nore. The common and high schools are carefully managed and thoroughly taught.
     It is only necessary to refer the reader to the map to convince him that the location of the city for business is unsurpassed. It is the largest city in a territory more than a hundred miles square, and its business extends far beyond that limit in many lines. The superior railroad facilities contribute largely to the success of the business enterprises.
     York has eleven different religious denominations, ten of which have properties of their own, aggregating over $150,000 in value.
     The Methodist Episcopal is the oldest in the city; it is a brick building, costing $18,000, with a seating capacity of 1,300. Its membership is 750. The Baptists organized in 1873 and up to 1883 it has scarcely an average of twenty-five members. In that year the erection of a church edifice was begun. The audience room has particularly fine acoustic properties and seats 600 people; the property is valued at $10,000; the membership is about 200; a Sunday School, Ladies' Aid Society and a band form helpful auxiliaries.
     The First Congregational Church is strong in numbers and influence, and its services always have a large attendance. Responsive selections form a part of the edifying order of worship and a fine choir adds an attraction to the services. A large Sabbath School and two Endeavor Societies help to swell the church's popularity.
     The First Presbyterian was organized in 1871 with eight members, the building first occupied being a small frame. The present handsome edifice erected at a cost of $13,000 was dedicated September, 1888. A parsonage was completed in 1891. It has about 300 members and a Sabbath School of about 200. It has Ladies' Aid and Mission Societies, a senior and junior Y. P. S. C. E. There are six ruling elders, three deacons and five trustees.
     The United Brethren have a neat but modest edifice on the corner of Eleventh Street and York Avenue.
     Holy Trinity, Episcopal, is quite a sightly little building. It has a well arranged chancel, vestry and choir, with several beautiful memorial windows, the two finest being the gift of the Knight Templars.
     The Evangelical Free Church is composed entirely of Scandinavians and has a membership of sixty-five.
      The Christian Church has a neat frame edifice valued at $5,000 and a membership of over 200.
     The Germans have a Congregational Church, and the Universalists have a pretty house of worship on East Seventh Street.
     The Catholics have the largest church attendance in the city, about 1200. They purchased in 1888 the buildings of the York Methodist College, which have been largely added to by the Ursuline Sisters for their academy. The chapel extension has since been made, and forms one of the finest church edifices in the State.

EDUCATIONAL

     The most important factor of civilization is the school. The American mind is at least prone to look at it in this way. Almost every American town is an educational center, unto itself the seat of a university of learning withal l its accessories except tuition. In the great West the most obscure hamlet has its graded schools, with no mean curriculum.
     York is fully abreast of the times in this respect. In fact is a little extraordinary along this line. She does not yield the palm to any town, great or small, in the State of Nebraska in public school facilities. York is populated by a class of people who take deep interest in educational affairs. There is a rather advanced public sentiment which would not be satisfied with indifferent school advantages.
      There is a strong demand for the very best and most modern methods of popular education, and we take pride in feeling that our schools fully meet this demand. The people have cheerfully and generously responded with the means necessary to promote this branch of the public welfare. They have a large, central school building, which was erected in 1888 at a cost of $25,000, and which is equal to any similar structure in the State, both in appearance and arrangement. It has every appointment incident to a first-class modern school building, and is comfortable, commodious and attractive. It is heated by furnaces and is provided with approved ventilation and the Rattan Dry Closet system, which is a complete success. This building contains six regular school rooms, a large high school or assembly room and two recitation rooms all so arranged as to be most convenient for conducting graded work. In addition to this there are two substantial brick ward school houses having four school rooms each, making in the aggregate fifteen school rooms, and beside these two recitation rooms. The present corps of teachers numbers eighteen. The board of education have pursued a progressive policy and have promptly adopted such innovations as the best judgment of educators approves. The latest and best methods of instruction are continually being sought after, and the high standing of the schools attests the benefits which have thus been secured. The primary aim, of course, has been to make the schools efficient., but it is believed they are made most efficient by being made attractive. They are not to be mere places of entertainment, but they should be so pleasant and hospitable to the children that they would rather attend than stay away. Enticement is better than compulsion, and there will be no great need of compulsory education laws where tact and good management make the schools an inviting retreat as well as a place of duty and study. The primary department is being conducted according to the late and more rational theory that the unvaried monotony of books is not conducive to the best interests of the child. Certain features of the kindergarten are employed in the primary rooms, and the little brains are allowed to rest while the little hands take a turn. The high school has a four years' course of study, which affords all the essentials of a good education. The young man or woman who masters it and

receives the diploma of the York high school will go out into the world well equipped for the ordinary pursuits of life.

