Catholic Colonization in Minnesota / Revised Edition

by Catholic Colonization Bureau

A HERD LAW

is in force, whereby cattle have to be herded during the day, and confined within bounds during the night. In this way one man or boy can herd the cattle of a whole settlement, and the heavy, vexatious and continual tax of fencing is entirely done away with.

All the lands in our Catholic colonies are prairie lands, and in the colonies and adjoining counties, as we have already stated, the herd law is in full force.

No one, at the present day, who has any experience in farming in the West, would settle on an unimproved timber farm. It takes a lifetime to clear such a farm, and even then a man leaves some stumps for his grandchildren to take out. But we earnestly impress upon our settlers the necessity of setting out trees around their prairie homes. The rapid growth of trees set out on any of our prairies, is absolutely wonderful. In six years after planting, a man will have nice, sheltering, young groves, around his house. One of the first things a settler should do after breaking up his land is to set out some young trees, which he can buy very cheap. All our railroads carry such freight free. If he cannot get the trees he can sow the seed, which will do as well.

For comfort on a prairie, trees are a necessity; but it is worse than useless, it is loss of time, to set them out, unless they are taken care of: give them solitude, and keep the weeds and cattle from them for a little while, and they will soon be able to take care of themselves. Cord-wood can be bought at any of the railroad stations in our colonies at an average of about five dollars a cord.

There is another matter which may well come under the head of general remarks.

While we have shown by figures the good profits which may be calculated upon by an industrious farmer, still, he must not look for a great increase of money capital, for some years at least.

While he will be enabled under God, by industry, sobriety and perseverance to give his family a good, comfortable living, it must be to the increase in the value of his farm each year, that he must look for an increase of capital, to that and the increase of his

LIVE STOCK.

Above all things, he must attend to the latter; it is almost incredible the way young stock will increase. A man starting with one cow will have his yard full of young stock in a few years by raising the calves that come to him.