Minnesota and Dacotah Part 7

Now let me say a word about this Red River of the North, for it is beginning to be a great feature in this upper country. It runs north, and empties into Lake Winnipeg, which connects with Hudson's Bay by Nelson River. It is a muddy and sluggish stream, navigable to the mouth of Sioux Wood River for vessels of three feet draught for four months in the year. So that the extent of its navigation within the territory alone (between Pembina and the mouth of Sioux Wood River) is 417 miles. Buffaloes still feed on its western banks. Its tributaries are numerous and copious, abounding with the choicest kinds of game, and skirted with a various and beautiful foliage. It cannot be many years before this magnificent valley shall pour its products into our markets, and be the theatre of a busy and genial life.

One of the first things which drew my attention to this river was a sight of several teams travelling towards this vicinity from a north-westerly direction. I observed that the complexion of those in the caravan was a little darker than that of pure white Minnesotians, and that the carts were a novelty. "Who are those people? and where are they from?" I inquired of a friend. "They are Red River people, just arrived-- they have come down to trade." Their carts are made to be drawn by one animal, either an ox or a horse, and are put together without the use of a particle of iron. They are excellently adapted to prairie travelling. How strange it seems! Here are people who have been from twenty to thirty days on their journey to the nearest civilized community. This is their nearest market. Their average rate of travelling is about fifteen miles a day, and they generally secure game enough on the way for their living. I have had highly interesting accounts of the Red River settlement since I have been here, both from Mr. Ross and Mr. Marion, gentlemen recently from there. The settlement is seventy miles north of Pembina, and lies on both sides of the river. Its population is estimated at 10,000. It owes its origin and growth to the enterprise and success of the Hudson's Bay Company. Many of the settlers came from Scotland, but the most were from Canada.

They speak English and Canadian French. The English style of society is well kept up, whether we regard the church with its bishop, the trader with his wine cellar, the scholar with his library, the officer with his sinecure, or their paper currency. I find they have everything but a hotel, for I was particular on that point, though not intending just yet to go there. Probably the arrivals do not justify such an inst.i.tution, but their cordial hospitality will make up for any such lack, from all I hear. They have a judge who gets a good house to live in, and L1000 sterling a year; but he has nothing of consequence to do. He was formerly a leading lawyer in Canada.

The great business of the settlement, of course, is the fur traffic.

An immense amount of buffalo skins is taken in the summer and autumn, while in the winter smaller but more valuable furs are procured. The Indians also enlist in the hunts; and it is estimated that upwards of $200,000 worth of furs are annually taken from our territory and sold to the Hudson's Bay Company. It is high time indeed that a military post should be established somewhere on the Red River by our government. The Hudson's Bay Company is now a powerful monopoly. Not so magnificent and potent as the East India Company, it is still a powerful combination, showering opulence on its members, and reflecting a peculiar feature in the strength and grandeur of the British empire-- a power, which, to use the eloquent language of Daniel Webster, "has dotted over the whole surface of the globe with her possessions and military posts-- whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of martial music."

The company is growing richer every year, and its jurisdiction and its lands will soon find an availability never dreamed of by its founders, unless, as may possibly happen, popular sovereignty steps in to grasp the fruits of its long apprenticeship. Some time ago I believe the Canadas sought to annex this broad expanse to their own jurisdiction.

There are about two hundred members in the Hudson's Bay Company. The charter gives them the power to legislate for the settlement. They have many persons in their employ in England as well as in British America. A clerk, after serving the company ten years, with a salary of about $500 per annum, is considered qualified for membership, with the right to vote in the deliberations of the company, and one share in the profits. The profits of a share last year amounted to $10,000!

A factor of the company, after serving ten years, is ent.i.tled to membership with the profits of two shares. The aristocracy of the settlement consists princ.i.p.ally of retired factors and other members of the company, who possess large fortunes, dine on juicy roast beef, with old port, ride in their carriages, and enjoy life in a very comfortable manner. Two of the company's ships sail up into Hudson's Bay every year to bring merchandise to the settlement and take away furs. [1] But the greatest portion of the trade is done with Minnesota. Farming is carried on in the neighborhood of the settlement with cheerful ease and grand success. I was as much surprised to hear of the nature of their agriculture as of anything else concerning the settlement. The same kind of crops are raised as in Pennsylvania or Maine; and this in a country, be it remembered, five hundred miles and upwards north of St. Paul. Stock must be easily raised, as it would appear from the fact that it is driven down here into the territory and sold at a great profit. Since I have been here, a drove of fine-looking cattle from that settlement pa.s.sed to be sold in the towns below, and a drove of horses is expected this fall. The stock which comes from there is more hardy than can be got anywhere else, and therefore is preferred by the Minnesotians.

