[Illustration: THIS TWO-YEAR-OLD WISCONSIN FARM IS JUST READY TO CARE FOR ITS NEWLY ACQUIRED SHROPSHIRE EWES]
In regard to the need of a trained adviser for the new settlers the president of the company explained as follows:
The greatest need for instruction is in land clearing, for the modern land-clearing methods--methods of just how to "brush," and at what time of year to conduct the operations--are entirely new to almost every settler arriving in the colony. No wonder we ourselves are studying, experimenting, and improving on land-clearing methods each month.
In general, our immigrant colonists are efficient workers. The fact is that some of the buildings in our new town site are being built by our settlers. A large number of them were contractors. Many of the foreigners worked in the shipyards on the coast. Some of them worked on big farms. We find them very intelligent and capable, and some of them very good business men. We have built over twenty miles of road this year, every bit of it being done under contract, and the contracts were all taken by our new settlers. During the past year about two hundred houses were built, and these were all contracted to the new settlers.
It is true they have many things to learn, just as we have. We are not really teaching them, but we are working with them, studying with them, learning much from them, just as they learn from us. We are opening up our demonstration farms, studying the problems just as they are. Our adviser's main work is to assist them in choosing the kind of seed best adapted to that country, to act as a kind of leader for the community, for they are all strangers, and until they have become accustomed to the country, and until leaders have sprung up among them, it is necessary that an outside leader, such as our agricultural adviser, should be employed, but not because of the ignorance or inefficiency of the foreigners.
Observing the actual operations of such advisers in a number of cases, the writer has been convinced that in every new rural immigrant colony an intelligent, sympathetic, and efficient adviser is needed, and that the private colonization companies are to be commended for employing such advisers.