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Show CHAPTER XXXVIII. WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE? FIVE million Americans are asking this question. They will take Greeley's advice and go West; but are as yet undecided as to locality. Let us therefore briefly note the good and bad features of various sections. Imprimis, then, there is no paradise in the West; no region where one will not find serious drawbacks in climate, soil or society. If you like a middle northern clime, there is no better place than southern Minnesota and the adjacent parts of Dakota. These have one great advantage over northern Iowa: the vacant land is still in the market at government prices ; in Iowa it has been granted too extensively, and railroads and speculators own too much of it in large bodies. In the long run they lose money by holding it in this way ; they would do well to sell and invest elsewhere ; but they have not found that out yet. By and by the residents will learn how to make non- resident land pay all the taxes, as it now pays quite half, and then the speculators will sell cheap; but at present it would be advisable to locate where there is not so much non- resident land. The arguments now so common against these grants apply only to the border States; all the land given to the railroads west of longitude 100, was not worth one day's debate in Congress. The income from it will never pay interest at a dollar an acre. The climate of Minnesota may be divided thus; summer, four months; winter, five months; spring and autumn, six weeks each. In fact it is less than six weeks from the end of the snowy season to the coming of early fruits; but they call it spring the first of April, though the snow be six inches deep. The quickness of vegetation is amazing. In August, along the Blue- Earth River, one can scarcely believe he is not in a tropical country; the heavy forests of lynn and walnut, the groves of sugar maple supporting a dense leafy mass, the dark green vistas and rich natural parks, with the rank grass on the prairies seem out of place so far north. By November this gives way to snow, which remains till April first or tenth. It then seems to disappear all at once. The |