[1 "The Hudson's Bay Company allows its servants, while making a voyage, eight pounds of meat a day, and I am told the allowance is none too much." (Lieutenant Howison's Report on Oregon, p. 7.)]

The following extract from Ex-Governor Ramsey's address, recently delivered before the annual fair at Minneapolis, wherein he gives some results of his observations of the Red River settlement during his trip there in 1851, will be read with much interest:--

"Re-embarking in our canoes, we continued descending the river for some fifteen miles further, through the French portion of the settlement, lining mainly the west or left bank of the river, until we arrived about the centre of the colony, at the mouth of the a.s.sinniboin tributary of Red River, where we landed and remained a few days, viewing the colony and its improvements. I was at that time, and am even now, when I look back upon it, lost in wonder at the phenomena which that settlement exhibits to the world, considering its location in an almost polar region of the North. Imagine a river flowing sluggishly northward through a flat alluvial plain, and the west side of it lined continuously for over thirty miles with cultivated farms, each presenting those appearances of thrift around them which I mentioned as surrounding the first farms seen by us; but each farm with a narrow frontage on the river of only twenty-four rods in width, but extending back for one or two miles, and each of these narrow farms having their dwellings and the farm out-buildings spread only along the river front, with lawns sloping to the water's edge, and shrubbery and vines liberally trained around them, and trees intermingled-- the whole presenting the appearance of a long suburban village-- such as you might see near our eastern sea-board, or such as you find exhibited in pictures of English country villages, with the resemblance rendered more striking by the spires of several large churches peeping above the foliage of the trees in the distance, whitewashed school-houses glistening here and there amidst sunlight and green; gentlemen's houses of pretentious dimensions and gra.s.sy lawns and elaborate fencing, the seats of retired officers of the Hudson's Bay Company occasionally interspersed; here an English bishop's parsonage, with a boarding or high school near by; and over there a Catholic bishop's ma.s.sive cathedral, with a convent of Sisters of Charity attached; whilst the two large stone forts, at which reside the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, or of the colony once called Upper Fort Garry, and situated at the mouth of the a.s.sinniboin, and the other termini the Lower Fort Garry, which is twenty miles farther down the river, helped to give additional picturesqueness to the scene. I had almost forgotten to mention what is, after all, the most prominent and peculiar feature of that singular landscape, singular from its location-- and that is the numerous wind-mills, nearly twenty in all, which on every point of land made by the turns and bends in the river, stretched out their huge sails athwart the horizon, and seemingly looked defiance at us as invading strangers, that were from a land where steam or water mills monopolize their avocation of flour making. One morning as we pa.s.sed down the princ.i.p.al high road, on our way to Lower Fort Garry, the wind, after a protracted calm, began to blow a little; when presto! each mill veered around its sails to catch the propitious breeze, and as the sails began to revolve, it was curious to observe the numerous carts that shot out from nearly every farm-house, and hurried along the road to these mills, to get ground their grists of spring wheat, with which they were respectively loaded.

"Another incident during the same trip that struck us oddly, was seeing two ladies driving by themselves a fine horse hitched to a buggy of modern fashion, just as much at home apparently as if they were driving through the streets of St. Paul, or St. Anthony, or Minneapolis, instead of upon that remote highway towards the North Pole; but this was not a whit more novel than to hear the pianoforte, and played, too, with both taste and skill. While another 'lion' of those parts that met our view was a topsail schooner lying in the river at the lower fort, which made occasional trips into Great Lake Winnepeg of the North, a hundred miles below.

"I took occasion during my visit to inquire what success the farmers met with in securing good crops, and the profits of farmers generally.

