BEGINNINGS OF THE NORTHWEST 



east. One flowed in, full of hope, keyed to 

 the struggle for success in the new country. 

 The other, much smaller but still considerable, 

 ebbed eastward, beaten, crestfallen, and usu- 

 ally ruined. 



This was unnatural and illogical; there 

 should have been but the tide flowing in, since 

 the region was virgin prairie, marvelously fer- 

 tile, well watered, blessed with a healthful 

 climate, and now being settled by enlightened 

 and worthy people; a country smiling with 

 every promise of wealth and open-armed for 

 industry and enterprise. Its business, to be 

 specific, was not one subject to the whims, 

 changing tastes, or even preferences of man- 

 kind, for it was the world's greatest granary; 

 it produced in huge quantities Wheat, man's 

 chiefest, indispensable staple, always in de- 

 mand, never oversupplied. Yet, after a few 

 years the records, though so little regarded, 

 told a melancholy story concerning the region 

 thus almost incredibly endowed. The farm 

 mortgages, increasing out of proportion to 

 the population, were reaching appalling fig- 

 ures. Newspaper advertising columns some- 

 times teemed with dismal notices of fore- 

 closure. The abandoned farm, which should 

 have been as rare there as the mastodon, was 

 becoming as common as among the exhausted 

 hills of New England. In one drive of forty- 

 six miles in the summer of 1914 I counted 



