The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1911-09-07
SETTLERS MOVE OUT
j. j. Skahen Makes Comparison of
Conditions in States of South
Dakota and Minnesota.
DrOuth and Hot Winds in Our Sister
State Devastate Large Areas
of All Growing Crops.

State Devastate Large Areas
of All Growing Crops.
Editor Union: In making good
your promise in the last issue of the
Union regarding letter from me
touching upon the conditions in that
part of South Dakota recently seen
by me, compared with those in our
own state, I am induced to do so only
for the purpose of comparing and
with the belief that a comparison may
awaken and cultivate keener appre-
citation and higher estimate of the
great advantages and resources of
our own old Minnesota.
A business engagement called me
to Aberdeen, S. D., and, naturally, I
went out to our former home at
Ipswich, in the adjoining county of
Edmunds, where we formerly spent IL
long years of prairie life. I found
but few of the old pioneers of '83 left
and they received me most cordially.
In greeting they invariably asked,
Glow are things up in your country?"
Answering, I said all was fine, that
the farmers wives were working over
time making extra pockets in their
husbands trousers to hold the gold
they were getting for S1.00 a bushel
potatoes, and we expected to have
100000 bushels. The hens, whose
merry cackle lent music to the air,
we're too happy and too busy to take
a vacation. Our butter was so deli
cious that the millionaires of New
York city were paying trust prices to
our farmers creameries for carloads
of it. Everything else is running
about the same way, and Minnesota
is grand, hunkadorious domain.
did not need to ask how things
were there. In language more forceful
and pathetic than words can paint
the continuous line OF "prairie
schooners' containing sad-faced
mothers and disappointed fathers and
their little household effects, going
out OF the country, leaving behind the
homestead or newly purchased land,
told the unwelcome story of failure
and distress. For a hundred miles
radius from Ipswich the drouth and
hot winds made the work of devasta-
ton complete. A better job in that
respect could scarcely have been
wrought. Not a sheaf nor a shock
nor stack of grain could be seen to
indicate any reward for the toll and
money of the farmer. There was
little difference, but the country west
of the Missouri river got hit the
worst
Though the failure puts serious
check on immigration and makes the
old settlers draw upon thier reserves,
yet the new settlers are bit the heavi-
est blow. Their means are exhausted
and they can borrow no more. With
empty pocketbooks, coal $1,000 ton,
no wood to get, and buffalo chips
scarce, many homesteaders and new
corners are up against the real thing.
Cold and hunger stare them in the
face.
TO meet the situation in these and
other respects the county commits
sioners in many counties are arrang-
ing to issue bonds to raise the neces-
sary means to carry them over the
winter and furnish seed next spring in
taking another chance at the game.
1t is unnecessary to say that all COM
mercial business is under a wave of
stagnation and a pessimistic and
gloomy expression prevails.
Minnesota always looked good to
me, but she never looked so good as
when I returned from this trip. Her
green, refreshing pastures covered
with lowing herds, her fertile fields
laden with shocks and stacks of
golden grain, her sparkling lakes and
running streams, her exhilarating
climate, her woods and groves where
nestle the homes of prosperous
farmers and happy and contented
families, make striking contrast to
the conditions in her sister state to
the west, and remind US that, though
we may not always have appreciated
the fact, our own dear Minnesota is
the best state in the union.
Very respectfully yours,
j. J. Skahen.