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Le diagramme suivant illustre la m^thode : 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 8 6 OUT WE«T-8T0P THE EXODUS BEING A BRIEF EXPOSE OF THE — FRA UDS OF THE UNITED STA TES lAfMIC \'A TION AGENTS, AND PAMPHLETS, liV GEORGE B. ELLIOTT, OF THE BRITISH COlUMBtA PRESS TORONTO : Published hy "Pure Gold" Printing Compa . 1872. Ac R. Irviiiit: A' i«. wholeNHle Afientfi, Toronto, Onl. ^ -T^ ( "\ ^l/cUf. ^U-^y ^ OUT WE8T--ST0P THE EXODUS ; / BEING A BRIEF EXPOSE — OF THE- FRA UDS OF THE UNITED STA TES IMMIGRATION AGENTS, AND PAMPHLETS. BY GEORGE B. ELLIOTT, OF THE I .1 1 jilii I' BRtTISH COIUMBIA PRE$S. TORONTO : Published by "Pure Gold" Printing Compa..!. 1872, V" " PREFACE. I have, in my possession, much valuable information touching the condition of the ** Progressive West," a subject which ought to command the attention of young Cana- dians as much as any other subject presented at this time. I have long been convinced that the governments of the respective provinces have been too lax in allowing, by not preventing, the very great exodus of young men from Canada to the United States. A little more encouragement 4 to the native might save a good deal of unnecessary suffer- ing and eventual disappointment, as the Western delusion has, in most cases proved disastrous to the majority of young Canadians who have been attracted thither, by mis- representations, and other deceptive practices. I ask the patronage of all my fellow citizens in this and other matters of like kindred. " Sf '. p '-A ' The Writer. ? OXJT "WEST: STOP THE EXODUS! :KTn the present pages, I do not attempt more than an or- dinary sketch. Let it bo miderstood that nothing elaborate is attempted. If I recite with any degree of minuteness my experience oHhe IVestern Delusion, it is only because that experience is of a very forcible charact- er — that which we all recognize as personal. This is the only convincing argument to be found. To the young" Canuck, whose hopes may lean towards all the vain and delusive pictures of the Occident, let the present experiences have a peculiar but friendly warning. Should many of his serial structures be thus demolished, I shall only claim the honor of having performed him a service, the importance of which he may sooner or later realize. • ' ■ - ♦ Yes ! with all the vaunted glittering wealth of those Oc- cident regions, how many have succeeded in grasping the prize fortune ? venturing into statistics not two per cent! Hardly a Canuck home that has not reminiscences of Cali- fornia life — Pike's Peak and even the white Pine Mines! How many Canadian mothers have been made feel the pangs of a gap in the domestic fireside by the deceptive allurements ^^ the Western Monster can never be deter- mined! Tho, e who sacrificed health, intelligence — life in their mad search for the yellow powder — the rush after which — has been the funeral cortege of so many, are not to be counted by hundreds, but by thousands and tens of thousands. The dust has, indeed, been shaken through the ladder — that w^hich has passed through the rounds has been swept by the few — that which has remained on them has fallen to the many. Let us not dispute their claims. OUT WEST ; nativt: vaunting. ' f I should, indoed, bo sorry to overlook our own native foll- ies .It is an element in our mental organization to magnify there sources of this country ofoursanddraw latitudinal and longitudinal lines of our own. Tiiis is a weakness appropri- ately termed *Mocal" in the inimitable A ntomft of the lircakfast tabic — an excuse for the very pointed aphorism of Mr Jon- than Mc Cully of Nova Seotia, judjj^o, who is the un- doubted orginator of, "Small countries ])roduce small minds". Mc Cully's sweeping insinuation is, of course, un- appreciated, nor will it ever obtain, the source whence it has emanated, being held as an identical equation with a political term known as corruption. I know my moiety about the peninsula. It does seem as though the Brick House judge is a little too harsh in his sentence, for two pound brains arc there very common in- deed. It is brain power like his, that shapes the thought and gives it circulation with regard to its future, and that of all Canada. Such items as Coal Mines, Harbor Stores, and all other peninsula amenities, he can tell you exact. Nova Scotia is the most statistical region in the world. Take those yearly statements about Yarmouth and New Glasgow the tonnage and the number of vessels construct- ed, can he (Nova Scotian)tell you with amazing accuracy, the figures and the sum total! Even those swindling Gold Mines at Waverly and Sherbrook, have not escaped his searching investigation — statistically or otherwise. The number of spring leaps of Mr. J. Howe are likewise Nova Scotianally known. He(not Howe) is an integral calculus liivited to a fundamental principle, but his boast is mild, tempered with reason, and i-estrained by good old mari- time common sense — not found anywhere else. Not the less New Brunswickally informed is he of the sister province. A knowledge of ship yards has long been a branch in his common schools likewise is that universally proclaimed Albertine oil, the monfacture of which has al- ways been attended with extraordinary symptoms of New Brunswickian hysterics — and those boats, the construction of which, torment the press with tedious repetitions of digits and ciphers, concluding observation, that the *'stock on hand is far inferior (numerically, I hope) to the demand. STOP TIII^: EXODUS 5 Even a New Brunswick fog is not without many strange advantages. Science ispuzzled at its thickness, andsteain- boats deprived of character througli its determined friend- ship to the province. One, Charles Babhitof the Steamer KMPEiioR, used to make very hold assertions that it was the most j)roductivo fog in the world, yielding at a moderate computation 