This is the oldest and doubtless best known of our colonies. The colony lands commence 120 miles west of St. Paul and extend for 30 miles on each side of the St. Paul and Pacific railroad. Within the bounds of the colony are four railroad towns, one of them, Benson, being the county seat; but the two colony towns proper, are De Graff and Clontarf, being organized and run, as they say out West, by our own people.

In fact, Swift County Colony may very well be spoken of as two colonies, for the present under one name, the Chippewa River dividing the colony lands about in the center, having De Graff on the east and Clontarf on the west. Each town too, has its own Catholic church, congregation and resident priest—the Rev. F. J. Swift, pastor at De Graff, and the Rev. A. Oster, pastor at Clontarf.

The colony lands on the east side of the Chippewa, stretch out from the town of De Graff, 18 miles in length and 12 miles in width, and Clontarf lands on the west side of the river, have equal proportions.

This division and explanation may be of service to correspondents, some of whom frequently write to one or other of the resident priests, for information, in preference to writing direct to the Catholic Bureau, in St. Paul.

When Bishop Ireland in 1876, got control of the unsold railroad lands within the present bounds of Swift County Colony, there was a large quantity of Government lands lying beside these railroad lands, and open for homestead and pre-emption entries, so that a great number of our people were able to secure farms of 80 and 160 acres by merely paying the fees of the U. S. Land Office.

Early settlers too, on the railroad lands, had an opportunity by paying cash to get their farms much below the market value, for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company (the owner) having fallen behind hand in paying the interest on its bonds held by foreign capitalists, these bonds became depreciated in the market, but were, nevertheless, good for their full amount, in payment of the lands belonging to the company.

In this way we were enabled in the first edition of our pamphlet for the year 1877, to offer lands, much below, in some instances more than half below, their average value; but as prices depend altogether on the market value of the bonds, a value which is always fluctuating, we deem it unwise to bind ourselves to arbitrary prices. The average railroad price of lands in Swift County Colony is $6.50 per acre; the actual cash price, by buying bonds and paying for the land with same, will be much less than this, and we will, when called upon get the bonds for the immigrant at their then value, but what the exact prices of the bonds may be or how long they will remain in the market available for the purchase of land, we cannot take upon ourselves to say.

In this connection we wish to point out to immigrants, that irrespective of paying for land in bonds, for which they must pay cash, they can make contracts, on long time, with the company, for their farms.

There are other ways too by which our people can make homes in this well-settled colony. Non-Catholics who were settled in the county before the colony was established, will be willing to sell out. Homesteaders, too, who got their land free from the government, and made improvements, are frequently anxious to realize a little capital by the sale of those improved farms, and go still farther west. There is also a large quantity of school and State lands in the county, which will be in the market in 1879; so notwithstanding that the greater part of the colony railroad lands have passed from the control of the Bureau into the possession of settlers, and that all the government lands have been taken up, we look forward, with pleasure, to see many more of our people settling in Swift county next spring. They will find a goodly number of their co-religionists settled before them and anxious to give them a friendly welcome. There are very few of the New England or Middle States that have not representatives in the colony.

From a communication received from the Register of the United States Land Office at Benson, the county seat, we find that since the Bureau opened this colony in 1876, 425 Catholic settlers have taken up government land in the colony; of these, 300 families were Irish, the remainder Germans, Poles and French. About an equal number of Catholics—a large majority Irish—have taken railroad lands—80,000 acres of which have been sold; so that we can claim at least 800 Catholic settlers, with their families, in Swift County Colony at the present writing. Driving west from De Graff to Clontarf, seventeen miles, and still eleven miles farther west from Clontarf to the Pomme de Terre River, one is never out of sight of a settler's house; and some of those farm houses would be a credit to a much older settlement, for we have settlers who farm as much as five hundred acres, while others again farm but eighty acres. The general quality of the soil is a dark loam, slightly mixed with sand and with a clay sub-soil, admirably adapted for wheat, oats, &c., &c., while the bountiful supply of good water and the large quantity of natural meadow lands, scattered all over the colony—there is scarcely a quarter section (160 acres) without its patch of natural meadow—give the settler an opportunity to combine stock raising and tillage on his farm.

The village or town of De Graff has a railroad depot and telegraph office; a grain elevator, with steam power—which is the same as saying, a cash market for all farm produce—six or seven stores, with the general merchandise found in a country town; lumber yard, machine warehouse, blacksmith, carpenter and wagon maker shops; an immigrant house, where persons in search of land can lodge their families until they are suited; a resident doctor, and resident priest, Rev. F. J. Swift; a fine commodious church; a handsome school house and pastor's residence. No saloon. The business men of the town are our own people, and a Catholic fair, for the benefit of the new church, held last fall, and patronized exclusively by the colonists, netted $1,000 clear.

Traveling along the railroad and passing through Benson, half way between De Graff and Clontarf, we come to the latter, the youngest town in this young settlement, but it has a very fine class of settlers around it: west of the village the land is as fine as any in the State, known as the Hancock Ridge.

Clontarf has two general stores, a grain elevator, an immigrant house, a railroad depot, blacksmith shop, a large church and a very handsome residence for the priest, the Rev. A. Oster. No part of the colony is settling up more rapidly than the portion around Clontarf and several new buildings will go up in the village next summer. Swift County Colony is fast beginning to wear the features of a settled community. Many of our farmers have harvested this year their second crop; our merchants report that they are doing a lively business; bridges are being built, roads laid out, plans of improvement discussed by the settlers; and we challenge any part of the West to produce a more intelligent rural class.

True to the memory of the old land and their love for their church, the settlers have given familiar names to many of the townships in the colony, such as Kildare, Cashel, Dublin, Clontarf, Tara, St. Michaels, St. Josephs, St. Francis, &c., &c.

The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, running through the whole length of the colony, has, by its late extension, become one of the great railroad thoroughfares of the northwest, and added much to the value of the colony lands. Commencing at St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, it crosses the Northern Pacific at Glyndon in this State and continues on to St. Vincent, situated on the line separating the State of Minnesota and the British Possessions in Manitoba. Here it connects with a railroad just completed and running to Winnipeg, the capital of the British province of Manitoba.