Catholic Colonization in Minnesota Part 10

"In speaking of our climate you can boast honestly of its health. Among 200 families belonging to my missionary district, I have not known of one case of internal disease, during my seven months' stay here. It would be well to particularly mention in your forthcoming pamphlet, that this is a prairie, not a timber county. I receive so many letters asking about the cost of clearings, &c., &c.

"I expect quite a rush for land in Avoca, next spring, and will be glad if our people come on early, in time to plant potatoes, corn, &c."

In bringing this brief review of our Catholic colonies to a close, we again thank the Catholic press of this country, for its honest advocacy of Catholic immigration to the land. The favorable notices its editors have given to our humble labors in our own field of duty, and the service rendered to our work thereby, can never be forgotten by us.

Our friend, P. Hickey, Esq., editor of the _Catholic Review_, came specially from New York, last summer to visit our colonies, to judge for himself; and what he saw, the favorable impressions he carried away with him, together with sound argument in favor of Catholic colonization, have appeared, from time to time, since his return, in able and lucid articles from his pen.

G.o.d has blessed our labors beyond our expectations. We see our colonies fast merging into settled communities, where honest labor goes hand in hand with religion, and where men work not for a mere pittance from a master's hand, to support them for a day or a week, but with the hope, the prospect, of an inheritance for their children, in the future.

THE BEST TIME TO COME.

WHEN TO COME, WHAT TO BRING--WHO SHOULD COME. RAILROAD FARES FROM DIFFERENT POINTS--HALF FARES FROM ST. PAUL TO OUR COLONIES.

WHERE TO CALL IN ST. PAUL.

Decidedly the best time for the emigrant to come to Minnesota is the spring. If possible, he should not arrive later than the first week in May. He should have his land selected in time to commence to break for garden stuff and corn about the 20th of May, then he can continue to break, for his next year's wheat crop, up to the early part of July.

The month of June is the month for breaking, for then the gra.s.s is young and succulent, and will rot readily. A man coming in the early part of June can have land broken for his next year's crop, but he loses the advantages of garden stuff and sod corn to help him out in his living until his first crop comes in.

WHAT TO BRING.

All your bedding that is of value. All your bedclothes. All wearing apparel, good clothing of every description: nothing more. Do not think of bringing stoves, nor any kind of house furniture. You can get all such at the stores in the colonies, or here in St. Paul, new, for nearly what the freight on your old furniture, worthless and broken, perhaps, by the time it arrived here, would come to. The better way is to sell what you have in this line, before leaving, and buy here.

WHO SHOULD COME.

We intend that our closing remarks shall treat fully and clearly on this very important portion of our subject. They will be found under the head of

A CHAPTER FOR ALL TO READ.

Here we will but say what we have already written.

WE INVITE FARMERS ONLY

to our colonies.

No doubt the country builds up the town, and we look for quite a building up of our young Catholic towns next summer; but, in the way of business, stores and mechanics' shops, the home supply is generally fully up to the demand, and at present we would not feel justified in inviting any one to our Catholic colonies but a man

WHO WANTS A FARM,

And who is able and willing to work one.

RAILROAD FARES FROM DIFFERENT POINTS.

1st Cla.s.s. 2d Cla.s.s. Immigrant.

New York $35 25 $30 25 $24 00 Philadelphia 33 50 28 45 24 00 Montreal 36 25 26 00 Toronto 29 25 23 00 Buffalo 29 25 23 00 Cleveland 25 25 20 00 Chicago 15 25 12 00 Milwaukee 12 25 9 00

N. B.--The above are the fares from the points mentioned to St. Paul.

Doubtless persons coming in a large party from the same place would get special low rates. From St. Paul to any of our colonies, immigrants are carried for half fare; about $3 for an adult. They also get low rates for baggage &c., &c.

WHERE TO GO ON ARRIVING IN ST. PAUL.

Immigrants, on arriving in St. Paul, will immediately report themselves at the Catholic Colonization Office, situated in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Cathedral school building, corner of Sixth and Wabashaw streets. There they will be received by an agent of the Bureau, who will give them all necessary information and instructions, also half-fare tickets to railroad points in the Catholic colonies, and procure for them half-freight charges on goods and extra baggage. Office hours from 8 o'clock A. M. to 6 o'clock P. M.

All communications should be addressed to

THE CATHOLIC COLONIZATION BUREAU, St. Paul, Minn.

A CHAPTER FOR ALL TO READ.

We wish that this concluding chapter of our pamphlet may be read carefully, and thought well over by intending immigrants.

We wish it for their benefit, and our own benefit and protection. It is, we might say, a fearful responsibility to advise another in a matter which contemplates a change in his habits, mode of life, and home, and such a change should never be undertaken, especially by a man of family, without a most thorough investigation, not alone as to the place he intends going to, but likewise as to his own fitness for the change.

When you have examined this pamphlet from cover to cover, then commence an examination of yourself, not forgetting your wife, if you have one, who is part of you, and a very important part in connection with this question of your going upon land.

This is especially necessary if you and your wife have lived for years in a city and become habituated to city life. It is a great change from city life in the East to country life in the West, especially when the part of the country one moves to is new and settlements just forming.

You are not to expect to realize the advantages of the change right off; it is through yourself, through your own grit and industry, those advantages must come.

To a Western farmer there is nothing bleak or lonely in a prairie; to a man coming fresh from a city and looking on it, for the first time, with city eyes, it may, very likely, seem both. Indeed, a sense of loneliness akin to despondency is a feeling which the newly-arrived immigrant has generally to contend against, a feeling which may increase to a perfect scare if he is a man anxious to consult Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry--who are always on hand--as to the wisdom of the step he has just taken.

We speak from experience, from facts we have a personal knowledge of.

Our labors in the cause of immigration have brought to us much happiness and some pain.

To ill.u.s.trate: Two immigrants arrived here last year, in high spirits, called at our office a few minutes after landing, and so impatient were they to go hunt up land that they were quite disappointed to find they would have to stop over one night in St. Paul. Well, the next morning they called at the office again, all courage, all desire to go upon land wilted out of them, and informed us that they had changed their minds and were going back to Ma.s.sachusetts.

Why? Well, they had met a man at the boarding house they stopped over night at, who advised them not to go out and settle on a prairie. He told them, too, that "he was fifteen years in Minnesota and never could get a dollar ahead."

Now here were men, rational to all appearance, having traveled two thousand miles or so to settle upon land, when they came within sight of the land, as we may say, losing all desire to visit it, all courage, all confidence in disinterested, experienced friends, and in the information they gave to them; in everything but the word of a loafer, who never did a day's good in his life, nor never will, and who was anxious to shuffle off the onus of his slipshod condition from himself to the country.