52 and the .13 bushels to the square rod, and this da capo several times within a dozen mouths. The remark is consequential: Dominionistscan boast and do boast, but there is a conservative limit which elevates it several degrees higher than that attributable to cousin Jonathan. Undoubtedly, the cream of universal bragga- docia may be skimmed off Uncle Sam's pans. IT IS ORIGINAL. The only redeeming feature in United Statesian vaunt- ing is its originality. It is not to be found elsewhere, except when it is carried or borrowed which is frequently the case — particularly amongst half-washed Yanks. All other species differ. It is a native production as much so as hick- ory hams and wooden nutmegs. I shall carefully avoid any reference whatever to East- ern vaunting, that is of a keener, shriller tone. I shall en- deavor to write of the West. It is there where you may • become familiar with the essence of — self-laudation — there where, you may realize with a sharp bowie knife certainty, that grim and melancholy motto, Every man for HIMSELF and the devil take the HINDMOST, Poets have sung in deceptive verse, and people who know nothing about the matter — may hum in untruthful song, the glories of prairies and the Mississippi, and the raging St Croix — foaming, tumbling, laughing, Minnehaha, but it is all deceptive imagery. Visionary verse, and visionary mmds are not wanting to create trouble — sorrow and suffering. Mad as is the irre- pressible George Francis Train, he is sane enough betimes; for no man has ever written more truthfully of the West than has this Fenian fanatic, when he said that California was an orange sucked — Nevada a dead broke minor, Wash- ington Territory a sieve, Montana a pile of mountains, Minnesota a suit in chancery, and Wisconsin a letter dead 6 OUT WEST: New Mexico, a fever hospital and Missouri, a swamp. There is a living truth in every word. George Francis Train sj^eaks from sin intimate acquaint- ance with the condition; if he is mad, his madness is a money making business as his Omaha investments con- clusively show. The youth who rolls in luxurious visions of future west- ern greatness, has only to travel in order to find how much is imager}^ liow much reality. A great deal has been said ' y a certain class of descrip- tive writers to delude the uninitiated. Even the sober recital of Fremont's travels is clothed with fictitious garments, and pictures, such as have never been painted by Mother Nature, have found a dauber in some weak and silly scribbler. The glowing descriptions of Kichardson are in no instan- ces correct to nature. Fancy has carried his pen in to the seductive realms of fiction, and his pictures are as much the result of art as his sad career is an evidence, that mur- der may ormay not be a crime, according to the influence ot the criminal. The hacks employed by the State governments of fifteen western states, indulge in all the luxury of impossibility and hmbug. The pamphleteers, who compile the immigra- tion hterature of those states, are the most accomplished lit- erary liars in the world. This is not a mere assertion. For proof, reference has only to be made to the pamphlets of Minnesota and Kansas. Both are the strongest evidences that the compilers are adepts in combining falsehoods, and proficients in the art of misrepresentation and public fraud. Minnesota. I purpose to write about the North Star State and the extraordinary statements that are made in the pamphlets issued by the State Legislature. The State of Minnesota occupies the exact centre of the continent of North America. It lies midway Detween the Artie and Tropic circles; midway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and midway between Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It is the focus of the United States. It embraces the sources of the three vast water systems wliich reach their ocean terminus northward ./ STOP THE EXODUS ! 7 through Hudson Bay — eastward by tho chain of ^lie great lakes, and southward via the Mississippi river. It extends from 48" to 49° of North Latitude and from 89°. 69 to 97°. 2 of west longitude, and is bounded on the North by the Winnipeg district of British America, on the west by the territv^.y of Dakota, on the south by tho State of Iowa an^ on the east by Lake Superior and the State of Wis- consin. Its name in Indian etymology signifies " cloud colored' sky tinted water. The name is strictly apt; the waters of the Minnesota as contrasted with the tinted sky take away all the poetry from the Father of waters and leave it to the sky, which according to an enthusiastic pamphleteer, is compounded of many colors. The state is historically rich and poetically fertile. In it begins from a mere mud puddle the tawdry Mississippi , that log-carrying snag-abounding current, which bisects the United States, leavin? the better half to the east. The entire state from Wisconsin on the east to Dakota on the west, and from the 49th. parallel on the north to Iowa on the south, is a United States' lie of the most hberal de- scription, and its legislature from time immemorial has been a concentration of immigrative deception and exaggeration. It has been the peculiar and pleasant function of that body to kidnap into the State all the indigent Irish, Bel- gians, Swedes, Dutch and Norwegians that the immigrative seines could gather and sweep ashore. A certain Colonel Hancock, and a ditto Mr. Wheelock,a renegade Nova Sco- tian, have been running this business for the last few years. Their efforts have been rewarded by the govern- ment, and by an immigrative influx. Wheelock is now Post Master at St. Paul with a fat income, and Hancock luxuriates in another equally prolific. To one accustomed to Minnesota, there is nothing sur- prising that the population is Scandinavian; neither is it to be wondered at that Yank declines to make a perma- nent investment in this Norway