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Bourbon Mirror E.N. Tharp and Dakota E.N. Tharp, who left here early in March, has written the News-Mirror the following interesting letter from Rugby, North Dakota. �I landed here March 15th and have had my eyes and ears open to see and hear what I could and I have seen learned quite a little. It was ten degrees below zero when I came, but could walk around without overcoat or overshoes and that is something I never could do back in the east. I didn�t like the country when I first came here, but I like it fine now. If a man wants to hustle a little, he can make all kinds of money. Lands sales for $15 to $40 per acre- depends on improvements and location. If a man wants to buy land up here he wants to have a friend to depend on or be posted on alkaline land and come in a very dry time, for you cannot see it always in a wet time. We have an unusually cold wet spring, so the old settlers say, but the crops look fine. They say the drouth season is past. The only thing that will hurt it now is rust or hail. If that doesn�t strike them there will an enormous crop this year. If some of our Hoosier farmers came out here to farm they would have to learn how to hitch up before they could farm. They wouldn�t know how to hitch four and six horses abreast and drive them with two lines and no jockey stick. It is a fine country to farm. A man could do just four times as much here as he can back east and do it easier, but you can�t roll in clover all the time in North Dakota. Money doesn�t grow on the badger bush. You must earn it; but it is easier money here than in Indiana. The worst draw back here is fuel. There is plenty of it, but eastern coal sells at $8 per ton, eastern hard $11 per ton; the native coal here sells at $4 per ton, but it is almost like punk. It takes two tons of it to one of eastern coal. Fruit is out of sight, apples being 2 �c apiece or $1 50 per bushel; cherries 35c per pound; bananas 40 cents per dozen, and all kinds of fruit in proportion. Clothing is a little higher than it is back east. North Dakota is a prohibition state, but I have seen more drunks since I have been here than I ever saw in Indiana. If you get among the Norwegians you will always see drunks. Beer cost 35c per quart. Bottle whiskey $1 per pint. Well a few words to farm hands. If they want to start up farming, I do not believe they could do better than to light in North Dakota, but if they want to work by the month my advice is to stay where they are or go to Illinois. I worked there last year and I have wished a hundred times I was there now. Wages just as good there as they are here and you have a great deal more privileges and shorter days. If you work on a farm here you can depend on putting in 13 to 16 hours a day and some of them considers a hired man next to a dog. If a man has the time and likes sport there are all kinds of game here. Prairie chickens, wild ducks geese and plovers and quite a number of coyotes. Oh yes, by the way I must tell you if you want to go to farming here. My advice to you would be to bring your horses and machinery with you, for machinery is about ten per cent higher here. And horses- they just shut their eyes and open their mouth when they price them. They are good 25 per cent higher here than there.� |
