514 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
Editorial Notes on the Road. 
r 
Springing Up Like Magic.— Recently we read 
the story going the rounds to the effect that two weeks 
after the first lumber arrived in LaBeau, Dakota, there 
were six stores, five saloons, a newspaper office, a bank, 
a hotel, and a Presbyterian church in town. What was 
written in jest, however, applies to a limited extent to 
many of the villages which are now springing up like 
magic through Dakota. Year after year the writer has 
made repeated trips through the Western States and 
Territories, but he has never before seen anything like 
the “ rush ” which Southern Dakota is now experi¬ 
encing. It almost takes one’s breath away. Think, for 
example, of a place like Blunt, where eight months ago 
not a single building was to be seen, now having in a 
thriving village, a handsome opera house, which accom¬ 
modates six or seven hundred people. Great is the vim 
and enterprise of the American people, verily. We hope 
these towns and villages, built with such wonderful 
rapidity, have come to 
stay, that no fierce win¬ 
ters or scorching sum¬ 
mers will drive them out. 
Land Fever. —It is 
fully as bad as the oil fever 
or a gold craze. It attacks 
all ages and all sexes. The 
man or woman in South¬ 
ern Dakota who to-day 
does not possess a land 
claim of some kind, is the 
exception. “I suppose 
you have a Homestead or 
Tree claim,” I said, ad¬ 
dressing one of the two 
workmen in a barbershop 
at Huron, Dakota, the 
other day; both immedi¬ 
ately responded in the af¬ 
firmative. Editor, business 
manager, and the employes in the Signal newspaper office 
informed me a half hour later that they all had their 
claims. A little after, the minister of a flourishing church 
at Huron told me that he was the owner of a splendid 
Homestead but a few miles from town. What he had 
done was true of gentlemen of all professions generally 
in Dakota. They all own large tracts. The newsman 
on the train from Tracy had his Homestead in Dakota. 
Nearly all the railroad employes and laborers employed 
in constructing the railroads over the Dakota prairies 
have their claims, if they have not sold them. Two 
young women were among the passengers on the train 
which carried us across the Dakota prairies to Pierre. I 
recognized in one of them the waitress of my table at 
a Huron Hotel. The gentleman who shared my scat 
stated that her companion was likewise a waitress in 
the same public house. They were "wo enterprising 
American girls, who had both Homestead and Tree claims 
at Harold, seventy-seven miles out on the road. They 
ran out to spend every other Sunday in their shanties or 
“ shacks,” and this constituted their residences. Hired 
men work the claims for them, and they were able to 
earn handsome wages in the Huron Hotel, nearly eighty 
miles away. The fertile lands comprising all these vari¬ 
ous claims belonged to the U. S. Government only a little 
time ago. They cost their owners next, to nothing, and 
are now held at prices ranging from six to ten dollars an 
acre. What has been done in Southern Dakota can still 
be done in Central Dakota, and the readers of the 
American Agriculturist who would avail themselves of 
the opportunities presented, must move quickly. We 
urge them to do so, inasmuch as we desire them to share 
in the great land division of the General Government. 
Wonderful Growth of Iowa.— It seems but 
as yesterday, when, on one of our trips to study up West¬ 
ern farming for th z American Agriculturist , we crossed 
the Mississippi on its first bridge, just finished, at Rock 
Island, and followed the new railroad to its then ending 
at Iowa City. Since then our Editors have followed 
every completed section of this and the numerous other 
railroads stretching away across the State, and far 
beyond, and have witnessed the transformation of the 
wild prairie into magnificent farms, unsurpassed in the 
world. In population Iowa already stands tenth, hav¬ 
ing a census population of 1,024,015, which is now ma¬ 
terially increased. But what strikes us most forcibly now 
is a glance at the assessed property valuation, recently 
returned to the State Auditor, for 1883, viz., four hundred 
and forty million dollars (§440,018,330 !) This assessed 
valuation is, of course, far below the actual cash value to¬ 
day. Think of this immense amount of real wealth 
where there was an almost trackless prairie when many 
of our present readers began to take this Journal. Iowa 
is divided into just one hundred counties save one. 
