Frontier Agriculttire in Northern Minnesota 7 
Pacific Railroad, reaching out westward from the head of the 
Lakes at Duluth, was built across the area, a number of flourish- 
ing lumber and railroad towns sprang up along its route. The 
westward sweep of the frontier across Minnesota and out onto 
*he plains failed to bring farmers into the coniferous forests, 
however, and it was not until about 1890, when the sub-htunid 
lands of the west offered the only alternative, that land-seekers 
began to trickle into the cut-over country. Settlement was most 
active in the decades 1890-1900 and 1910-1920, but increased 
sharply again between 1930 and 1940, as a result of the economic 
depression. Between 1900 and 1920 it was encouraged by land 
and colonization companies, formed to dispose of vast blocks of 
cut-over land acquired from lumbermen, who actively publicized 
the Brainerd Community, and northern Minnesota generally, in 
glowing terms as the '*last frontier," the last area where cheap 
land could be had virtually for the asking, and a man could make 
himself a farm by his unaided labor. 
The environmental conditions which had been responsible 
for the long avoidance of this country by landseekers still re- 
_ I 
of agricultural selttlement. 
po 
Much of the land is nearly worthless for farming purposes. 
This is an area where the landforms and soil-materials are a 
heritage of the last continental glaciation, with all that this im- 
plies. There are terminal moraines with oversteep slopes and 
stony soils; there are flat, droughty, sandy outwash plains, and 
there are many swamps. 
It is not easy to transform the wild land into a farm. The 
best soils are those which have supported white and Norway 
pine forests. These forests have been almost entirely cut over, 
but the great stumps, extremely slow to decay, remain, usually 
surrounded by dense stands of second-growth aspen and jack 
pine. Lumbering did not deforest the region, although it radical- 
ly altered the character and value of the forests. After the stumps 
have been pulled and the field brushed, stones must usually be 
