THE CATHOLIC COLONIES OF MINNESOTA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 361, 19 March 1880, Page 17

THE CATHOLIC COLONIES OF MINNESOTA.

(Boston Pilot correspondeut.) Avoca, Minnesota, Oct. 2!). When Father Koebel came berc, about eighteen months ago, to establish a Catholic Colony, he was tue sole occupant of the 52.000 acres of land that had been secured by bishop Ireland. He lived twenty miles from any railroad, and went through all the hardships of pioneer life. Now Father Koebel lives withiu a stone's throw of tlio depot of a branch of the Sioux City Railroad. There are several stores and other buildings erected and being built, and every indication of a prosperous colony. Some of the colonists are already here, and others are coming next May. A large hotel will be built at once, and a church and schoolhcuse are contracted for ; 2.>,000 acres have already been sold, and colonists are expected from many of the other States. They buy their land for five dollars an acre, and have seven years to pay for it ; and, with not lc--s than 400 dollars capital, a colonist can begin life here with every prospect of success. It will cost him about forly dollars to build a house and forty dollais more to furnish it, putting figures at the lowes-t estimate; then his oxen, plough, and waggon will cost about 200 dollars more, and he ought to allow 100 dollars for the cost of living b.foie he can get any return from his oropp. This brings the total investments to 400 dollara. If he puts in a crop of fifty acics of wheat his returns at twenty bushels to the acre, and at seventy-live cents a bushel, will bring him 750 dollars, leaving a profit of "more than 300 dollars for the year's work. All the colonies here are flourishing. There is one in Swift County, about one hundred and twenty miles from St. Paul. This is i ejarded as a very old colony. It was established in 1876, and runs for some thirty miles along the line of the St. Paul and Manitoba Railroad, and contains about one hundred and thirty thousand acres,

on which are located four ambitious and thriving towns. Stores, hotels, schoolhouses. churches, and large elevators have been built, and the prairie is dotted with homelike farmhouses. In this colony much attention has been given to shade trees. There are eight hundred Catholic families in the Colony. There are some model farms, that are cultivated by Philadelphia capitalists, and one man farms 2,000 and another 1,200 acres, yielding from 18to 20 bushels to the acre. The Mlueota colony, on the Chicago and North-western Railway, two hundred mile 3 west of St. Paul, is located on the most fertile land in the State, and Bishop Ireland has secured forty-five thousand acres here, and sent a priest to take charge of a colony. Mineota is flourishing enough already to have an elevator with a capacity of twenty-five thousand bushels, two grain warehouses, and several large stores. The colony of St. Adrian, in Noble County, was opened in 1877, with seventy tuousani acres of land. To-day the town of St. Adrian is a bustling place, with well-stocked shops, and churches, hotels, and comfortable dwellings. There are several large farms hereabouts, running from one thousand to two thousand acres. The Rock Company's farm, about fifteen miles from St. Adrian, is one of the largest wheat farms in the north-west. It contains twenty-three thousand acres. Some five or six miles distant from St. Adrian the Irish Catholic Colonization Association, which has a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, of which somo sixty thousaud dollars has been already subscribed, has commenced operations by breaking up sections upon one hundred faiins. so as to have the land ready to put in the crop next spring when the settlers take possession. Comfortable houses will also be erected upon these farms, and ample time given for the payment of the moneys expended by the association. In view of the alarming depression that prevails among the agricultural classes in Great Britain and Ireland, Bishops Ireland and Spalding are exerting themselves to secure large tracts of land in Nebraska and Dakota territory, in order to meet the requirements of the crowd of immigrants who will doubtless seek a home in the Western States and territories next spring. This association has been incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois, and nuinbars among the Board of Directors Bishop Gibbons of Baltimore, Bishop Williams of Boston, Bishop ityan of Buffalo, Bishop O'Connor of Omaha, Bishop Spalding of Peoria. and several of the most influential Catholic laymen in Chicago, Boston, and New York. Judging from the success which Catholic colonization has met with in the past three years under Bishop Ireland in Minnesota, where the colony lands compriso at present some three thousand acres, with towns, and villages, and homesteads without number that have spuing up, as if by magic, along the fertile prairies all over the State, without either capital or resources of any kind on the part of the founder, the movement which has been inaugurated under th'i Irish Catholic Colonisation Association, with ample funds to give the settlers a fair start in life, is likely to become one of the most important of the kind that has ever been attempted in this country.