As to wheat, I learned that the yield of the spring variety was quite equal in quant.i.ty and quality to the crop of that grain on any more southern farms; that in raising barley they could almost surpa.s.s the world; and the cereals generally, and all the esculent roots, were easily raised. Indian corn was not planted as a field crop, though it was grown in their gardens. In a word, the capacity of their land to produce almost everything plentifully and well, was established; but for all this, farming did not afford much profit. for want of a sufficient market; beyond a small demand by the Hudson's Bay Company, there was no outlet for their superabundance; and to use an Austrian phase in regard to Hungarians, the Selkirkers are metaphysically 'smothering in their own fat.' To remedy this state of things they were beginning, when I was there, to turn their attention towards raising cattle and horses, for which their country is well calculated; and the first fruits of this new decision given to their farming energies, we have already experienced in the droves of both which have recently been driven from thence and sold in this vicinity."

I think the facts which I have herein hastily set downhill dispel any apprehension as to the successful cultivation of the soil in the northern part of the territory. It has a health-giving climate which before long, I predict, will nourish as patriotic a race of men as gave immortality to the n.o.ble plains of Helvetia. There is one thing I would mention which seems to auspicate the speedy development of the valley of the North Red River. Next year Minnesota will probably be admitted as a state; and a new territory organized out of the broad region embracing the valley aforesaid and the head waters of the Mississippi. Or else it will be divided by a line north and south, including the western valley of that river, and extending as far to the west as the Missouri River. I understand it will be called Dacotah, though I at first thought it would be called Pembina. There is always a rush into new territories, and the proposed new territory of Dacotah will present sufficient inducements for a large immigration. When the valley of the North Red River shall be settled, and splendid harvest fields adorn its banks; when great factories take the place of wind-mills, and when railroads shall take the place of Red River carts, then we will have new cause to exclaim,

"Westward the course of empire takes its way!"

LETTER XI.

THE TRUE PIONEER.

Energy of the pioneer-- Frontier life-- Spirit of emigration-- Advantages to the farmer in moving West-- Advice in regard to making preemption claims-- Abstract of the preemption law-- Hints to the settler-- Character and services of the pioneer.

CROW WING, October, 1856.

I DESIRE in this letter to say something about the pioneer, and life on the frontier. And by pioneer I mean the true pioneer who comes into the West to labor and to share the vicissitudes of new settlements; not the adventurer, who would repine at toil, and gather where he has not sown.

As I have looked abroad upon the vast domain of the West beyond the dim Missouri, or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi, I have wondered at the contrast presented between the comparatively small number who penetrate to the frontier, and that great throng of men who toil hard for a temporary livelihood in the populous towns and cities of the Union. And I have thought if this latter cla.s.s were at all mindful of the opportunities for gain and independence which the new territories afforded, they would soon abandon-- in a great measure at least-- their crowded alleys in the city, and aspire to be cultivators and owners of the soil. Why there has not been a greater emigration from cities I cannot imagine, unless it is owing to a misapprehension of Western life. Either it is this, or the pioneer is possessed of a very superior degree of energy.

It has been said that the frontier man always keeps on the frontier; that he continues to emigrate as fast as the country around him becomes settled. There is a cla.s.s that do so. Not, however, for the cause which has been sometimes humorously a.s.signed-- that civilization was inconvenient to them-- but because good opportunities arise to dispose of the farms they have already improved; and because a further emigration secures them cheaper lands. The story of the pioneer who was disturbed by society, when his nearest neighbor lived fifteen miles off, even if it be true, fails to give the correct reason for the migratory life of this cla.s.s of men.

It almost always happens that wherever we go somebody else has preceded us. Accident or enterprise has led some one to surpa.s.s us.

Many of the most useful pioneers of this country have been attracted hither by the accounts given of its advantages by some one of their friends who had previously located himself here. Ask a man why he comes, and he says a neighbor of his, or a son, or a brother, has been in the territory for so many months, and he likes it so well I concluded to come also. A very respectable gentleman from Maine, a shipowner and a man of wealth, who came up on the boat with me to St.

Paul, said his son-in-law was in the territory, and he had another son at home who was bound to come, and if his wife was willing he believed the whole family would come. Indeed the excellent state of society in the territory is to be attributed very much to the fact that parents have followed after their children.

