rapidly, nearly all the land in this valley being taken up during these ten years by homestead and pre-emption claims from the government and by purchase from the railroad corporations which had received land grants.

The wise policy of the United States government was to parcel out its land in small farms to actual settlers, selling none to non-residents, and allowing to no one rights to secure more than three-quarters of a section, or a total of 480 acres. This large amount was possible to be obtained from the gov ernment only by use of three separate rights, each securing a quarter section, according to the respective laws for homesteads, pre-emption' and tree culture. Most of the farms received from the government compromise only 160 acres; and these were deeded, upon payment of small fees at the land offices, to any citizen, including naturalized foreigners, those affirming their intention to become naturalized legal voters, and widows and unmarried women, all of whom were required to take the land to be their permanent homes. For these free gifts of the fertile prairie of the Red River valley, surpassed by no other area of the world in its natural value for agriculture, multitudes came, bringing house-keeping equipments in their emigrant wagons ("prairie schooners"), which passed in long processions through St. Cloud and Alexandria, Minn., on their way from the older portions of this state and from other states farther east and south. Many also came directly from the old world, especially from Sweden and Norway, being carried from the eastern seaports by railroads to the Red River and James River valleys and other parts of North and South Dakota, there being 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 laborers, marshaled with almost military order, in the various operations of farming, as in plowing, seeding and threshing, 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 checker-board. To remedy this difficulty and fill out continuous tracts, many of the intervening 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 pre-emption.

Among the most famous and successful of these extensive farms are the Lockhart and Keystone farms in Minnesota; the Dwight, Fairview, Keystone, Cleveland, Downing and Antelope farms in Richland county, the most southeastern in North Dakota; the farm of the Messrs. Dalrymple, comprising some 30,000 acres, in the vicinity of the station of this name on the Northern Pacific railroad, eighteen miles west of Fargo; the lands of the Grandin Farming Company, about 40,000 acres, in eastern Traill county, North Dakota; and the Elk Valley farm near Larimore. In some fields of these great farms the teams plow three or four miles straight forward, only being interrupted by roads on the section lines, where the plow is thrown out of the ground for a few rods. The first breaking on both the Dalrymple and Grandin farms was in 1875, the same year in which the land was mostly purchased, and their first crop of wheat was harvested in 1876. During every year since that time the harvests on these lands and in general throughout the Red River valley have been good, with no failure on account of drought, which for several years (from 1885 to 1889 and again since 1892) has been very severe upon many portions of the Dakotas west and southwest of this valley.

DEVELOPMENT IN AGRICULTURE.

Comparatively few Indians were able to derive their subsistence by hunting and fishing upon the area of the Red River valley or in any other region. Probably their numbers living at any time upon the portion of this river basin within the United States did not exceed 5,000. But now that the land is occupied by white immigrants and is sown with wheat, the

present yearly product is about 285 bushels apiece for each man, woman, and child, of the 161,049 enumerated by the census of 1890 in the twelve counties which lie mainly within the Red River valley.

Six of these counties are in Minnesota and six in North Dakota. Tabulations of their population in 1880 and 1890, and of their production of wheat during the same years in Minnesota and during 1879 and 1891 in North Dakota, are here presented, for the purpose of exhibiting the rapid progress in . the agricultural development of the district. The ratio of the wheat yield to the population in 1880 was sixty-nine bushels for each person. or less than one-fourth as much as in 1890 and 1891. The latter high ratio of 285 bushels for each person is probably near the maximum which this ratio can attain, from which it will decrease, relatively to the increasing population, the place of wheat cultivation being destined to be partially taken by other crops, by stock raising, and by other industries.

An equally prosperous development of the agricultural resources of Manitoba has been going forward during the same time, as is also exhibited by the similar statements of the population and wheat production of that province.

POPULATION OF COUNTIES IN MINNESOTA, LYING MAINLY WITHIN THE RED RIVER VALLEY.

POPULATION OF COUNTIES IN NORTH DAKOTA, LYING MAINLY WITHIN THE RED RIVER VALLEY.

*Organized in 1881 from parts of Grand Falls and Pembina counties.

The population of Manitoba, according to the census of 1881, was 65,954; and in 1891 it was estimated to be 150,000. About a third part of these, and a less fraction of the population noted in the Minnesota and North Dakota counties, are outside the limits of the Red River valley; but the total inhabitants within this valley are nearly 250,000 people. Approximately threefourths of this population are engaged in farming, the other fourth being residents in the villages and large towns and engaged in commercial and manufacturing pursuits.

WHEAT PRODUCTION OF COUNTIES IN MINNESOTA, LYING MAINLY WITHIN THE RED RIVER VALLEY.

Total.. . 103,363 | 1,692,183 | 16.37 || 531,010

...

7,111,209 13.33 ........|| 600,000* 8,000,000

*Including estimated addition for Kittson county.

WHEAT PRODUCTION OF COUNTIES IN NORTH DAKOTA, LYING MAINLY WITHIN THE RED RIVER VALLEY.

Total

. 81,896 | 1,692,755 | 20.67 || 1,675,858 | 37,863,156 | 22.59

Summing these figures, and deducting the estimated portion belonging outside the boundaries of the Red River valley, we find the present annual wheat crop of this district to be approximately 50,000,000 bushels. This is about 200 bushels apiece for each inhabitant, when the populations in the United States and in Manitoba are considered together; and if the wheat were distributed among all the people of the United States, it would supply nearly a bushel for each individual. But probably no more than a quarter part of the arable prairie land of the Red River valley is now under cultivation in all crops, the proportion being somewhat greater in the United States than in Manitoba. When all this area shall be brought into agriculture the wheat product will probably be almost or quite 200,000,000 bushels yearly, but the ratio to the population will be smaller than now.

During the early years of rapid development of wheat raising, little labor or thought was given to stock and the dairy. Most of the farmers bought for their work imported horses, which had been raised in Iowa or adjoining states. Butter also was imported from the same states, and the majority were willing to live without fresh meat or milk. Nowhere, however, can more favorable climate and natural conditions be found for the successful raising of all the stock needed by the farmer is diversified agriculture and for the dairy than in the Red River valley. Recently, therefore, many enterprising farmers have secured the best blooded stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs; and this portion of the farming interests of the district bids fair to assume its due importance. In the near future probably the sale of butter and cheese will form one of the principal sources of income in many townships.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL GROWTH.

But it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone." This valley can provide bread and butter for its people and for exportation east and west and south, to feed many times more than its own inhabitants. Such is not the full measure of its duty and privilege. Some one said of New England that the Creator placed the profile of the "Old Man of the Mountains" above the Franconia Notch as a sign that those hilly and mountainous, rugged and rocky states should be noted for their nob'e, patriotic, and grandly gifted men and women. Many descend