Norwich bulletin., 1918-08-17
OUR EMPIRE OF TIE WEST Story?

our northwestern states does not give a realizing sense of their greatness. have lately taken a journey in which l passed completely across two states, and across aDout half of two others. All day we passed little towns at in tervals of from ten to twenty miles, all night we continued to arrive at their stations, and the next day we tound them, all about the same size and generally alike.
 All of them had a nice looking sta ton and several elevators near the track, main street and two or three cross streets of neat wooden. brick, CT concrete homes. hotel, church and schoolhouse, and a few stores and shops. Sometimes one or two larger, more pretentious buildings showed that you had reached a county seat, but the different names over the sta ton door was nearly all that differ entiated one town from the others; and 1 would have found the same. for several days more.
 All the country was rolling prairie, level and with occasionally hills from fifteen to twenty feet high. rising and falling away so gently that you pase- ed over without observing them.
 Of one thing I became certain-that wherever the bumper crops" of which the eastern papers speak may be. they are not in the northwest. In most places, most things are called "a fair crop" but they are not even very good. Of course in the river valleys 1t is different and as the travellers usually follow the Red river or the Missouri valley, they see only the best of the crops. Back from the rivers, on the great table land, the heat during June was intense-from 90 degrees to 110 degrees for many days. For five weeks there was no ram, and the ground was so hot and dry that it burned ones feet through shoes. The winter rye and ear y soWn grains were nearly filled out be- 1 fore the heated spell. but when I left 1 North Dakota some of the farmer S were cutting and drying their wheat for hay.
 One farmer told me. There is not nearly enough grass in the country for the necessary hay. and as there will not be more than two bushels Of wheat to the acre. and that of very inferior grade. it will be worth more for hay than for grain. It would not sell for enough to pay the threshins bill.
 Last year most of the wheat brought S1.50 or less bushel at the eleva- ' | Few, however will get enough wheat
 to pay for their seed.
 During the last ten days there has been rain. and 1t may not be too late | to help the corn, fax, and potatoes
 I saw some fields of flax, however not more than three inches high, which cannot possibly mature.
 The potatoes have a new enemy thi:
 year-a black fly. which sucks tht juices from the vines. until they arc
 entirely dead. In some places there
 was no hope of any crop at all of thi.
 kind.
 The hay deficiency is the most se
 rious lack of all-hay is below tht
 average, everywhere, and it will b,
 scarce and high next winter Ever
 in Wisconsin, it is rated half crop
 There is a deficiency in the poultr,
 ard egg production this year, al through the northwest This is at tributed to the scarcity and high pric
 of grain. last year. and to the impos sibility of getting wheat to feed them No other grain gives as good result l fer poultry feed. as wheat
 The hand of the war has faIle, heavily on the northwest. The pro portion of men of draft age wa
 greater here than in the east, and larger proportion of them were farm < CTS. The fact that no hand work i 5 dcne on these farms, and that tn large machines used require skiIle 3 Workmen, prevents the use of hig 3 school and city-bred laoorers Tn
 few who have been tried were not
 success.
 The patriotic response of the north vest to the call for enlistments an the comparatively few cases Of draf eVasions surprised those who kne7 : that the majority in some states wer l actually Germans, though nominall Russians. and that most of them Wer pro-Germans before we entered tn , war. The fathers Of these people wen
 flom Germany to Russia 2s colonist- , did not like the country or the peo pie, never learned the language, an
 their children in this country spea , only German, and read only Germa , papers. These are the people wh , are members of the Non -Partisa
 League, an anti-War, anti-draft or
 ganizatiOn, whose leaders were for
 merly socialists, and who instructe
 their representatives in congress t
 vote against the declaration of va
 and the sending of any troops outsid
 of our own country.
 The arrest of many of their lead CTS. and the imprisonment of some fo sedition has caused them to dro open opposition to the war, and t profess loyalty. but very few of thei
 members are Americans, and thes
 few are socialists and the more ignor
 ant class. North Dakota is putting u
 q good fight against the league thi year, but the result is uncertain The people of these states, what ever their political and racial differ
 ences, have given literally to the Re
 Cross. Notwithstanding the povert caused by three, successive years C poor crops. few localities have give more liberally in response to ever call it has made, and the women ev anywhere are untiring workers 1 believe that the war will be a rea blessing to the northwest, and will b the actual melting pot which will fus
 the unpatriotic and foreign element , into real American citizenship.
 We have been living over volcano
 butI believe its menace will pass ava : with the education and enlightenment
 of the sons of aliens in the trainin
 camp and the service . NINETTE NJ. LOWATER.
 North Dakota.
 r