It is pretty obvious too why men will leave poor farms in New England, and good farms in Ohio, to try their fortunes here. The farmer in New England, it may be in New Hampshire, hears that the soil of Minnesota is rich and free from rocks, that there are other favorable resources, and a salubrious climate such as he has been accustomed to. He concludes that it is best to sell out the place he has, and try ploughing where there are no rocks to obstruct him. The farmer of Ohio does not expect to find better soil than he leaves; but his inducements are that he can sell his land at forty or fifty dollars an acre, and preempt as good in Minnesota for a dollar and a quarter an acre. This operation leaves him a surplus fund, and he becomes a more opulent man, with better means to adorn his farm and to educate his children.

Those who contemplate coming West to engage in agricultural employment should leave their families, if families they have, behind till they have selected a location and erected some kind of a habitation; provided, however, they have no particular friend whose hospitality they can avail themselves of till their preliminary arrangements are effected. It will require three months, I judge, for a man to select a good claim (a quarter section, being 160 acres), and fence and plough a part of it and to erect thereon a cabin. There is never a want of land to preempt in a new country. The settler can always get an original claim, or buy out the claim of another very cheap, near some other settlers. The liberal policy of our government in regard to the disposal of public lands is peculiarly beneficial to the settler. The latter has the first chance. He can go on to a quarter section which may be worth fifteen dollars an acre, and preempt it before it is surveyed, and finally obtain it for $1.25 an acre. Whereas the speculator must wait till the land is surveyed and advertised for sale; and then he can get only what has not been preempted, and at a price which it brings at auction, not less than $1.25 an acre. Then what land is not sold at public sale is open to private entry at $1.25 an acre. It is such land that bounty warrants are located on. Thus it is seen the pioneer has the first choice. Why, I have walked over land up here that would now bring from ten to twenty dollars an acre if it was in the market, and which any settler can preempt and get for $1.25 an acre. I am strongly tempted to turn farmer myself, and go out and build me a cabin. The speculation would be a good one. But to acquire a t.i.tle by preemption I must dwell on the soil, and prove that I have erected a dwelling and made other improvements. In other words, before a man (or any head of a family) can get a patent, he must satisfy the land officers that he is a dweller in good faith on the soil. It is often the case, indeed, that men get a t.i.tle by preemption who never intend to live on their quarter section. But they do it by fraud. They have a sort of mental reservation, I suppose, when they take the requisite oaths. In this way many valuable claims are taken up and held along from month to month, or from year to year, by mock improvements. A pretender will make just improvements enough to hinder the actual settler from locating on the claim, or will sell out to him at a good profit. A good deal of money is made by these fict.i.tious claimants. It is rather hard to prevent it, too, inasmuch as it is difficult to disprove that a man intends some time to have a permanent home, or, in fact, that his claim is not his legal residence, though his usual abiding place is somewhere else. Nothing could be more delightful than for a party of young men who desire to farm to come out together early in the spring, and aid each other in preempting land in the same neighborhood. The preemptor has to pay about five dollars in the way of fees before he gets through the entire process of securing a t.i.tle. It is a popular error (much like the opinion that a man cannot swear to what he sees through gla.s.s) that improvements of a certain value, say fifty dollars, are required to be made, or that a certain number of acres must be cultivated. All that is required, however, is evidence that the party has built a house fit to live in, and has in good faith proceeded to cultivate the soil. The law does not permit a person to preempt 160 acres but once; yet this provision is often disregarded, possibly from ignorance, I was about to say, but that cannot be, since the applicant must make oath that he has not before availed himself of the right of preemption.

I will insert at this place an abridgment of the preemption act of 4th September, 1841, which I made two years ago; and which was extensively published in the new states and territories. I am happy to find, also, that it has been thought worth copying into one or more works on the West.

I. Lands subject to preemption. By sec. 10 of said act it is provided that the public lands to which the Indian t.i.tle had been extinguished at the time of the settlement, and which had also been surveyed prior thereto, shall be subject to preemption, and purchase at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. And by the act of 22d July, 1854, sec. 12, the preemption of unsurveyed lands is recognised as legal. Lands of the following description are excepted: such as are included in any reservation, by any treaty, law, or proclamation of the President of the United States, or reserved for salines or for other purposes; lands included within the limits of any incorporated town, or which have been selected as the site for a city or town; lands actually settled and occupied for the purposes of trade and not agriculture; and lands on which are situated any known salines or mines.

