HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN MINNESOTA. 287 



fairly good buildings were held at f 40 to $45 an acre. With 

 an ordinary Iowa barn, consisting of some posts and a few 

 poles and occasionally some poorly hung, ramshackle doors, 

 and a few boards to keep the straw from falling in thrown 

 around the building, that kind of improvement did not enhance 

 the value of the farm to make it attractive to the settler from 

 the East who is accustomed to better things and a country 

 home ; and those lands were held at $30 to $35 an acre. Now 

 come up to Minnesota, to lands that are equally good, as near 

 market and with a lower rate of transportation, and what are 

 they held at? $15 or $18 an acre! 



Possibly someone can tell me why a good farm in Minne- 

 sota is w 7 orth no more than half the price of an equally good 

 farm in northern Iowa. There is nothing that the Iowa farmer 

 can raise that we cannot raise. Most of the crops that we 

 raise to the best advantage he cannot produce so well. 



The farmer in Iow r a is plagued with hog cholera, we are 

 having more of it in this state than we ought to have. Though 

 I for years believed it would never bother us in this state, I 

 now know that it can be carried, even in the clothes of a man, 

 can be carried by a dog, can be carried by sheep and cattle. I 

 brought a carload of cows from northern Iowa last spring 

 (dairy cattle), took them out to my farm, and within three 

 weeks had the first case of hog cholera and lost about eighty 

 little pigs. I quarantined at once, and, with the aid of the 

 State Veterinarian, Dr. Reynolds, was able to stamp it out, but 

 I might have lost my entire herd of pigs. 



Now I want some of you gentlemen to tell me why a farm 

 in Minnesota that can raise everything that a farm in Iowa 

 can raise, and that can market it for less money, should not be 

 worth as much in Minnesota as it is there ; why land in the Red 

 River Valley, that is richer than anything they have in the 

 State of Iowa or in any other state, is worth only from eight to 

 fifteen dollars an acre, or, if it is well improved, sells at the out- 

 side for twenty dollars an acre, while farms south of us sell for 

 tw r ice that. 



The State of Minnesota does not raise as much corn as Iowa, 



but it raises a bigger yield per acre. We do not plant as much. 



I think our yield per acre is some six bushels greater than 



theirs. About twenty years ago people thought you could not 



III-2. 



