614 THE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



there Ijeing welcomed and soon established on their own freeholds in near 

 neighborhood with others of their countrymen who had come to the United 

 States many years earlier. 



A considerable number of very large farms were acquired, however, 

 by discerning capitalists, who saw the capabilities of this district for the 

 convenient employment of large companies of laboi'ers, marshaled with 

 almost military order, in the various operations of farming, as in plowing, 

 seeding, harvesting, and thrashing, and who, at an early stage in the rapid 

 progress of settlement, foresaw the profits of -wheat raising on a grand scale. 

 These "bonanza farms," as they were afterward called, were made up in 

 great part by purchasing from the railroad corporations the odd-numbered 

 alternate sections which had been given as Government subsidies to foster 

 the early railroad enterprises that opened the region to settlement. But the 

 railroad lands formed no compact tract, being in square miles touching each 

 other only at the corners, like the spots of a single color on a checkerboard. 

 To remedy the difficulty and fill out continuous tracts, many of the inter- 

 vening portions were obtained by purchase from settlers who had received 

 the land from the Government in good faith, with the full intention of 

 continuing to live on it; but in some instances claims also were obtained 

 from the Government by fraudulent agents, who professed their intention to 

 comply with this legal requirement in taking land by preemption. 



Among the most famous and successful of these extensive farms are 

 the Lockhart and Keystone farms, in Minnesota; that of the Messrs. Dal- 

 rymple, comprising some 30,000 acres, in the vicinity of the station of this 

 name on the Northern Pacific Railroad, 18 miles west of Fargo; the lands 

 of the Grandin Farming Company, about 40,000 acres, in eastern Traill 

 County; and the Elk Valley Farm, near Larimore. Nine establishments 

 of farm buildings have been erected by the Grandin Farming Company, and 

 these are connected with the headquarters (Hague post-office) by 25 miles of 

 telephone lines, the farthest set of buildings being at a distance of 12 miles. 

 About 280 horses and mules are used by this company, and 200 to 300 men 

 are employed during the summer, distributed somewhat equally in the nine 

 divisions; but in winter, when comparatively few men are retained, the 



