Wilkin.—This county is on the Red River. It was once called Andy Johnson, but now bears the name of Wilkin. There you may take your choice of 650,000 acres of fertile lands. You can find timber on the streams, or you may float it down from Otter-Tail. The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad will be constructed through the county during the year 1870.
Clay.—North of Wilkin on the Red River is Clay County, containing 650,000 acres of government land, all open to settlement. The Northern Pacific Railroad will probably strike the Red River somewhere in this county. The distance from Duluth will be two hundred and twenty-five miles, and the settler there will be as near market as the people of central Illinois or eastern Iowa.
Polk.—The next county north contains 2,480,000 acres, unsurpassed for fertility, well watered by the Red, the Wild Rice, Marsh, Sand Hill, and Red Lake Rivers. The county is half as large as Massachusetts, and is as capable of sustaining a dense population as the kingdom of Belgium or the valley of the Ganges. The southern half will be accommodated by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Salt springs abound on the Wild Rice River, and the State has reserved 23,000 acres of the saline territory.
Pembina.—The northwestern county of the State contains 2,263,000 acres, all held by government.
Becker.—This county lies north of Otter-Tail We passed through it on our way from the Red River to the head-waters of the Buffalo. (Description, p. 113.) It is a region surpassingly beautiful. The Northern Pacific Railroad will pass through it, and there you may find 435,000 acres of rolling prairie and timbered hills. Probably there are not fifty settlers in the county. A large portion of these northwestern counties are unsurveyed, but that will not debar you from pre-empting a homestead.
"How about the southwestern section of the State?" asked my visitor.
I cannot speak from personal observation beyond Blue Earth County, where the Minnesota River crooks its elbow and turns northeast; but from what I have learned I have reason to believe that the lands there are just as fertile as those already settled nearer the Mississippi, and they will be made available by the railroad now under construction from St. Paul to Sioux City.
"Can a man with five hundred dollars make a beginning out there with a reasonable prospect of success?"
Yes, provided he has good pluck, and is willing to work hard and to wait. If he can command one thousand dollars, he can do a great deal better than he can with half that sum.
If you were to go out sixty miles beyond St Paul to Darsel, on the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad you would see a farm worked by seven sisters. The oldest girl is about twenty-five, the youngest fifteen. They lived in Ohio, but their father and mother were invalids, and for their benefit came to Minnesota in April, 1867, and secured a hundred and sixty acres of land under the Homestead Law. The neighbors turned out and helped them build a log-house, and the girls went to work on the farm. Last year (1869) they had forty acres under cultivation, and sold 900 bushels of potatoes, 500 bushels of corn, 200 of wheat, 250 of turnips, 200 of beets, besides 1,100 cabbage-heads, and about two hundred dollars' worth of other garden products. They hired men to split rails for fencing, and also to plough the land; but all the other work has been done by the girls, who are hale and hearty, and find time to read the weekly papers and magazines. The mother of these girls made the following remark to a gentleman who visited the farm: "The girls are not fond of the hard work they have had to do to get the farm started, but they are not ashamed of it. We were too poor to keep together, and live in a town. We could not make a living there, but here we have become comfortable and independent. We tried to give the girls a good education, and they all read and write, and find a little spare time to read books and papers."