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THE FARMER AND THE RAILROAD

large addition to the wealth of the farmers from the rising value of North Dakota land. For the three States this total amounts to the surprising sum of $1,730,228,000, or at the rate of $14,418,566 a month for the entire ten years.

Railroad-building began in North Dakota in 1871, when the Northern Pacific reached Fargo. In 1872 it extended its main line west. In only forty years there has been a great change. The people from 1860 to 1875 suffered many discomforts, whether they were farmers or railroad men, compared with the comforts and even luxuries that are common to-day all over the State, as a result of the working together of the two great forces of agriculture and transportation.

The present conditions of life are gratifying, and younger men should remember the hard work of the last forty years in overcoming obstacles, and realize the responsibility for the future laid upon them. The people of this country will demand an increase of acre production amounting to 10 per cent a decade during the coming fifty years.

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