of America. Ever since *57 Yank has not taken much stock in Minnie; and he know- ingly informs you that it is a pretty tolerable country but "too farnorthfora white man. "His views are correct. Few eastern men become permanently enamored with the OUT WEST ! North Star State. They locate, but are always on a jump for a move, and tlie stakes are only driven to the subsoil, thev are not ''clinched" like the Irishman's or the Swede's. Unquestionai>ly the Scandinavian element preponderates the State. Years must elapse before the country can claim any pretensions to American homogeneousness. I propose to deal with the pamphlets issued by the authority and at the instigation of the State Legislature. I am induc- ed to take this step in the hope of advising many of my fellow Canadians who are afflicted with the western com- plaint, victims to the false and untruthful inducements held out by the press and the state pamphlets. I am aware that Canucks particularly young men w?i7Z per- sist in leaving their homes and certainties for the many false and glittering inducements of the western states, and; those farmers who, in defiance of common sense and obser- vation will abandon the rich Ontario loam, for a sandy bar- ren prairie in Wisconsin or Minnesota, ought especially to give heed, not only to the contradictions which I, as a tra- veler through the country, purpose, but they ought likewise to read the impossible character of these pamphlets, con- taining within their pages, the grossest errors, and the plainest lies wh'-^h language is capable of affording. Experienc lOiurms us that there are two features in the composition oi country into which eager inquiry is al- ways made — t' first is climate, the second soil, both when combinei /orm that sitpeiiority which is so fraudent- ly claimed by the writers of all western Immigration pamph- lets. I have only to invite attention to page 8 of the pamph- lets for last year, which under the caption of * 'Beauty and Fertility of the State," thus untruthfully expands its attrac- tions. : t/.' .«'-;" : /.;..! .'. J./.: -- ^i--. .<.-..v The writer says: **In Minnesota are found, neither the illimitable level prairies Tvhich distinguish Illinois, nor the vast impene- trable forests of Indianna and Ohio, in which the settler finds it so difficult to c ^--rve himself a home; but a charm- ing alternation of woods and prairie upland and meadow characterises the topography of the State. Thegeneral surface of the country is undulating, similar to the rolling prairies of the adjoining states of Iowa and Winsconsin with greater diversity of beauty and J>ictur- ) S70P THE EXODUS 9 eequeness imparted to the scenery by rippling lakes spark- ling waterfalls, high bluffs, and woody ravines. Three quarters of the state may be generally descri- bed as rolling prairie, interspersed with frequent groves, oak openings and vales of hard wood timber, watered by numberless lakes and streams and covered with a warm dark soil of great fertility. The rest, embracing the ele- vated district immediately west of lake Superior, consists mainly of the rich mineral ranges which clothe the head waters of the Mississippi affording inexhaustable supplies of lumber." / The assertion that the farmer of Illinois has to contend with more difficulty than the Minnesotian as implied in the first paragraph is, it is needless to say, merely a false intimation. It is well known that the settler in Minnesota whether he takes to the prairie or to the timber, has to ivork like a horse and nothing short of it. If he engages in clearing he requires all of the energy and muscle he may possess in order to remove the stumps, and effect a "space". Suppose he take to theprairie, he is rewarded with a light sandy soil possessing the elements of speedy weakness, and the additional privilege of hauling his fencing over those interminable rolling prairies which siUy pamphleteers poetically describe. During a two years residence in Minnesota, I did not fail to satisfy myself on this very important feature, and my en- quiries have always been met by the very unequivocal reply. ^^Farming in Minnesota is Niggering of the worst kind." Let Canadians direct attention to page fourteen of the same, pamphlet, wherein under the heading of timber 10 another exaggeration. - ' The writer says: "As before remarked, Minnesota is neither a timber nor a prairie state, yet it possesses in a large degree the ad: vantages of both, being unquestionably a better proportion of timber and prairie, and more admirable intermingling of the two than in any other state, excepting, possibly, Wis- consin. It is estimated that about one third of Minnesota is tim- ber land of more or less dense growth. In Iowa it has^ been officially estimated that only about one tenth to one" eight of the state is timbered. :'M.'>r^^y!' U i: 10 OUT WEST : On the head waters of the various tributaries of the ex- treme Upper Mississippi and St Croix Rivers is an ex- tensive pine country known as the pine region, comprising an estimated area of 21,000 square miles. Extending in a north easterly and south westerly direc- tion about 100 miles long and an average width of 40 is the largest body of hard wood timber between the Missis- sippi and Missouri Eivers. It lies on both sides of the Minnesota River, comprising in all an area of 5000 square miles and is known as the big woods. This extended forest abounds in small lakes, and in some portions it is broken by small prairies and openings covered with a luxuriant growth of grass. IClsewhere timber is found in detached groves, and bordering the numerous rivers and lakes, and scattered growth of stunted trees called "oak openings" usually skirt the prairies. This is a very pretty sketch, but when it is borne in mind that it is over drawn, and that all of the pine region and the "oak openings" are in the hands of shrewd specu- lators who ask an extortinate