Show 160 WEST I I In the January number of The Forum is 1 an article by Professor RODNEY WELCH l which should be given a wider circulation ii I among the poorer classes than it will obtain ob-tain in that highclass and expensive magazine In the publication named it will not reach those people who wonld be most benefited by its persual The title is HOltACE GUEELEYS Cure for Poverty and the text is the familiar saying of the great editor and economistGo West young man and grow up with the country The writer undertakes to show and he succeeds very well that the advice however excellent it might have been at the time it was given is not good now though metropolitan clergymen professional pro-fessional philanthropists economists and newspaper writers persist in repeating and emphasizing it every year and all the time The conditions have changed with the times since GPEELEY did the young man a good turn Then the west was broad and there were vast prairies of unoccupied land as good as ever laid out of doors this land was free to citizens who would take the trouble to live upon it five years and pay the trifling fees involved in conferring the title upon them All that the settler had to do was to work and wait for it was certain that in time the generous gift of the government would be valuable even beyond the point of providing him a good living As the population increased and the soil was utilized the value of individual individ-ual holdings would necessarily increase It was this that that GUEELET meant when he suggested growing up with the country But that does not apply now in the matter of agriculture It is somewhat of a black eye which Professor Pro-fessor WELCH gives the west but we fear be cannot be successfully refuted when he says there is very little really alua leland le-land which the crovernmenfc has to bestow We know that is the case in Utah where almost every available acre which can be brought uuder cultivation at reasonable outlay is held by private ownership The public land remaining in this territory and we presume the case is the same elsewhere else-where except perhaps in the Dakotas will be valuable only as it is made so and I the cost of this will equal if it does not exceed the actual worth of the soil We do not know a tract of government land in I Utah which could be sold for the money that it would cost to get water upon it nnJ I make it productive to say nothing of pa for the five time years expended in acquiring ac-quiring a homestead title I Professor WELCH assumes that a peor man has found a quartersection of lam I that he can secure as a homestead and I then says the expense of going to the land I office registering his application and returning re-turning to his claim trill cost not less than 30 In most cases it will be two or three times that sum if the mans time is worth anything To break forty acres of the soil will cost S100 and as this work would to S done late in the spring no crop can be grown the first year TLe next year a fair crop may be produced all goes well but pot until the third year can a full crop bed C > d oj j expected The cost of horses and farming implements will not be less than 500 cows pigs barns furniture and culinary utensils and fencing material for forty acres will cost 200 a cheap home for the family and some sort of shelter for the animals will cost at least 150 more If the settler has the money to meet all these expenses and the cost of living the third year he may be able to support his family on the products of the place How many of the laborers in the big cities have the means to support their families fam-ilies years to pay traveling expenses to the west and expend 1000 for necessaries neces-saries improvements Not many we take it There are very few working men who could live three months without pay for their labor and there are fewer still who can buy a team and plow and the other implements which the settler on public pub-lic land must have before he can do anything any-thing The professor refers to another grave difficulty about this matter Few persons per-sons born and bred in a large town know anything about the theory or practice of farming and stockraising Men who have been engaged from boyhood working in a shop carrying brick piling lumber loading vessels or cleaning streets cannot conduct any operation on a farm unless directed by an intelligent overseer They must learn a trade before they can practice it successfully and they will find farming a difficult one to learn Knowledge Knowl-edge skill and experience are needed in farming as in other pursuits if Women accustomed to city life are of little value on a farm They have never milked a cow and would find it about as difficult to make butter and cheese as to take a leading lead-ing part in an opera or to calculate an eclipse They cannot raise chickens make soap or tend a kitchen garden Many of them have always relied on the baker to supply them with bread There is one thing which the writer does not mention but which should betaken be-taken into account It is this that the man with the money in his pockets can in a majority of cases buy the settlers quartersection at the end of the five years residence required for less cash than the poor fellow has expended ex-pended for and on the land As a matter of fact the go west young man and grow up with the country has lost its force and value if the growing up implies the settling on the public domain and engaging in agriculture There is room in the west for the young and ambitious ambi-tious men in the overcrowded cities of the east but their employment must be at the trades with which they are familiar |