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