price, the attractions fade away like a mirage. The detached groves to which refer- ence is made have long since been absorbed by the pio- neer speculator, and the 'only oak openings that I know are the spaces between the "scrub oaks" of which unques- tionably there is great abundance. With regard to the quantity of good land held by specu- lators. I shall not qualify the assertion that if it were all reduced to a plane it would not equal in area, three of the best counties in Ontario. In the North such counties as Polk, Itasca, Clay, Becker St Louis, Cass, Wilken, Otter Jail, Wadena, Crow Wing, Aitken, Carleton. In the centre, Todd, Morrison, Mille Lac, Kennebec, Pine, Grand, Douglas, Traverse, Pope, Stearns, Sher- bourne, Isanti, Chisago, Anoka, Big Stone, Swift, Chippewa, Meeker, Wright, Washington, Hennepin, Da- kota, Carter, Mc Leod, Lincoln, and Randolph. In the south, Lyon, Redwood, Sibly, Scott, Goodhue Nicollet, Le Suer, Rice, Wabasha, Brown, Pipe Stone, Murray, Cottonwood, Watowan, Blue Earth, Waseca, Steel, Dodge, Olmstead, Winona, Rock, Nobles. Jackson, Martin, Fairboult, Freeborn, Mower, Fillmore, and Hous- STOP THE EXODUS ! 11 ton : of these seventy four or five counties, I plainly ask how many are really advantageous to the settler; of the northern tier, I can state from my own observation that the entire region is nothing more than a scrub oak country, very pretty in summer and autumn, but as indicated by the growth of ecrub oak a scanty soil of no permanent strength whatever. The testimonies of, Carleton of the Boston Journal are only evidences of that writer's descriptive powers. He has not employed his rare talents either to the real pro- ductiveness of the region, or an analysis of the soil* Of the central tier of counties Anoka and Hennepin are toler- ably fertile; of the southern Red Wood, Blue Earth, and Fairiboult are the only valuable regions in the south, some of these sections are very fine, but they are all settled, taken up in the palmy days of *64. Twenty five miles north of St Paul is the famous Cottage Grove, an undoubt- edly rich region, the soil of which is a dark loam quite un- usual to the country, but of what practical use is this to Canucks, when it is already under cultivation? The pro- prietor, a Mr Furber, is a gentleman farmer onalarge scale, having within a very short time brought an extensive area under the plow. It is then a reasonable conclusion thjit all of the ^oorf land of Minnesota was taken up years ago, that the remainder is a scant unattractive soil of insufiicient value to justify the extraordinary statements either of Wheelock or Han- cock. On the same page we are treated to a brief chapter on game, and one on fish, both of which are brought promi- nently forward. THE FIRST says: The prairies and forests abound in a great variety of wild animals, among wbich are deer, bears wolves, wild cats, raccoons and rabbits, otter, mink, beaver and muskrat are the principal aquatic animals that frequent the water courses; Buifaloes occasionally visit the western frontier. Pigeons grouse and partridges are among the feathered game, whilst multitudes of smaller birds of sweet song and gay plumage add their thousand charms to the summer landscape of Minnesota." »'" - At one time, the game of Minnesota was undoubtedly 12 OUT WEST : various and plentiful, but the time lias passed away. Dur- ing the decade between 1857 and 18t)7,there never was in any country a more wanton destruction of wild animals of all kinds, than took place in the North Star State. The professional and amateur hunter nearly completed the ' work of extermination, and the utter apathy of the State Legislature, in the matter until very recently, was a tacit consent to the reckless destruction thus carried on. It is well known to the writers of the pamphlets that otter, mink and beaver, the most valuable of the fur bear- ing aquatics are now nearly extinct. It is further known ' that the loose and convenient game laws are merely nomi- ^ nal, for I have personally witnessed members of the State Legislature at the forbidden season engaged in fire hunting deer, and shooting down prairie chickens- in defiance of all law, bent upon their own selfish diversion. It is quite true that the muskrat of the state is a pecu- liarity, and that he suflfers a proportinately less diminution than his aquatic companions, but he too is now giving way to the voracious Swede and Norwegian who, in addition to the former practice of securing and selling the hide, dress and devour the carcass as they would a rabbit. To me the only variety that seems to have defied the husbandmen and trapper alike is the pigeon. He is mis- chievously plentiful as is a genus blackbird both of which are as accomplished wheat stealers as the pamphleteers are men stealers. The pigeon and blackbird are both migra- tory, their destruction is not easily effected, hence, the birds whose presence is most objectionable, suffers compara- tively no reduction, notwithstanding the great numbers said to be snared every year. Beyond a few hours recrea- tion to the sportsman, and unless caught in great numbers these pigeons cannot be estimated as of much value* To kill pigeons with powder and shot, has not proved a profi- table marketable speculation. : i ■ ' > ' The number of deer which is supposed to form one of Minnesota's chief attractions is altogether exaggerated. Rabbits bears and wolves are said to abound. Bears and wolves are numerous in a few timbered sections, but they^ too, are limited to certain woody belts ,and are suffering such steady persecution that very soon they must present rather the appearance of a novelty than anything else. STOP THE EXODUS ! 