Tlie Country Gentleman's Magazine 



425 



MINNESOTA AS A FIELD FOR FARMERS. 



[By Our Special Correspondent.] 



NO. I. 



IT has been asserted by a certain class of 

 political writers that it is a delusion to 

 imagine that the people are emigrating be- 

 cause there is not room for them in their 

 native land, and that their departure is a re- 

 lief to those who remain behind ; but it 

 would not be difficult to prove the fallacy of 

 such assertions, were it necessary to do so. 

 I am content at present with saying that the 

 circumstances of our country are now such 

 as to press the subject of emigration on the 

 attention of all classes of the people, in a way 

 it has scarcely ever done before, and especi- 

 ally on our agriculturists. In our little island 

 home we are terribly cooped up together ; 

 and in the stern conflict for bread, the weak 

 are constantly pushed to the wall. Our lands 

 are rack-rented, and it is no uncommon thing 

 to find, when a farm is to let, sixty applica- 

 tions sent in for it. I know a nobleman who 

 had some time ago 250 applications in hand 

 for the first farm that should be to let on his 

 estate. Our farmers, too, if they would pros- 

 per, must annually expend on manure a sum 

 of money greatly exceeding their rents. Taxa- 

 tion, already oppressive, seems destined to 

 increase rather than to be lessened ; town 

 rents are rising fast, and the high prices of 

 iood and coal, together with the failure of the 

 potato crop, are facts fitted to make all 

 classes seriously consider how it is possible 

 for them to better their condition. Some 

 are ready to tell us that we have plenty of 

 land within our own borders which only 

 needs to be reclaimed in order to supply 

 labour and food for the people. But it is 

 very certain that all our waste lands, though 

 they were cultivated — and vast sections of 

 them areuncultivatable — their produce would 

 not meet the necessities of the nation. Others 

 will tell us that if the present produce of our 

 country were all rightly used for food, as God 



intended it to be ; if there were no malting and 

 distilling of the precious grain, there would 

 be food enough and to spare in our land. 

 But we question even then, whether the 

 grain thus used and applied to its proper 

 use, would long continue to meet the 

 wants of such a rapidly increasing popu- 

 lation. Certain it is that the event is 

 yet far off; a possibility, no doubt, but 

 hardly ever likely to become a reahty, 

 and we have to face, as best we can, 

 the stern facts of the present. These seem 

 to teach us in unmistakable language that we 

 need more breathing room, and ampler 

 spheres in which to expend our energies and 

 secure proportionate rewards. We need 

 more land to cultivate, and that land in the 

 possession of more hands 3 for here the land is 

 fallinginto fewer andfewer hands, and the large 

 farmers are extinguishing the small ; so that 

 the enriching of the few is the impoverishing 

 of the many. We have not sufficient produce 

 to feed our people, notwithstanding all our 

 high farming. That is manifest from the 

 continual stream of imports flowing into our 

 country from other shores, without which we 

 could not live. And since we cannot find 

 within our sea-girt isle the land we so much 

 require, and which is so eagerly sought after 

 by so many men, it becomes a pressing prac- 

 tical question, where can it be had? what 

 part of the world would suit our population 

 best?i and on what terms can the desired 

 land be secured ? Questions such as these 

 are now stirring the minds of multitudes in 

 this and many other countries; and never 

 were so many persons taking practical steps 

 to get them solved. They feel the truth of 

 the words uttered by the Times, when it 

 lately declared that it is a delusion and a 

 snare to pitch one's tent anywhere in Eng- 

 land in search of cheaper living ; and recom- 

 mended as the only effectual remedy for an 



