Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-08-21
THE NEED OF TRANSPORTATION

THE NEED OF TRANSPORTATION
Railroads are the influences that
help much to develop state. We
kick about them frequently, we COM
plain of injustice and inequalities,
but a community which has goods
for sale and no means of getting
them to market understand the
difficulties Of getting on without
modern means of transportation. A
man out on the prairie with hun
bred thousand bushels Of wheat and
500 miles from market, with no swift
and adequate means of Transporter
ton, would haye sthe~elements of
wealth in his hands and no means Of
realizing on them. The same man
with such property convenient to
a transportation line would beweal-
thy indeed.
There are three elements in the
creation of wealth-the product it.
self, the finding of purchaser
who wants the product, and the
means of hauling the stuff from the
producer to the purchaser.
The condition set forth by the
schafer, Mckenzie County, Record,
is a point. The Record says:
For the first time in it's brief his
tory a large area of this rich soil
has been turned under by the plow
and sown to crop. The experiment
has proved successful beyond the
widest dreams of the homesteaders.
A. o. Stessater of Banks, grain ex-
pert and one of the best authori-
ties in the northwest on such mat
tiers "conservatively estimates that
640,0 900 bushels of wheat, $40 900
bushels of fax, 100000 bushels of
oats and 100000 barley, will be the
contribution which Mckenzie county
will make to swell the yield of the
great producing region, $4,000 acres
have been planted to crop, which
is three times the area planted In
1907 and double the average last
year. He says the crop should be
worth one quarter and million dol
lars. The words SHOULD be worth"
are used advisely. Two million bush
els of grain should net that amount
to the Mckenzie county farmers,
but with no railroad and no steam
boat landing though circled by three
great rivers; with mot, a road better
than a prairie trail in an area lar
ger than the entire state of Connect
icut will the farmers get even a
fair per cent of the million and a
quarter. r"
There is perhaps no other section
of the United States which is up
against just the situation that Nc
Kenzie county is today. 1t Is expert
encing an embarrassment of riches
In the first place, the farmers, gener-
ally speaking need the money that
the crops should bring and they need
it bad, to pay for their improvements,
and the horses and machinery which
they bought last spring. Many OF
them have obligations which must
be met this fall Of those who can
afford to hold their crop, there are
only a few who, with lumber $40 a
thousand, have the means to build
granaries. There is no alternative
the great majority Of the farmers
of the county will have to sell their
crop this fall. The day will come. to
nearly every one Of them, when they
will be obliged to load up their grain
on a wagon, and take the half-broken
trail over the hills and the river bot
toms, across the wild Missouri and
through the breaks to the Great Nor
thern railroad, which is from twenty
to sixty miles distant from every
farming community in the county.
Two horses cannot haul over fifty
bushels of wheat at time over such
roads. From practically no point can
a farmer make the trip in less than
two days. From over half the county
it will require three under favorable
conditions. If the fall rains should
overtake them, they may be many
days on the road. They will not
have Ito make the trip once but
many times. A man with a thousand
bushels OF wheat to his credit. even II
he hauls increasingly. will be from
two to three months on the road. BY
the time he Is through we predict
he will have to dig deep down in
his pockets to find his profits. In
the meantime he has to neglect his
fall blowing and the breaking of the
new land which he intended to get
under cultivation next year. @.
This is the proposition that is con-
fronting the bIeKenzie county farmer
Next year we may have railroad,
but that does not help out this year.
4 Some OF the best citizens in the
county are moving heaven and earth
to realize the gravity Of the situation.
now. while they are in the midst