13 Years ago the sky colored State was the Happy hunting grounds of **yo Indian and ye white trapper" and hunter. It was they that enjoyed the palmy times whetlier squat- ting at camp fires on tlie prairie, or roosting on some tall pine, awating the daylight, the friend of man and the enemy of wild heasts. It is well known that the best liunters and trappers have long since pushed farther north and west in search of more profitable fields — better hunting grounds. A great many years ago when Jesuit Kane visited St Paul, the state- ments of the pamphleteers with regard to wild animals would have a decent apphcation. At the present hour and for several years past, they are as inapplicable as they would be if applied (not derisively) to Trinity College, or Mc Gill Square. Under the heading of minerals there are statements fur- nished which could have come from no other pen than that of the extraordinary Wheelock. This gentleman who is editor of the " St. Paul Press," Postmaster, and who enjoys a multiplicity of state favors, writes up the copper mine swindle thus; — Three several mines are being worked in the Minneso- ta coast of lake Superior. Any one at all acquainted with the copper bearing formation of Lake Superior can but see that this state has a rich mineral district which has only to be examined and brought into notice to secure im- mediate and extensive working. The three workings now started at distant localities will prove highly satisfactory as scarcely a break occurs, through the entire range from the St. Louis river to the British Boundary at an eleva- tion of from four hundred to one thousand feet. It is notorious that this copper mining investment in Minnesota has proved a bubble of the most explosive kind. We have only to look to actual results for a confir- mation of this, besides, it is a fact patent to any in com- mon school geography, that the copper regions are the richest in Michigan, and Wisconsin south of the lake that Minnesota has very little, when the truth is known and appreciated. _ ^ j. . .^ ^ Money in sufficient quantities to make Duluth a city of ten thousand inhabitants has been sunk in those very cop- per formations of which Wheepck is a shareholder, and 14 OUT WEST : this fact will, doubtless, account for Lis eagarness to force his coppers into public favor; but it is played; no one with his eyes open is going to take stock now. The game is up. Iron and coal do not exist in any paying' quantities with- in the State borders, and moreover it is universally l^nown that the Vermillion mines of Minnesota are dead stock. (Query forWheelock) How much money has been realized since 1858? Answer and furnish necessary papers. Another expansion of the truth is the slate regions. There are unquestionably valuable slate quarries ever the state, but who owns them, and what is the encouragement to the singls man? Is it not a melancholy certainty that these slate quarries have long been grabbed and held by a few rich and influential property holders who work them solely at their own profit. Might they not as well be in Jamaica, or at the North Pole, as in Minnesota for all the good they have ever done to a really industrious immi- grant? I am confident that they might. Dismissing all of these subjects with the remark that they are to say the mildest, mighty colored and fraudulent, I shall now take up the "climate" of Minnesota, a theme of unlimited vaunting. The compiler of the last pamphlet in my possession thus acquits himself: *'The climate of Minnesota n as often been the subject of untruthful disparagement. ''It is too far north" the "winters are intolerable," ''corn will not ripen" "fruit will not grow." These and similar remarks have found expression by those who should have known better. To the old settler of Minnesota, the seasons follow each other in pleasing suc- cession. As the sun approacheshis northern altitude, winter relaxes his grasp, streams and lakes are unbound, flowers spring up as if by the touch of some magic wand, and gra- dually spring is merged into the bright beautiful June, with its long warm days, and short, but cool and refresh- ing nights. The harvest months follow in rapid succession, till the golden Indian summer of early November foretells the approach of cold and snow; and again winter, with its short days of clear bright sky and bracing air, and its long nights of cloudless beauty completes the circle. It will be remembered that though Minnesota has no STOP THE EXODUS ! 15 mountain peaks its general elevation gives it the charac- teristics of a mountainous district, that while it is equidis- tant from the oceans that wash thj eastern and western shores of the continent, and is therefore, comparatively un- affected by oceanic influences, it has a great water system of lakes and rivers within its own borders. These combining with other influences give the state a climate in many respects dissimilar to the other Northern States. From records kept for a series of years at dilferenf; places , the Commissioner of Statistics in his report of 18G0, fur- nishes the data for the following summary. Central Min nesota has a mean temperature in the spring (45,0 o ) equal to Northern Illinois, Southern Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island: Its summer mean temperature (70, 60) coincides with that of Central Wisconsin, Southern Penn- sylvania and Central New-Jersey. Its autumn temperature (49, 50) is tlie equivalent of Central Wisconsin, Northern New, York, New,Hampshire and Southern Maine. Its winter mean temperature (16,10) equals that of Northern Wisconsin, the southern limit of Canada East, Central Vermont and New Hampshire and North Eastern Maine. Its yearly mean temperature (44,6 o ) coincides with that of Central Wisconsin, Michigan, Central New York, Southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and has an anual range from the summer heat of Ohio and South- ern Pensylvania to the winter cold of Montreal. Thus in the breadth of four degrees, lli-o summers of Pensylvania and Sardinea (in Italy) are followed by the winter of Can- ada and Northern