Lenora News from Lenora, Kansas • 1

LENORA, NORTON COUNTY, KANSAS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1911. NO. 38 F. R. EGEE, President.

R. H. KNOX, V. President. D.

S. LOGAN, 2d. V. President. W.

A. REEDER, 3d. V. President. S.

LARRICK, Cashier. W.L. LEIDIG, Ass't Cashier. VOL. X.

mm si ii A i ii ej At or END OF FREE LAND. THE HOME CIRCLE. FARMER'S INSTITUTE laud for extensive farming and truck gardening, you will have to pay $100 an acre. If you buy land set out with high priced fruits, like the orange groves of California or the fruit valleys of Colorado, it may cost you as high as $1,000 an acre. Come up in the Middle West! You will not get good wheat lands under $100 an acre.

Or take the Northwest wheat lands that would not sell for from $40 to $70. Even semi-arid lands of the Missouri bring from $14 to $20 an acre. Up in the Canadian Northwest is the is the same jump in prices in spite of collapse in boom and of 1908's panic year. How do such land values square with the fact that the Department of the Interior reports 754 million acres free land? Deduct Alaska and your big total shrinks to less than 400 million acres. That total is made up of free lands in twenty-six states.

And in the twenty-six states where there is free land, culling out mountainous, rocky. swamD it not be better for sister to teach baby who is old enough to button his own shoes, than to do it for him each morning as a duty. Dsn't wake your boys and girls up' in the mornings with "Hurry up and get up and come on and feed the horses and milk the cows, for we've got a lot of work to do and its getting late, so hurry up, or we'll never get through. Is that very pleasant to hear in the morning? Don't hurry so much, but tike time to live and to see a pretty flower or listen to the happy notes of a little bird; enjoy allthese beauties of nature as you go along through life. Are you surprised that your boys and girls begin to show dissatisfaction with their homes and long for city life, when at home it is too much hurry, hurry all the time hurry and do your work? Yes it grows monotonous and they see that each day brings them no nearer the goal than the day before, so they lose interest and grow to hate these daily duties that are all hurry and work.

If the motto "keep sweet" was lived up to in the new year would not our little world of home be the better for it? Even if its influence reached no further would it not be worth the while? To "keep sweet" one must possess a happy unconsciousness of self and enthusiasm about the little things that fill the hours of every day and an sbsence of malice and envy. One must have a bright outlook on life and a courageous heart. Such an outlook and such a heart ar invalu able to the housewife. They cheer herself and those under her influence. "The hand that moves the world" surely should pulse with high courage that comes from a brave, true heart.

This column is published weekly in the hope that it may awaken on the part of th 1 husband and child a deeper appreciation of her who is the central figure of home; that it may strengthen the family bonds, making them more beautiful and tender; that it may encourage charity and breathe hope for the future, where language is music and love is law. We trust this department may to young, brighten and deepen the pleasures and memories of home, while to the advanced in years something may be said that will bring to view the reflected radiance of a golden dawning. We should be pleased to occasionally hear from our readers who appreciate this department. It does no harm to drop a word even in the pathway of an editor whose road seems ever to lead among the thorns. How much happier we would all be, if we would attempt to build instead of tearing down; how much sweeter our lives would be, if we would encourage, by kind words, those of our fellow-men anb fellow-women who have fallen by the way-side; extend a helping hand, whisper words of encouragement in their ear, and oh! how much brighter our lives and theirs would be.

Give no heed to the Tattler and Gossiper, turn a deaf ear, and tell them that you are other-wise engaered, when you find them in clined to talk and very soon the tattlers will find their profession gone. Six Years Hence There Will be None. The following article appeared on the editorial page of the Kanaas City Star of January 19, 1911 and is reprinted here as we do not believe many of pur readers realize how rapidly we are nearing the end of free land for agricultural purposes. Agnes C. Lant in Collier's Week.

With nearly 400 million acres of unappropriated land in the United States equal to the area of Alaska and with less 'than 100 million acres occupied of the Canadian Northwest's 171 million acres of arable prairie land, it is hard to believe that we are at the end of the free land era in the history of the world. From time immemorial, free land has been as much a feature of America as free air. No matter from what quarter of world oppression the land hungry might come, earth's dispossessed could flock to America in full assurance that all they had to do to enter into their inheritance was to sit down on 160 acres of free land and make it theirs by running a furrow and a fence line; and as late as the '90s, in the Southwestern States, some ran the fence line around one thousand more acres by way of warning newcomers to leave pasture land alone. Late as the '80s you could not sell western prairie land at $1 an acre or give it away, as one might say at fifty cents. Late as 1900 you could travel for weeks across the plains and not see a settler's house oftener than an average of once in ten miles.

Free land! why, men wanted to be free of their land! Tht were land poor, land starved, literally land hungry. They had slapped everything they owned into enormous buildings -farm holdings in Wyoming averaged fifteen hundred acres a farm then they raised crops and stock, for which there was neither market nor railroad. Horses would not sell at $20 a piece. Cows went begging at $5. It did not pay to harvest potatoes at fifteen cents a bushel; and when wheat was at forty-eight cents on the plains, it took a bumper A-l crop just to pay the expense of working the land, with not a cent over for the land worker.

And now twenty years later, despite the big area still open to homesteading, reported both in Canada and the United States, we are at the end, not just coming to the end, but at the end of free land in America. Horses that would not sell at $20 now average up to $150 and $200. The cows that went begging at $5 now command from $60 to $75. Potatoes that rotted at fifteen cents because the price did not pay for hauling now sell up to $1: and that old 48-cent wheat at the moment of writing is fluctuating around $1.25. In the Southwest where formerly you could not sell land at any price, and ranchers nonchalantly appropriated one hundred thousand acre3 for stock runs and cheerfully shot the intruding "nestors" if you buy irrigated A Successful Meeeing New Members Added.