II. The amount designated is any number of acres not exceeding one hundred and sixty.

III. Who may preempt. "Every person being the head of a family, or widow, or single man over the age of twenty-one years, and being a citizen of the United States, or having filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen, as required by the naturalization laws." But no person shall be ent.i.tled to more than one preemptive right, and no person who is the proprietor of three hundred and twenty acres of land in any state or territory of the United States, and no person who shall quit or abandon his residence on his own land to reside on the public land in the same state or territory, shall acquire any right of preemption.

IV. The method to perfect the right. The preemptor must make a settlement on the land in person; inhabit and improve the same, and erect thereon a dwelling. And when the land has been surveyed previous to settlement the preemptor shall, within thirty days of the date of the settlement, file with the register of the proper district a written statement describing the land settled upon, and declaring the intention of such person to claim the same under the provisions of the preemption law. And within twelve months of the date of the settlement such person shall make the requisite proof, affidavit, and payment.

When unsurveyed lands are prompted (act of 1854), notice of the specific tracts claimed shall be filed with the surveyor general, within three months after the survey has been made in the field. And when two or more persons shall have settled on the same quarter section, the right of preemption shall be in him or her who made the first settlement; and questions arising between different settlers shall be decided by the register and receiver of the district within which the land is situated, subject to an appeal to and revision by the Secretary of the Interior of the United States.

And the settler must make oath before the receiver or register that he or she has never had the benefit of any right of preemption under the preemption act: that he or she is not the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of land in any state or territory of the United States, nor hath he or she settled upon and improved said land to sell the same on speculation, but in good faith to appropriate it to his or her own exclusive use or benefit: and that he or she has not directly or indirectly made any agreement or contract in any way or manner with any person or persons whatsoever, by which the t.i.tle which he or she might acquire from the government of the United States should enure in whole or in part to the benefit of any person except himself or herself; and if any person talking such oath shall swear falsely in the premises, he or she shall be subject to all the pains and penalties of perjury, and shall forfeit the money which he or she may have paid for such land, and all right and t.i.tle to the same; and any grant or conveyance which he or she may have made, except in the hands of bona fide purchasers for a valuable consideration, shall be null and void.

Proof of the requisite settlement and improvement shall be made by the preemptor to the satisfaction of the register and receiver, in the district in which the lands so claimed lie, who shall each be ent.i.tled to receive fifty cents from each applicant for his services rendered.

as aforesaid; and all a.s.signments and transfers of the right hereby secured prior to the issuing of the patent, shall be null and void.

(See U. S. Stat. at Large, vol. 5, 453-458.)

But I was on the point of advising the settler what he should bring with him into a new country and what leave behind. He should not bring much furniture. It is very expensive and troublesome to have it transported. Nor will he need much to begin with, or have room for it.

It will cost nearly as much to transport it seventy miles through the territory as it will to bring it from whence he started within the limits of the territory. Let him pack up in a small compa.s.s the most precious part of his inanimate household, and leave it ready for an agent to start it after he shall have found a domicil. This will save expensive storage. Then let his goods be directed to the care of some responsible forwarding merchant in a river town nearest to their final destination, that they may be taken care of and not be left exposed on the levee when they arrive. St. Paul is now a place of so much mercantile importance and compet.i.tion that one may buy provisions, furniture, or agricultural tools cheaper there than he can himself bring them from the East. The professional man, however, will do well to bring his books with him.

Let us a.s.sume now that the settler has got his house up, either a frame house or of logs, with a part of his farm fenced; and that be has filed his application for preemption at the land office in the district in which he resides. Let us suppose further, that he is pa.s.sing his first autumn here. His house, if he is a man of limited means, has but two rooms, and they are both on the bas.e.m.e.nt story. He has just shelter enough for his stock, but none for his hay, which is stacked near by. The probability is, that he lives in the vicinity of some clear stream or copious spring, and has not, therefore, needed to dig a well. The whole establishment, one would think, who was accustomed to the Eastern style of living, betrayed downright poverty.