Eussia. From rain tables, prepared from observations recorded for a series of years at sixteen different places in Canada and the States, it appears that the mean annual fall for all the places is 11.2 inches whilst the mean summer fall at Fort Snelling 10.9 inches. Thus it will be seen that while Minnesota liada yearly fall ofrain ten inches less than the mean of all the places its summer rain is but a fraction of an inch less than the mean summer rain of all the places. It may be added that one half of the spring rain of all in the month of May, and a fraction more than one half of the rains of autumn falls in September, giving more than 16 OUT WEST two thirds of the whole yearly amount of rain to the season of vegetable growth, and leaving but the small friction to the remaining seven months in the year. Judging from the climate of New England where the air is loaded with vapor from the ocean and the ground is for months covered with deep snow, judging from the more southern of the western states where rain and sleet are followed by severe cold, it has been concluded that winter in Minnesota is a season of terrible storm deep snow and severe cold. The average fall of snow is about six inches per month. The snow falls in small quantities at different times and is rarely blown into drifts so as to impede hunt- ing. The first snow fall of December usually lays on the ground till March affording protection to the winter grain although there is frequently too little for such purpose as at midday a slight thaw occurs in places with a southern declivity. Two or three times in the course of eight win- ters the ground has been uncovered for a few days. Long driving snow storms are almost unknown, and rain seldom falls durini? the winter months. It is well known that it is the dampness in the element whence comes the greatest suffering whether of cold or warm weather. With an average temperature of 16 ® the dry atmosphere of winter in Minnesota is less cold to the sense than the warmer yet damper climates of states seve- ral degrees further south. With the new year commences the extreme cold of our Minnesota winter, when for a few days, the mercury surges from ten to thirty degrees below zero, falhng sometimes even below that. Yet the severity of these days is much softened by the brilliancy of the sun, and the stillness of the air. Thus while other states in lower latitudes are being drenched by the cold rain storms or buried beneath huge drifts of win- try snow, Minnesota enjoys a dry atmosphere, and with almost unbroken succession of bright cloudless days, and serene star lit nights; and when the moon turns her full orbed face towards the earth the night scene of Minnesota is one of- peerless grandeur. ^ .r . ^■ The farmer improve's the winter season by preparing fencing and fuel, and drawing to market the surplus pro- duots of his last years* toil. Lumbermen are busy in the forest getting ready logs to be borne on the swollen STOP THE EXODUS ! 11 streams of spring to the various lumber mannfactui^ers. Winter in Minnesota is a season of ceaseless business ac- tivity andconstant social enjoyment and by those accustom- ed to long wintr}'- storms, continued alternations of mud and snow is pronounced far preferable to the winters in otlier sections of the Northern States. Here there is an exhilaration in the crisp atmosphere which quiclcens the Hood, and sends the bounding steps over the ring- ing snow with an excellent flurry of good spirits akin to the highest enjoyment. March brings an average temperature of 81" and small increase of rain, snow and frosts disappear and the ground is gradually prepared for the plow. April with a rise of temperature to 46' and a rain fall ot two inches commences the season of vegetable growth. As the season advances the warm nortli winds freighted with the vapor of southern seas pre- vail lake and stream send forth their exhalations, gentle and frequent showers descend; and Minnesota with the summer warmth of Southern Pennsylvania, Long Island and New Jersey, with the long days that at the solstice scarcely admit of darkness between the evening and morn- ing twilight — presents a scene of rapid vegetable growth, and maturity scarcely paralleled in any country ; while for exquisite beauty and enjoyableness, the world may well be challenged for anything comparable with the sum- mer twilight of Minnesota. After the dissolving heat of day has gone, soft breezes from the south lick the fevered brow, the heated blood into delicious repose, while the lingering light of mid- day, tinged with the ruddy splendors with which tlie de- parted Sun stains the western sky lends a dreamy and exquisite hue to the fading landscape. Later come the days when field and forest are ablaze with the gorgeous tints of autumn the season growing more beautiful as its end approaches; and stiU later the hazy mellow air of Indian summer softens the outlines of the shorn forest and accompanies the waning year some- times far into old December's bareness. Then commence the keen occupations and brisk sports of bright winter when the thoughts turn inward and the zest of social life awakes." .