BEGINNINGS OF THE NORTHWEST 



natural advantages of soil and situation, and 

 is, on the whole, a conspicuously bad business. 

 Farming in the Middle Northwest has been, 

 all things considered, the worst business of all. 



It is the abnormal conditions in the Middle 

 Northwest that I should dwell on for a mo- 

 ment, for they are the most remarkable and 

 least defensible. 



The growing of wheat in large quantities 

 demands of the soil certain salts: potash, ni- 

 trates, and so on. When the white man came 

 to it the whole Northwestern country beyond 

 the Mississippi and east of the Rockies was a 

 vast, treeless, and almost level plain. For 

 centuries and up to sixty or seventy years ago 

 this plain was swept in the autumn with fires 

 that turned the dried prairie grasses into ashes. 



These ashes, accumulating, year after year, 

 made a black loam, thick, rich, and full of the 

 salts required for wheat-raising. 



The Dakotas, North and South, being 

 chiefly prairie, stored the richest of these 

 deposits. 



They had, too, another great advantage 

 for successful farming. Settlement started 

 with land free or very cheap; therefore the 

 initial investment was small or nothing. 

 Most of the land was public, and, for settle- 

 ment, could be obtained free by homestead 

 entry. 



At first remote, the region was soon brought 



