165 



There appears to be an uncontrolable desire on the 

 part of many of our farming fraternity to possess all that 

 adjoins them. 



Not for its intrinsic worth, or the desire or expectation 

 of utilizing the same, or for speculative motives. In fact 

 the owners themselves could give no good reason for con- 

 tinually spreading out instead of concentrating their fences. 

 They even do not appear to have taken into considera- 

 tion the cost of fencing their endless domain. We feel 

 assured that we speak within the bounds of truth and 

 facts, when we declare that there are thousands of acres 

 in N. E. which was never worth the cost of enclosure. 

 In fact it was never designed for any other purpose than 

 to help hold the world together. We believe if all the 

 farmers who are now trying to cultivate from thirty to 

 fiftj'' acres, should put all their fertilizer and labor onto 

 one-half, or even one-fourth of the land, their net in- 

 comes would be materially increased. That which would 

 have been considered farming land twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago, would not be considered such at the present 

 time. The hand labor of those days could be used to ad- 

 vantage among the stumps, rocks and on the steep hill- 

 sides, at ten to twelve dollars per month, or fifty to 

 seventy-five cents per day, with one dollar in hay time. 

 But with the present price of labor, such land could be 

 tilled only at a loss. Divers machines have been brought 

 into use to do this labor, but the land must be cleared of 

 stumps and rocks and made smooth. Even with all of these 

 modern inventions to assist the farmer in making and 

 harvesting his crops, on the prairie land of the far west, 

 where nature has prepared the land for the machines, 

 the results are not encouraging. 



We find by the crop reports of 1893, that the average 

 yield of wheat is only 11.3 bushels per acre. Barley 21.7, 

 and oats 23.5 bushels. Certainly this cannot leave a 

 satisfactory dividend, after deducting all necessary ex- 



