Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1916-08-25
Offering Free Homes.

OfferinQ Free Homes.
The offer of former Mayor France
to give deeds to 20 acres of logged
off lands to men with families who
will improve the land shows the liber-
al spirit of Mr.. France, and should
be taken up by men who really want
to make a home and are willing to
work to secure it.
The early settlers of this country
would have been delighted to have
found tracts of land from which the
timber had been removed, with moth
ing left for them to clear but the
stumps. In those days, the settler
had to fall the big trees and burn
them entire as well as remove the
stumps. He had no roads, no schools,
no churches and no stores in which
to secure supplies. nor any means with
which to procure needed supplies 9TH
er than what he raised on the land.
When the editor of the Herald came
to this county. the rich valleys of
the Chehalis, Wishkah, Wynoche and
Satsop, and others now covered With
fertile farms, were heavily timbered,
with here and there a small clearing
carved from the primeval forest by
the sturdy settlers, many of whom
are living today in comparative af-
fluence by reason of their willing
ness to forego the pleasures and
many of the comforts of life in the
vigor of their young manhood in order
to secure competence in old age
and to leave a heritage to their
children.
Twenty acres Of land today, with
nothing but the stumps to remove,
with good roads, schools and all the
concomitants of civilization at hand,
is much more valuable than was 100
acres forty or fifty years ago. To-
day there Is work at good wages to
be had, whereby the settler is as
sured of living for his family while
getting the land under cultivation. and
there is a cash market at hand for
everything he can produce. In the
early days. the nearest point for sup
plies and market for produce was
Olympia, to which point the Grays
a canoe up the Chehalis and Black
rivers and the length of Black lake to
point II miles from Olympia, with
butter-the only product he could
transport-to trade for store goods.
This, with cattle, driven over elk
trails to the same market, was the
only produce they could sell.
Yet, the writer has never met
more happy, contented or hospitable
people than were these pioneers when
he first came among them, more than
80 years ago. Their wants were COM
paratively few and easily satisfied.
The entire family assisted in the work
of clearing, the children. in the way
of play, chunking up the fires about
the big logs and stumps. In few
years a clearing was made sufficient
to insure living, and they were
about as independent a people as
ever lived. Surely, if the spirit of
independence has not died out in the
land. the offer of Mr.. France will
have many takers, men and women,
who will sacrifice few present pleas
ures to insure future comforts.
Indeed, the proposition of Mr..
France may prove the solution of
the logged-off land problem, which is
now puzzling some of the brightest
minds of the state. Owners of large
tracts of these lands. now a liability
producing nothing but taxes, may
come to see that giving away por-
ton of them to actual settlers is a
business proposition, not charity.
When the settlers go upon them and
begin to demonstrate their fertility
and learn to what crops they are
adapted. the balance of their tracts
will have definite value.
1t is idle to declare that those lands
are not fertile, the many farms
throughout the county. upon almost
identically the same kind of soil, dis
prove that statement. The history of
the continent shows that all new set
tiers. from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
went on the theory that only certain
lands were of value. and it has al
ways remained for the later corners,
after all such lands were taken. to
demonstrate that so-called poor lands
were valuable. and in many instances
would produce more dollars to the
acre than what had been considered
the choice lands by the first settlers.