Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1920-01-15
Subscriber to The News Tells OF
the Crop Failures but Thinks
Better Times Near
STOCK OF FARMS NEED
BUT LITTLE PROTECTION
Requires Two Years to Get the
Virgin Land Ready for Produc-
t;on----Potatoes Do Wen

rather hate to copy any one. as
would like to be able to claim orig
ionality but Mr. Guy o. Glazier seems
TO strike harmonious note when he
exclaims with surprise at the fast
speeding year and the necessity for
again having the subscription to the
News paid up, so please find encloe-
ed check for $3.50.
AS have noticed in eastern pap
ers from time to time accounts con-
corning crops and the conditions
which confront the homesteader and
new settler of Montana, owing to the
drough which has prevailed in certain
localities for the past three years,
am taking the liberty of writing these
lines to correct at least in part the
false Impressions which may have
been created by some of those er-
roneous reports.
1t is true certain sections of Mon
tana has suffered a partial crop fail
ure for the past three years and in
some few localities total failures have
worked considerable hardship upon
the settlers on the bench land, but
it is not so much the crop failures
that cause this hardship as it is the
inopportune time that the failure
come. A large majority of the resi-
dents of this section arrived here
during the past six years and as it
takes at least two years to get
virgin farm ready for crops, it is
quite obvious that the larger per cent
Of those in the drough stricken areas
had no resources to fall back upon
when this time of adversity come up
on them, and as the country is all
new to farming there was no succOr
from ones neighbors to tide an un-
fortunate over to more prosperous
times, such as would be had in an
older and better established farming
community; hence the present con-
ditions in Montana which, by the way,
are the same as have been experience
ed in almost all new settled coun-
tries, and have been greatly exagger-
atted in the present instance.
Some Grow Rich
In order to illustrate the possibiIi-
ties of this locality will mention a
Mr.. Kirkland, who came to this
country about fifteen years ago as a
sheep herder and sold his ranch last
spring for fifty thousand dollars. An
other man, Mr.. Delay, walked into
this country five years ago, took up
land upon the Missouri river bottom,
cleared off the brush seeded alfalfa.
Last year he refused twenty thousand
dollars for his farm, A Mr.. Louis
Johnson one Of our neighbors, got
4,500.00 from alfalfa seed this year
and had only forty acres in crop.
Potatoes do very well and on the
bottom land equal any thing | have
seen in Wisconsin, corn is becoming
one of the staple crops but only the
earliest varieties are suitable, owing
to the danger Of late spring and early
fall frosts.
However, it is perhaps in live stock
raising that this country excels. Our
milch cows have had less than ton
VI Lay " QoILCy tA1Ou61 IIC WAltCA
started in October and yet we make
$500 per month on cream from three
COWS. No one provides winter feed
for horses, they pick their own living,
except those that have to work. 1t
would seem increditable to one from
the south or east where wild grasses
are of no value for feed after that
stock in this section can survive the
severe winter We sometimes have,
with no other feed than the forage
provided by mother nature and with
no shelter but the brush but such is
absolutely the case
/ feel safe in predicting that in
the very near future this eastern part
Of Montana will be very successful
rival Of the best agricultural section
Of the northwest and that those who
stay through these hard times will
reap a golden reward for the hard
ships they are now forced to endure
Very truly,
KATHRYN MCGINNIS WHALEN
Nashua, Mont,
December %. 1919.