130 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



woods acre, cleared of its stumps and mel- 

 lowed for agriculture, cannot compete on an 

 even basis with the $200 corn belt acre. Here 

 we find raw land as a means of labor in which 

 every unit of effort expended to put it under 

 cultivation manufactures capital for the 

 pioneer. 



The State of Wisconsin advises its settlers 

 that forty acres, properly cleared and culti- 

 vated, is sufficient for a family. The land is 

 to be had at prices ranging from $5 to $20 

 an acre, and in many districts so wasteful have 

 been the lumbering systems practiced that 

 cord wood cut from a pioneer's forty-acre tract 

 will repay him for the cost of the land and pay 

 him wages in addition. Pulp mills and brass 

 furnaces stand ready with a market for cord 

 wood and pulp and the expanding railroad 

 industry furnishes a never-ending market for 

 ties. 



It is not all prime. Streaks of sand stretch 

 across the three states like bars on a flag and 

 here and there the white heat of fire has taken 

 the life out of the land, to be restored only by 

 infinite pains, time and expense. It is for 

 this reason that the three states comprising 

 the hard-wood belt seek to advise the pro- 



