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176 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMEB. 



What a Man Can do in tbe West. 



A correspondent of the New York Tri- 

 bune who gives the facts in his own experi- 

 ence, shows what a man who has the will 

 to do, can accomplish in Illinois. Six years 

 ago, the man came to this State from Haver- 

 hill, Mass., bought him a quarter section of 

 land for $5 an acre, and had only money 

 enough to make one payment. He went to 

 work himself, and hired a boy to help him 

 for $10 a month. The following para- 

 graph explains the rest: "At the end of the 

 third year I had the whole farm paid for, 

 with a house worth $1,000 and three miles 

 of fence on it. The same year I had a crop 

 of white winter wheat which yielded 27 

 bushels to the acre and sold for $1 25 per 

 bushel, making a cash income of $33 per 

 acre. Twenty bushels of wheat and forty 

 bushels of corn per acre is a fiir average 

 crop, although corn, if cultivated as at the 

 East, would yield from 75 to 100 bushels 

 per acre. A man and boy, with four 

 horses, can plow ajjd cultivate 100 acres — 

 say 30 of wheat, 20 of oats, and 60 of corn. 

 He will need the assistance of a reaper to 

 cut the wheat and oats, and a thrashing 

 machine to thresh it. AH the rest of the 

 labor he can do without additional help." 



These are the actual figures of a kind of 

 "land speculation," which has no ups and 

 downs about it. Such cases are numerous 

 all over this State, and the west. We can 

 go into every town in Stephenson county 

 and fine^ scores of good well to do farmers, 

 who are wholly oat of debt and 

 have money to loan, whose experience is 

 but a counterpart to that related above. 

 That "farming pays" in Illinois, where lands 

 cost not half what they do east where labor 

 costs no more, and where the nett receipts 

 from the soil are equally as large as they 

 are east because the lack of a few cents 

 per bushel is more than made up by the 

 extra crop, it needs no discussion to show. 

 Any young man with energy can in a few 

 years build up tor himself on the fertile 

 acres of Stephenson county, a beautiful 

 home. Bnd an independent fortune, relying 

 solely upon the product of honest toil^ for 

 his returns. There is no need of western 

 farmers turning speculators. They can 

 have no more tempting inducements held 

 out to them, than offered by the legitimate 

 business in which they are engaged. The 

 ready advance in wealth among our agricul- 

 tural classes in the west is one of the grand 

 facts of his era. The annual conversion of 

 bone and sinew into substantial commercial 

 value, is beyond computation, Every year 



is adding to our already bountiful resources, 

 and the broad expanse of prairie which has 

 for ages been but the play ground of crea- 

 tion, where buflfaloes . roamed at will and 

 sweet scented wild flowers bloomed all un- 

 seen by civilized man, is being converted 

 into one vast garden. Of the ^future of the 

 west, when all these acres are producing 

 what God intended them to produce, when 

 farm houses are sprinkled over our land in 

 rich profusion, and orchards bend with the 

 weight of abundant fruit, no man can form 

 an adequate idea. He who lives to see that 

 day will behold the great Valley of the 

 Mississippi the garden of the world, and 

 Illinois the Empire State. With the pres- 

 ent rate of increase, that day is not far dis- 

 tant.- 



While the best of farming lands, all ready 

 for the plow, can be bought here at less 

 than half what average farms cost east, a 

 large number of the most enterprising will 

 certainly come west. Men will go where 

 they can make their lobor pay the best, es- 

 pecially where they are not obliged to sac- 

 rifice the advantages of school, churches and 

 good society, to do it. Hence it is that 

 Northern Illinois is now filling up with a 

 good class of eastern emigrants ; hence it 

 is that this process of "filling up" is certain 

 to continue until the vacant acres are all 

 occupied. Come while there is room. 



-«•»- 



From the Eural New Torker. 



Less Land or More Labor. 



'Is it true that we want less land or more la- 

 bor?' asks Prof. J. A. Nash, of the New Engi 

 land Farmer. In a review of our former article 

 on this subject, the Professor enters into a fur., 

 ther discussion of the question, bat bis remarks 

 occupy too mach space for our colamns. Ws 

 will try to give a brief idea of the argument. 



It is the nature of land to be prodactive, 

 whether cultivated or uncultivated, but the value 

 of its products depends on tbeir uses to man. 

 An acre of wood is very valuable near a large 

 city; it is worth nothing on the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. It is the province ot man to make land 

 produce the greatest value, in demand, above 

 the cost of production, or the greatest profit. 

 To do this there must be the requisite propor- 

 tion between capital and labor. 



A hundred acres of high priced land, with one 

 man's work put upon it, is, in great part at 

 least, 80 much dead capital. Its products will 

 pay the interest on the investment. Its capa- 

 bilities are not drawn out — they are unused and 

 profitless. It is the same as though a shoe" 

 maker should build a shop one hundred feet long 

 and then oecupy a few feet space in one corner. 

 It is as if a merchant, should lay out all his 

 capital in building a fine store andfilhng it with 

 goods, and iheu refuse to hireelerks to sell them. 



ak 