(Some larger county ought to be divided to complete the 
round hundred.) The average assessed property of these 
counties is a little over four million, four hundred and 
fifty-one thousand dollars each. Seventy-five counties 
exceed three million dollars each ; thirty-eight have over 
five million dollars; twenty-one over six millions; fif¬ 
teen over seven millions ; ten over eight millions; six 
over nine millions ; four over ten millions, and one (Polk 
County) over sixteen millions. Twelve others have over 
two millions, and eleven over one million dollars, while 
only four counties in the whole State are assessed at less 
than a full million, and these are close up to that. Note 
that a single million dollars would buy two hundred and 
seventy-five quarter section farms (100 acres each) at a 
cost of four thousand dollars per farm! This will do 
for Iowa to-day. What of Minnesota, of Kansas, of Ne¬ 
braska, of Dakota, of California over the mountains, of 
Illinois. Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri? 
Young man, go West! 
Competition among' Carpet Makers. — 
We rode from Pittsburg all one day with the representa¬ 
tive of a New York carpet house, a fluent talker. 
Within the memory of our older readers, most of the 
carpets used in the United States were made abroad; 
now very few are imported. The principal points of 
manufacture are Kensington, near Philadelphia, Yon¬ 
kers and Amsterdam, New York, and Hartford, Conn. 
The carpets are made here largely from foreign wools, 
the bulk of which comes from Turkey and Australia. 
The American purchasers procure this wool at Liver¬ 
pool, England, to which point it is shipped from Eu¬ 
ropean ports: and when the European and English 
buyers come in competition at Liverpool, very lively 
times are often experienced, not unlike those which 
sometimes occur during a wheat or lard corner in Chi¬ 
cago. Several plans have been projected for making 
carpets at the West, notably at Pullman, near Chicago, 
but they have been abandoned, under the belief that 
carpets cannot be manufactured as cheaply as at the 
East, where the raw material is at hand, and skilled 
labor cheaper than at the West. Until quite recently, 
the Eastern jobbers, and houses which dispose of the 
product of the Eastern mills, did not send many repre¬ 
sentatives through the West, and when they did go, 
they did not start until toward autumn. Now the com¬ 
petition is so strong that the travellers or agents for 
these Eastern houses leave for the West as early as 
June to sell to the Western retail dealers for the au¬ 
tumn trade. They complain that 1 his is far too early, 
earlier than the customers either wish to buy or will 
buy. But the spirit of competition is so strong, the 
Eastern employers are bound to have them on the road, 
whether they sell goods 
or not. The whole West is 
overrun, so to speak, with 
representatives of East¬ 
ern houses, which, to¬ 
gether with those of the 
Western business firms, 
make a small army of 
travellers. The writer has 
met them, during previous 
trips, as far West as the 
Territories, when they 
often comprised the great 
majority of the passen¬ 
gers on a train of cars. 
On tlie Beauti¬ 
ful Minnesota.” -It 
is indeed a most beautiful 
river, now stretching far 
away through prairie lands 
like a silken thread, and 
now gradually sweeping through large forests of over¬ 
hanging foliage, presenting scene after scene of surpass¬ 
ing loveliness and beauty. The heavy timber, for many 
miles skirting the banks, affords game not found on the 
prairies, and recalls to the Eastern sportsman pheasant 
shooting among the old historic hills of Berkshire, Mas¬ 
sachusetts, or along the rough-wooded slopes of Sullivan 
county, New York. When visiting the Northwest, do 
not fail to proceed from Minneapolis, or Mankato, and 
catch some of the picturesque glimpses of this river, 
flowing four hundred and forty miles from the Northern 
Lakes to Mendota. 
Cable Cars— That is, cars which are drawn by 
means of a cable through the thoroughfares of the large 
cities. You see these in Chicago, and are informed that 
they were introduced from San Francisco, four or five 
years ago, when horse-car accommodations failed to 
meet the wants of the people in the south half of Chica¬ 
go. The cable is kept in continuous motion, bearing 
each car along with it. When the conductor of the train 
wishes to stop it, he lifts the clamps from the moving 
chain, or fable, these clamps being arranged under each 
car. There are now twenty miles of this cable in Chi¬ 
cago doing the work of two thousand horses. Three 
hundred men are employed, at a salary of two dollars 
and fifty cents a day, in manufacturing these cable cars, 
of which one is turned out every other day. Doubtless 
these cable cars will soon be introduced in Philadelphia 
and Boston, and perhaps in New York, if the experi¬ 
ments now being made on the Brooklyn Bridge are suc¬ 
cessful. So it. is that the East learns from the West. 
Every humanitarian will welcome the introduction of 
these cable cars and all other devices which tend to 
lessen the wear and tear on horse-flesh. 
A Palace King.— It will well repay you a visit, 
to Pullman, near Chicago, a beautiful city, built byMiv 