But let us stop a moment; this is the home of a pioneer. He has been industrious, and everything about him exhibits forethought. There is a cornfield all fenced in with tamarack poles. It is paved over with pumpkins (for pumpkins flourish wonderfully in Minnesota), and contains twenty acres of ripe corn, which, allowing thirty-five bushels to an acre, is worth at ninety cents per bushel the sum of $630. There are three acres of potatoes, of the very best quality, containing three hundred bushels, which, at fifty cents a bushel, are worth $150. Here then, off of two crops, he gets $780, and I make a moderate estimate at that. Next year he will add to this a crop of oats or wheat. The true pioneer is a model farmer. He lays out his work two weeks in advance. Every evening finds him further ahead. If there is a rainy day, he knows what to set himself about. Be lays his plans in a systematic manner, and carries them into execution with energy. He is a true pioneer, and therefore he is not an idle man, nor a loafer, nor a weak addle-headed tippler. Go into his house, and though you do not see elegance you can yet behold intelligence, and neatness, and sweet domestic bliss. The life of the pioneer is not exposed to such hardships and delays as r.e.t.a.r.ded the fortunes of the settlers in the older states. They had to clear forests; here the land is ready for the plough. And though "there is society where none intrude," yet he is not by any means beyond the boundaries of good neighborhood. In many cases, however, he has left his dearest friends far away in his native village, where his affections still linger. He has to endure painful separations, and to forego those many comforts which spring from frequent meetings under the parental roof, and frequent converse with the most attractive scones of youth. But to compensate for these things he can feel that the labor of the pioneer, aside from its pecuniary advantage to himself, is of service to the state, and a helpmate to succeeding generations.

"There are, who, distant from their native soil, Still for their own and country's glory toil: While some, fast rooted to their parent spot, In life are useless, and in death forgot!"

LETTER XII.

SPECULATION AND BUSINESS.

Opportunities to select farms-- Otter Tail Lake-- Advantages of the actual settler over the speculator-- Policy of new states as to taxing non-residents-- Opportunities to make money-- Anecdote of Col.

Perkins-- Mercantile business-- Price of money-- Intemperance-- Education-- The free school.

CROW WING, October, 1856.

IT is maintained by the reviewers, I believe, that the duller a writer is, the more accurate he should be. In the outset of this letter, I desire to testify my acquiescence in the justice of that dogma, for if, like neighbor Dogberry, "I were as tedious as a king," I could not find it in my heart to bestow it all without a measure of utility.

I shall try to answer some questions which I imagine might be put by different cla.s.ses of men who are interested in this part of the west.

My last letter had some hints to the farmer, and I can only add, in addition, for his benefit, that the most available locations are now a considerable distance above St. Paul. The valley of the St. Peter's is pretty much taken up; and so of the valley of the Mississippi for a distance of fifteen miles on either side to a point a hundred miles above St. Paul. One of the land officers at Minneapolis informed me that there were good preemption claims to be had fifteen miles west, that being as far as the country was thickly settled. One of the finest regions now unoccupied, that I know of, not to except even the country on the Crow Wing River, is the land bordering on Otter Tail Lake. For forty miles all round that lake the land is splendid. More than a dozen disinterested eye-witnesses have described that region to me in the most glowing terms. In beauty, in fertility, and in the various collateral resources which make a farming country desirable, it is not surpa.s.sed. It lies south of the picturesque highlands or hauteurs des terres, and about midway between the sources of the Crow Wing and North Red Rivers. From this town the distance to it is sixty miles. The lake itself is forty miles long and five miles in width.

The water is clear and deep, and abounds with white fish that are famous for their delicious flavor. The following description, which I take from Captain Pope's official narrative of his exploration, is a reliable description of this delightful spot, now fortunately on the eve of being settled-- " To the west, north-west, and north-east, the whole country is heavily timbered with oak, elm, ash, maple, birch, ba.s.s, &c., &c. Of these the sugar maple is probably the most valuable, and in the vicinity of Otter Tail Lake large quant.i.ties of maple sugar are manufactured by the Indians. The wild rice, which exists in these lakes in the most lavish profusion, const.i.tutes a most necessary article of food with the Indians, and is gathered in large quant.i.ties in the months of September and October. To the east the banks of the lake are fringed with heavy oak and elm timber to the width of one mile. The whole region of country for fifty miles in all directions around this lake is among the most beautiful and fertile in the world.