^' Let no Canadian pin his faith to seductive descriptions 18 OUT WEST : 'i and unreliaV)le statistics. It is quite unnecessary to add that tlie writer of the foregoing has been ''driven to it" either by the romantic cliaracter of his cerebrum, or a promise of increased pay from his patrons. It is more than probable that both are concerned. Tnins- hited to the deluded Swede and Norweigan it is no wonder that his tliouglits turn inward and the zest of social Hfe reawakes. Fiction is fortunately ephemeral. Not the less shortlived are the figures relating to mean temperature and the rain fall. No matter w^hence these records come they are not correct. They are not the same which I have seen in the State University, nor those which for one year, I assisted to register in the 8t Paul High School. The presumption is that the mean spring temperature (45 ® ,G) is cooked." Its summer mean temperature instead of (70 ® ,6) approxi- mates seventy five as may be seen from the records of the High School at St Paul and at the University. Its autumn temperature is nearer forty than fo;*ty nine whilst its winter average is nearer ten than sixteen. The whole annual mean is then considerably lower than 44o,6 as claimed by this untruthful writer. "With regard to the rainfalls there is a wide divergence from facts. The points to which the statistics have refer- ence are places in the eastern states and Canada. Tha rain itself is not all confined ^ the months of May and September, but is very uncertain producing deluges at unusual times and accompanied in midsummer with in- tensely vivid lightning and violent thunder, a feature which has totally escaped the attention of the pamphleteers. To dispose of the climate as briefly as possible, I may write of the winters as severe and entirely too cold for comfort, and the summers excessively hot; that the mercury in win- ter sinks to thirty five degrees and even forty, minus is a common occurrence, that the air is still cutting, and what is commonly termed dry; that the wind blows frequently rendering the atmosphere almost unfit for respiration. I have traveled the Minnesota and St Paul post road often enough to write advisedly. There are likewise very heavy drifts though they are not a charateristic of the country. In the northern counties these drifts are of frequent occur- rence, in the south they are rare. - 1 STOP THE EXODUS ! 19 It 18 also notorious that the farmers do nnt work about their farms in winter, but very wisely avoid such unat- tractive hibor; and it is moreover quite a practice to re- main '^hedged in" their "shebangs" all winter not unlike bears figuratively not literally sucking their paws. Tlie picture has tihe utmost finish of New England varnish. No one that has traveled a half a dozen miles in the interior •an either corroborate or defend such wilful exagger- ations. Minneapolis, if it is one of the liveliest little towns in the West is unquestionably one of the coldest. It is a vacuum of frigid atmosphere of which the bluffs of the Mississippi are sides. If the writer were to say that the smallest compass of warm air left Minnesota on the ap- proach of winter and the coldest strata from both polos fraternized during the whole winter in the state, he would have won the highest and most meritorious renown. I have confronted a Quebec winter with a mercury depression of thirty two minus, a calash wind, yet I would prefer it to a winter m sight of Minnesota with no wind at all. It is so conveniently unceremonious, so completely west- ern its freedom that you will get below zero without suffic- icnt advice. Several times at Lake City, Metonka and at St. Anthony I have seen an ordinary Farenheit Thermometer registering — 45 frozen up and rei.dered use- less. Once I pushed over a prairie intervening Stillwater and St. Paul. The day was the coldest that a Cana- dian ever experienced, the wind came in cutting shafts, and had I not been well enveloped in a buffalo, I should have gone several degrees below the cipher. In the western states particulary in Minnesota, there have locat- ed some of the most designing knaves to be found in any part of the world. I have witnessed scenes in the city of Stillwater Minn, chat could not have occurred elsewJiere. Provoked and indignant lumbermen clamoring for long arrearages which companies have no means of clearing off, a further evidence that the laws of Minnesota while thev shield the swindler afford no protection to the honest hard working citizen. To this, it may be remarked that there are courts in which debtors may be brought to terms, but these courts are not always in reach of the friendless pen- niless lumberman who has not alwavs the means to call 20 OUT WEST: in legal aid. There are besides, the most rascally lawyers known, within the state borders. Pettifoggers and un- princi[)led Attorneys who flinch at nothing, and fight for no one save themselves. SPRING. The transition from winter to spring is ra|rid Tlie ac- cuniuhited snow disappears in a few days and a thick im- penetrable mnd takes its place. There is, however, no reliance to be placed on the statements that the arrival of Spring is regular. Old residents have informed me that it is subjected to a great deal of uncertainty. From a short experience I know that the regularity boasted of is untrue, and bears the characteristic of pamphleteering fraud. The quickness of vegetable growth is claimed with a flourish. It is doubtful whether this is advantageous or not. A rapid development is no where spoken of as a desirable feature, more particularly when that rapid — development is accompanied by all the concomitant terrors which air and earth can create. Concornmg the extraordinary thunder storms and the frequent occurence of sheet lighthing , there is a studied silence in the pamphlets. The angel of death and the dragon of blood, the potato bug and the musquito are shamefully ignored by Wheelock and his confreres. Except in Louisiana, where can they produce such vast and dangerous thunder storms as panoramically light up the sky tinted state, two or three months ont of twelve? Where on the face of the continent do more fierce, and more numerous potato bugs abound than in Minnesota ? Where have they more educated musquitos, than within the borders of the North Star state? The ravages of the potato bug have not been generally understood. It is impossible to over estimate his destructive propensities ,a8 Ontario will no doubt find to their cost during thepresent summer. I have seen him performing in Minnesotian patches, until he mowed down every potato plant and then com- mence his indiscriminate onslaught on anything else