouched and
which when titled would produce more
than sufficient to support Population
even larger than that of the state at the
present time.
Every year thousands of acres of these
lands are being subjugated and brought
under cultivation. New settlers are
daily coming into this county. They
are scattering around in the larger and
newer towns, but the area of this
county is so large that those living in
the city have little idea how rapidly
they are settling up these lands. Even
in the more remote sections this work
of settlement is rapidly progressing.
Towns that were practically wilder
nesses a decade ago and where the
clearing of a settler was rarely seen,
are beginning to be dotted over with
farms, new roads are being opened up
and school houses appear on the map
where ten years ago there was nothing
but wilderness, but the best feature of
this whole movement is that these
settlers are, as rule, prosperous, happy
and contented.
The exodus from the farms which is
sometimes witnessed in other sections
after an unusually hard winter or crop
failure is something never seen in
Marathon county, for in the half century
during which men have lived on farms
here there has never been a crop
failure. Drought is thing unknown.
Our pastures are green from early in
the spring until after the ground
freezes up in the fall, and there is
always good home market for all the
farmer raises.
The prairie lands of Northwestern
Canada and the Dakotas have during
the past few years allured many who
would otherwise have come here, but
the fact remains that those who did
come here as rule have Jared better
than those who have gone to these
other places. The prospect of 160-
acre farm where it is necessary to do
nothing but break the sod and sow the
seed, we admit, on paper presents
much more alluring picture than the
slow process of making a farm where
the timber and underbrush must be
slowly and laboriously removed, but
this is only one-half of the picture.
Those who exploit these prairie lands
do not mention the great cost ct erect
ing suitable buildings in which to
shelter the family of the settler and his /
stock. The fuel and water problems |
are left to these settlers to unravel for
and serious problems they |
are, too, to many of them. To their
sorrow many of these prairie settlers
have discovered, when too late, that it !
has kept them busy during the winter
months doing nothing but haul fuel,
often having to go for it thirty and
forty miles and then pay exorbitant
prices for it, and also that they have
had to drive their stock miles to water
it or have had to haul their water, in
this manner dissipating large share of
the earnings of their farms, the profits
of which by reason of the long hauls
are much less than they anticipated.
Here the settler is never bothered
with the fuel or water problems.
Generally the former can be had in
abundance for the mere cutting and
hauling, and there is water everywhere
in unfailing quantities. The settler
can devote his spare time during the
winter months to clearing the land or
working for others at good wages.
And best of all, these lands will pro-