WESTERN COMPETITION. 229 



soioe time at least, and if properly demonstrated would, in m}^ 

 opinion, be decidedly in favor of its prosperity. 



Can the farmers of the State of Maine compete with other sections 

 of the country in producing beef and dairy products, and also other 

 farm crops? Why the subject is so forcibly impressed upon my 

 mind, at the present time, is on account of the low prices of the ma- 

 jority of all farm products, and from continually hearing the state- 

 ment made that we cannot compete with the West. Recently I had 

 occasion to spend a few weeks in the great Northwest, more fre- 

 quently called by those persons who are engaged in the business of 

 selling homesteads to settlers, the promised land of America. It 

 cannot be expected that I saw the whole West, but I did have the 

 pleasure of spending a week with representatives of every State in 

 the West and South, with the exception of Alabama and California. 

 These gentlemen, many of them, were large farmers. Some I could 

 mention had the present year as high as two thousand acres planted 

 to cotton. Others represented wheat fields of five to seven thousand 

 acres. Others were represented to own some hundreds and even 

 thousands of head of cattle and sheep. And as these gentlemen 

 were agreeable, intelligent and liberal in their conversation, it caused 

 me to ask what might seem to them many foolish questions. And 

 let me state that any and all of these gentlemen, no matter from 

 what section of the country they hailed ; no matter how close 

 they were questioned, not one word of discredit could be drawn 

 from them in regard to their own section of the country. If anything, 

 theirs was a little the best. 



In conversing freely with these gentlemen while passing through 

 those beautiful wheat fields up through the Red River valley in 

 northern Minnesota, and also along the Northern Pacific Railroad 

 in Dakota, on an excursion trip given to the delegates of the Farm- 

 ers' National Congress b}' the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Manitoba 

 Railroad Company, from St. Paul to Grand Forks, via Northern 

 Pacific, and returning by another route through Dakota, making 

 many stops. One I will mention was upon the Lockhart farm, where 

 seven thousand acres were in wheat this last year ; and also the fa- 

 mous Dairy mple farm, with its forty-five thousand acre wheat field, 

 where steam threshers could be seen in every direction, reapers 

 with two and four horses attached cutting and binding. At the 

 same time wagons could be seen crossing the fields loaded with grain 

 going to the elevators situated upon the railroad, and team after 