which happened to be in his way. ' j' '^ '.ff? • :: He is a versatile bug, and his intineranl character has enabled him partly from necessity and partly from choice, STOP THE EXODUS ! »1 to devour other kind8 of vegetation than potntoo plants. I shall never forget the iVlinnesotiau phin, the only one which haa been succeHBl'iilly put in pr.ictico for his oxter- imnation. The device succejds ho loui^ ;is small boys are obtainable but when Lhe stock of Arabs bocotno'j exliaust- ed there must be a resort to further ingenuity. A little paddle made from a siiingle, and a tin pan are provided with a small boy who makes an algebraic trans- position with his paddle in this maunor. The bug repre- sents the unknown quantity which the paddle through the agency of the boy transposes to the first member of the equation, the pan. After a sufficient number of unknown quantities are transfered to the pan, the whole is sacrificed as a burnt offering. Boys do exceedingly well at this business, provided their employers are honest and pay up. Paris Green and other chemicals have not resisted his — the bug's victorious marches. He has met no enemy so formidable as the paddle, the pan and the Arab. A dozen boys at a dollar ($1.00) per day will thus keep a quarter acre lot well divested of bugs. It is expensive, it is true, but the potatoes will thrive, blossom and live, whilst the bugs die a horrid linger- ing death. The soft breezes of summer which lick the fevered cheek and lull the heated blood into delicious repose are rhetorical and have no existance whatever. On summer nights you toss about in your bed or on the floor, assailed on all sides by musquitos, oppressed with heat and, un relieved by no gentle zephyr's cool from an aquatic excursion or otherwise. In vain may you seek temporary relief by expanding to the sixth power? on a cool carpet, but here you will be explor- ed out and investigated by bold companies of adventurous musquitos from which mercy cannot be extracted. They abound in the state everywhere, and instead of decreasing they seem to liave an increasing tendency. The subject o"" oil is a most important one, and must not be dismissed without a thorough exposition. It is generally known that a certain David Dale Owen, a geolo- gist of the period was, at one time "bought up" by the Minnesota Legislature for the purpose of magnifying the resources of the state. Owen did not feel strong enough to be a professional liar, without some co-professional who m 22 OUT WEST: would share the honors, accordingly a Dr. A. H. Hays, of Massachusets was called on to assist, and a geological re- port furnished, which was magnified several diameter. Armed with this the St* Paul editor writes. The prevaiUng soil is a dark calcareous sandy loam ab- ounding in mineral ingredients and various intermixtures of clay, derived from inorganic vegetable remains. To this is added silica in fair quantities. These facts will at once show the valuable importance of the soil. It may be appropriately compared with the soil of the West Indian sugar regions ? It is unnecessary to add that these statements are false. Comparing the soil of Minnesota to the rich West Indian product conveys absurdity on its face. This is where the St. Paul writer overdoes the work and condemns himself at the same time. Truth we are told needs no ornament, and when crushed to the earth rises again, '^ but eggs do not." Of course the great staple of Minnesota is Wheat — wheat. Its cultivation has been carried almost to the verge of Western lunacy. To show that even the wheat productions have been exaggerated, we have merely to look at the statistics, furnished in the pamphlets and those which are actually on record in the State Agricultur- al Office. I need not here again write that there is a wide divergence from facts — that the pamphleteers have ingeniously cooked the figures. It has, ho .. ever, redeemed itself politically in its Schools and Railways. Many miles of useless territory have been '•pushed off," — lines constructed and projected. All these do not constitute progress if we accept the true meaning of the term. The people have discovered now-a-days that much of United Statesian progress and enterprise wears off at a single test. ■ In another pamphlet I shall endeavor to write some- thing about the Educational features of the West. In the meantime I would sound the note of warning to all Cana- dians young and old. Be not deceived by the Western pamphleteers. They are deceptions, and their purpose self-interest. Very recently Acadia, the Wasln'ngton correspondent , STOP THE EXODUS ! 23 > of a Nova Scotian paper, in a series of letters re- presented to the Nova Scotians that Minnesota was off- ering great inducements to settlers, au 1 acting upon his representations, quite a number were induced to iniuii- grate. Now " Acadia " has never been in Minnesota. I know this as a personal fact, and I further know that his figures and statements have entirely come to him through Wheelock and his pamphleteers all of whom I have shown to be wholly unreliable. It is a sad evidence of the many false and mistaken opinions of the hour, to suppose that the West is ail "Progress." No greater fallacy prevails than this. Li't any one take the trouble to study the true condition of the farmer, and he will find that there is a good deal of ** marking time ;" that many who pretend to take the fail step of thirty inches are only imposing the goose slop upon their eastern friends. To say nothing of the hls^h prices, the iniquitous credit system, and the rascality of town, county, and public treasurers, there is, besides, a class of merchants who so manage the country tliat the " margin" left to the farmer is too small to justify the ex- travagant assertions which we hear every day. Let the farmer from Canada, and the immigrant from Europe take heed "The Western States are not prosper- ing. ■,^.