The farmers institute was well attended, aud we had an addition of eleven new members. We decided to hold our next meeting Saturday, February 25, at two o'clock. The program was not as long as we have been having. Many took a look through the microscope at the eye of a fly. and all showed great interest in the fossil bone of some great mammal that once walked about Lenora and whose bones were discoved by Professor Gifford and his class near Lenora.

Professor Gifford suggested the best five dollars worth of books, (if they did not have better,) would be Webster's Intercollegiate Dictionary, first lessons in agriculture, goverment bulletins, and an advanced book on agriculture. Mr. Hammond next took up the'subject of irrigation which showed he had studied well and tried hard to present in an understanding way, showing how it was carried on in other states, some of which he had visited, and others he. had letters from, estimating the cost of lifting one inch of water per acre, kind of pumps, power of wind mill, engines, etc. This was answered by Mr, Geo.

Harris on the other side, that pumping was not practicable but said one good thing for this country that he had seen the same condition of failure in Re--public county, where land now is worth from $50. to $100: and that if we staid with this; country that again we will have good crops and you then could not drive a man out of this part of the country. Others thought pumping was practical and had tried it in a small Mr. Roy Bozarth presented the subject; Dairy or Beef cattle, this did not elicit the enthusiasm it deserved, but many good points were brought out. The most enthusiastieof workers are those who have been in institutes in other places and have? seen the good there is to be derived from them.

The first objections I met after coming out of the meeting was-that old prejudice "that science and practice do not agree;" then something is wrong, and if you know some better way come show us. The second that some one is trying to work a scheme to make money. Say feel around in- your old clothes and see if you cannot feel a whole lot of fogyism? Are you not the class that is trying to pull back not foreward. A father was once urged by his boy to go to Sunday school. He says "run along to Sunday school, I am set in my way." A few days after this they were hauling a load of wood when old Mary balked.

The boy said "father I guess old Mary must be set in hor ways." We will make plenty of mistakes but out of it all will grow something better. Help us to move" foreward. We wish to extend the editor of this paper, our many thanks for his efiorts in bringing about this meeting. Ciias. Bull, Pleasant Evening Reveries A Column Dedicated to Tired Mothers.

The real business of life is the making of a happy home. When you come to sift the whole chaff of existence, everything goes to the wind but the happiness we have had at home. All about us are beautiful homes which are mere pauper houses, so far as happiness is concerned, because of some one member of the family who is a petty tyrant, a nagger, a peace destroyer. In hours of exuberance and exultation or joyous merriment; in reflective moments when the soul is swept with memories, pleasing or plaintiff; in the silence of religious meditations; or in our little recesses from the homely duties and commanplace labors of the day, or week, they befriend us with their delightful solace; these thoughts of home and a happy family circle. There are six secular nights in each week.

Out of six" some men spend one at home and five at lodge, while others spend five at home and one at lodge. In which class shall we register your name? We are coming to understand that all the prayers and baptisms and communions which the churches can bestow upon us will not make us christians, so long as we think mean, uncharitable thoughts of one another aud permit our minds to be filled with malice, envy, jealousy gloom and despondency. Work is a moral and physical uplifter it is a panacea for sor row; idleness brings moral decay and furnishes an incentive to crime. The avalanche of crime that is sweeping over our beautiful land is largely due to the fact that too many would rather steal than work. The life of duty, not the life of mere ease and mere pleasure, is the end of life which makes the great men and women.

The best prize that life offers is the chance to work at the work worth doing. A word of encouragement at the right time is of more real worth than an ounce of gold. It js a better stimulant than the richest wine, and the strongest lever to lift from the ruts of despondency. Many a poor overworked wife is pining for a word of sympathy from her husband. Just one word, one look, to show that the toil of weary hours are appreciated, and the light reflected would more than recompense the gjver.

We have often wondered why mother's memory and hands must serve for a dozen persons. Would it not be better for all if mother's kindness contained more of self-assertion and less of gelf-sacrifice? Would not, at times, papa feel less disturbed, nay, wrathfully, if he were carefully to keep his own papers in order, and perform the twenty other trivial things he has time to do in leisure moments, but expects of someone else? Would (and arid, total of free lands for the whole United States land that needs Neither draining nor irrigation, land that is neither rocky like the deforested "upper ends of Minnesota and Michigan, nor low as in Louisiana dwindles to less than twenty-five million acres; and every acre of that total remains free because of some disadvantage greater or less remoteness from market as in Idaho and Colorado and Montana broken surfaces as in the Bad Lands of Dakota, rock and serub as in upper Minnesota. Now every year there are homesteaded in the United States more than 4 million acres; so that if every acre of those 25 million acres of free arable land had no disadvantage whatever, it would be taken up to last patch within six years. This does not mean that there will not be free grazing lands left. It does not mean there will not be ample arid and mountainous lands left.

It does not mean that you will not be vast able to homestead for ranching in the arid valleys of Colordo or for stock farming in the Bad Lands of Dakota, or that you cannot buy good irrigated land in thousands of acres. What it means is this The best available free land has already been taken and the second- rate' will all be taken within six years. Hardman Sanford. Mr. Irva Hardman and Miss Clara Sanford were married Sunday afternoon at the brides home in this city, by Rev.

Earley. The Wedding was a quiet one, for only relatives and immediate friends of the family were present. The young couple left immediately after the wedding supper for Lenora, where the groom has prepared a six room cottage for their future home. The bride is a popular young lady of Hill City. She hasbeenattendinghigh school and would have graduated next year if she had remained in her class.

The groom is a 'sturdy young man who recently entered the clothing business at Lenora with his brother. Hill City.