1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 81 



tance, — " no better land in the world than that up around 

 Devil's Lake or out in the north part of Burleigh County." 

 ' ' The best stock ranges are out in the Bad Lands of 

 Montana." " Gold is abundant in Nevada, and the claims 

 are not half taken." The great crowd looks downcast; but 

 it scatters from the offices of the loaners and exchangers 

 of money, from the land-offices and real estate dealers, from 

 the rambling toad-stool villages, and disappears in the vast 

 expanse of prairie, plain, mountain range and sequestered 

 gulch, to find, if possible by searching, the home wdiich they 

 supposed was ready to receive them. 



This country, thus opened, thus advertised, and thus set- 

 tled, is the Wei<t, over wdiich we are to ramble, and we had 

 better be off before another like invasion arrives. Now we 

 are at Casselton, in the great valley of the Red River of the 

 North. It is one boundless expanse of dark, friable soil ; 

 and here and there to the farthest horizon we see the smoke 

 of steam threshers on the wheat fields, and the teams 

 moving wheat in the straw to the machines, grain to the ele- 

 vators and water for the boiler. The scene is new, it is 

 enchanting and expanding. Roving free, we find wx are 

 on the great wheat farm of Mr. D. and soon at the cen- 

 tral office. To the Yankee's questions come these answers : 

 " Seventy thousand acres in the ranch, twenty-nine thou- 

 sand acres in wdieat this year, the rest unbroken sod." 

 ' ' The average yield is forty bushels per acre ; the machines 

 thresh on the average fifteen hundred bushels a day each ; it 

 costs from a cent to a cent and a half a bushel to thresh it." 

 " The expense of growing it, from the plough to the eleva- 

 tor, is about twelve or fifteen cents a bushel ; this land is all 

 soil, and of the best down as far as you can dig." "It 

 has been waiting here for the plough, and growing richer 

 and richer for thousands of years, and it will produce wheat 

 for a thousand to come without exhaustion." " The air 

 is so pure and dry we don't feel any cold, and the win- 

 ters are agreeable." 



Thanking the gentleman for his politeness, and still 

 rambling free, in due time we find ourselves far away on 

 the wheat fields, and among the men, the teams and thresh- 

 ing machines. The latter are all steamers, and burning 



