Nebraska - It's Characteristics and Prospects

In 1871 Nebraska was valued for taxation at $55,549,868. In one year afterward it was valued at $69,873,818, about fourteen and one-third millions more, an increase of twenty-six per cent in a twelve-month. No wonder interest is high.

"Follow the crowd" said Beecher to a stranger, who asked the way to Plymouth church. The Same advice will best guide the landhunter.

was declared the State Capital in 1867. It was then a houseless prairie, but within five years, in 1872, its registered voters were 1,228, and it was valued for taxation at $1,787,569.

Its growth though rapid is healthy, because it is the natural point of supply for a vast region fast settling west of it. The State buildings, Capitol, Insane Asylum and University (See page 2), cost no tax-payer a dollar, but were erected with the avails of city lots given to the State by neighboring land-holders. The last Congress passed a bill for a fire-proof United States post-office here.

In looking at the view of the Salt Basin (opposite), our backs are toward Lincoln. That basin is the source of Salt Creek, which is already utilized for mills and still continues salt, when after flowing thirty miles it empties into the Platte River. Salt has long been manufactured here by solar evaporation.

PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT - ITS MAINSPRING. The West draws new settlers into its capacious bosom by its fertility, its free homesteads, and its infinite demand for labor, whether skilled or unskilled. It also drives them to take shelter under its wing by competition.

22 New England once raised her own breadstuffs, but she has long ceased so to do. The produce of cheaper and cheaper land competed with her farmers, till it proved more than a match for their skill and energy. Many of them then turned to manufactures, but a still larger nunber were hence driven west. They made their own some of the cheap acres there, and enlisted in the ranks of the agricultural army which had vanquished them, as after election the beaten party, many of them, go over to the majority, and thus secure some of the crumbs that fall from the victor's tables. Hence the West is constantly acting on the East with an increasing weight, and that at the end of a longer and longer lever. Here is one secret of its rapid growth.

It is forty years since the first white families entered Iowa. But no more than one-third of its present population were born within its limits; two-thirds have come in. Of its twelve hundred thousand to-day, about one-half had their birth in some more Eastern State.

Foreign countries, being further from the West than the Atlantic slope is, have hitherto felt its influence less, but even they were long since driven, as well as drawn, to send their sons thither. The influence exerted upon them has been of the same nature with that which has brought westward so many from our own East. Hence one-sixth of the population of Iowa, and one-fourth of that in Nebraska have come into them from beyond the Atlantic.

Many Europeans have so emigrated because they could not compete, even in European markets, with farmers, the fee simple of whose land cost no more per acre than the rent, or even than the fertilizers, of each of their trans-Atlantic acres for one single year.

The influence of American competition has been intensified by the abolition of British corn laws, and other barriers to the free entrance of American farm products into foreign markets. Every new line of railroad, steamers or ships - which are the arteries of modern civilization - every reduction of freight charges, every harvest here exceptionally good or exceptionally bad abroad, every emigration agency, like that in Great Britain of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company, has heightened this influence. It was never so strong as to-day, but it will be stronger to-morrow. The stronger it grows the more strength it has to grow stronger. Nor can it fail to wax still more mighty till so many of the European millions have migrated that the density of population, and the rate of wages will become well nigh equalized on both sides of the Atlantic.

LAND SALES. Within the last three years the sales of land, both from grants to the State for schools and various public objects, as well as from those to

23 railroads, have been enormous. Not to speak of those made by the Union and Midland Pacific lines, the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company, between April 1870, when its lands were first brought into the market, and the 1st of January, 1873, sold in Nebraska 294,625 acres for $2,482,547, and that to 2,325 purchasers, almost all of whom were actual settlers, and each usually representing a family. Established on these B. & M. lands, there are colonies of English, Welsh, Swedes, Germans and Bohemians, as well as from many of the older American States. Each being in correspondence with the community whence it migrated, is a nucleus of greater growth after its kind. Like likes like, and seeks it too.

The figures above show that the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company have, thus far, sold their land grant in Nebraska at the average rate of $8.42.61 per acre. This price is proved to be low, by the fact that it is less than Nebraska school lands no way more desirable, have always brought when sold at auction. The average price at which these school lands, have been bid off is $8.88, according to a special message sent to the Legislature, by Gov. Furnas, Jan. 14, 1873. But this price is forty-five cents and a fraction per acre higher than that which the railroad have charged their purchasers, which is $8.42.61 as above stated. Moreover, the buyer of school lands has been obliged, either to pay promptly, or to pay 10 per cent. interest, on credits for which the railroad require only six per cent.

Nor are the school lands superior to those of the railroad. Some of them lie in every township where the railroad has an acre to sell. Buyers of railroad lands have had their pick out of more than two millions of acres. The choice of those who buy on. school sections must be made among less than three millions.

In some respects it may be presumed that railroad farms are on an average more desirable than those on school sections. They are all near a railroad track, many school lands are not. In each township, also, the buyer of railroad land has his choice among eighteen sections, while the buyer of school land is limited to only two sections - a sort of Hobson's choice.

On the whole, it is not surprising that a large majority of farm hunters have preferred to purchase of the railroad rather than of school commissioners.. The number of acres of school land which had been sold up to the close of the year, 1872, was 112,102, which is little more than one-third of the acres, which, within less than three years before that date, had been disposed of by the railroad, namely, as appears by the statement above, 294,625.

Sketch

25 B. & M. lands are the greater favorites, because sold on ten years' credit and six per cent. interest, terms which enable most purchasers to pay their installments (no one of which falls due for four years) with the avails of the crops raised on the farms which they buy. Thus lands pay for themselves.

Another reason for the rapid sale of the B. & M. railroad lands, aside from their nearness to the iron horse, bringing all that farmers need to buy, and carrying to market all they wish to sell, is their lying close by farms already cultivated by homesteaders, so that the new comer will always have neighbors at hand from the outset, and a neighbor in a new State is apt to be more helpful than a brother in an old one.

Moreover, the B. & M. Company was the first to build reception houses, affording, in Burlington and Lincoln, shelter, lodging-room, and appliances for cooking to all strangers without charge. (See opposite page.)

The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, in Nebraska, lies partly in old and partly in new counties. Accordingly, the following Agricultural details will afford a representative specimen of the State in that regard:

STATISTICS FOR 1870 OF COUNTIES IN NEBRASKA TRAVERSED BY THE
BURLINGTON AND MISSOURI RIVER RAILROAD
Sketch

In 1872 the acreage of wheat and corn was 40 per cent. greater than in 1871, and in 1871 the increase over 1870 had been nearly as great. Such is the estimate in the United States Monthly Reports.