The fine scenery of lakes and open groves of oak timber, of winding streams connecting them, and beautifully rolling country on all sides, renders this portion of Minnesota the garden spot of the north-west.

It is impossible in a report of this character to describe the feeling of admiration and astonishment with which we first beheld the charming country in the vicinity of this lake; and were I to give expression to my own feelings and opinions in reference to it, I fear they would be considered the ravings of a visionary or an enthusiast."[1] But let me say to the speculator that he need not covet any of these broad acres.

There is little chance for him. Before that land can be bought at public sale or by mere purchasers at private sale, it will, I feel sure, be entirely occupied by actual settlers. And so it ought to be.

The good of the territory is promoted by that beneficent policy of our public land laws which gives the actual settler the first and best chance to acquire a t.i.tle by preemption.

[1 To ill.u.s.trate the rapid progress which is going on constantly, I would remark that in less than a month after leaving Crow Wing, I received a letter from there informing me that Messrs. Crittenden, Cathcart, and others had been to Otter Tail Lake and laid out a town which they call Otter Tail City. The standing and means of the men engaged in the enterprise, are a sure guaranty of its success.]

Speculators have located a great many land warrants in Minnesota. Some have been located on lakes, some on swamps, some on excellent land. Of course the owner, who, as a general thing, is a nonresident, leaves his land idle for something to "turn up" to make it profitable. There it stands doing no good, but on the contrary is an enc.u.mbrance to the settler, who has to travel over and beyond it without meeting the face of a neighbor in its vicinity. The policy of new states is to tax non-resident landholders at a high rate. When the territory becomes a state, and is obliged to raise a revenue, some of these fellows outside, who, to use a phrase common up here, have plastered the country over with land warrants, will have to keep a lookout for the tax-gatherer. Now I do not mean to discourage moneyed men from investing in Minnesota lands. I do not wish to raise any bugbears, but simply to let them know that h.o.a.rding up large tracts of land without making improvements, and leaving it to increase in value by the toil and energy of the pioneer, is a way of doing things which is not popular with the actual settler. But there is a great deal of money to be made by judicious investments in land. Buying large tracts of land I believe to be the least profitable speculation, unless indeed the purchaser knows exactly what he is buying, and is on hand at the public sale to get the benefit of a second choice. I say second choice, because the preemptor has had the first choice long ago, and it may be before the land was surveyed. What I would recommend to speculators is to purchase in some good town sites. Buy in two or three, and if one or two happen to prove failures, the profits on the other will enable you to bear the loss. I know of a man who invested $6000 at St. Paul six years ago. He has sold over $80,000 worth of the land, and has as much more left. This is but an ordinary instance. The advantage of buying lots in a town arises from the rapid rise of the value of the land, the ready market, and withal the moderate prices at which they can be procured during the early part of its history.

To such persons as have a desire to come West, and are not inclined to be farmers, and who have not capital enough to engage in mercantile business, there is sufficient employment. A new country always opens avenues of successful business for every industrious man and woman; more kinds even than I could well enumerate. Every branch of mechanics needs workmen of all grades; from the boy who planes the rough boards to the head workman. Teaming affords good employment for young men the year round. The same may be said of the saw-mills. A great deal of building is going on constantly; and those who have good trades get $2.50 per day. I am speaking, of course, of the territory in general.

One of the most profitable kinds of miscellaneous business is surveying. This art requires the services of large numbers; not only to survey the public lands, but town sites and the lands of private individuals. Labor is very high everywhere in the West, whether done by men, women, or children;-- even the boys, not fourteen years old, who clean the knives and forks on the steamboats, get $20 a month and are found. But the best of it all is, that when a man earns a few dollars he can easily invest it in a piece of land, and double his money in three months, perhaps in one month. One of the merchant princes of Boston, the late Col. T. H. Perkins, published a notice in a Boston paper in 1789, he being then 25, that he would soon embark on board the ship Astrea for Canton, and that if any one desired to commit an "adventure" to him, they might be a.s.sured of his exertions for their interests. The practice of sending " adventures" "beyond the seas" is not so common as it was once; and instead thereof men invest their funds in western prizes. But let me remark in regard to the fact I relate, that it shows the true pioneer spirit. Col. Perkins was a pioneer. His energy led him beyond his counting-room, and he reaped the reward of his exertions in a great fortune.