ORPHANS' HOME.

     This was founded by the National Orphan's Home Society at York in 1889. The grant amounted to $10,000. It consists of a farm of 160 acres fenced in, an orchard, a house at that time nearly new containing twelve rooms, seven closets, bath-room, store-room, etc. Also a barn arranged for thirty cows and the horses in use, a milk-room with cold water vats and refrigerators, a poultry house, corn cribs, wind-mill filling a tank on the roof of the house and another at the barn. The Mothers' Jewels Home as it is called aims to train children under school age and under its excellent management is a far fitter place to rear children than in the majority of the family homes of our cities.
     York has four banks, a canning factory, a candy factory, brick manufactories that are being taxed to their utmost capacity to supply the demand for building material, a foundry and engine works, two flour mills, cigar manufactories, broom factory, wire fence works, marble works, chemical and bottling works, an artificial stone work, one daily, six weekly and three monthly papers, three first-class hotels. with a half dozen others, three lumber yards and four elevators, so that the visitor to York who comes expecting to find a primitive city is usually set back at our size and importance; and another thing, this great growth is not the result of any boom, it has been a steady growth to meet the incoming demands. There has never been any fictitious surface value placed on York real estate and with an active, enterprising board of trade, comprised of the men who have made the city what it is, there is not likely to be in the future.

YORK COUNTY.

     Since York County was first settled, twenty-five years ago, there has never been a failure of crops, and no year has passed in which the products of the county were not sufficient to supply the needs of its citizens and their stock. Never before has this country seen the ground in as good condition at this season of the year as at present, and a person risks little in saying that a good crop is assured. The immense products of former years have been consumed, and the demand for farm products this fall and winter will be active and prices correspondingly high. It is only reasonable in view of these facts that we should look forward to a more prosperous season than ever before, and that we should expect large accessions to our population within the next year.
      The claim that York County has never experienced a failure of crops is based upon history, and we further claim that in all human probability she never will; and this further and more important claim is not based on precedent alone, but upon existing facts which have been the cause of successive crops for twenty-three years, and will remain the same for a thousand years to come.
     Crop failures are caused either by drought or too much rain. There has never been a general failure in any considerable section of the country that was not attributable to one or the other of these causes. The soil and subsoil of York County, and of nearly all the southeastern part of Nebraska, are different from all other sections of the United States, and are most admirably arranged to successfully resist either drought or flood.
     The soil, which is from two to four feet deep in York County, is black sand mixed with very rich vegetable mold, and while it is always loose and mellow, has produced immense crops year after year, without the addition of any fertilizer. The loose, porous condition of the soil readily admits any quantity of water, which readily percolates through it into the sub-soil, so that very soon after the hardest rain, or an extended rainy season, the ground is dry enough to work and the roads are good. The ground is always mellow and easily tilled, and a man and team can tend a much larger acreage of crop here than any State east of the Missouri.
     Owing to this condition of the soil we never have and never will suffer from too much rain. No matter how much falls, nor how rapidly it may come, it is all absorbed in a very short time, and no traces of it are seen upon the surface. But the water is not wasted. By a provision of nature it is all carefully hoarded up in the porous subsoil where it remains until it is gradually drawn up through the soil during the dry, hot weather, and constantly supplies moisture in abundance to the roots of trees and growing crops. For weeks grain and grass continue to grow, and look fresh and green, without a shower, when in neighboring States the ground is parched and seamed with great cracks, and vegetation is withered and dried up. From these unalterable facts it can readily be seen that a failure of crops here is very improbable if not indeed impossible.
     Good farms in York County with comfortable buildings, orchards, groves, fences, tame grass meadows and pastures can be bought for twenty or thirty-five dollars per acre. These farms are actually worth more than twice that amount and must double in price in a very few years. Some farms are held now at fifty dollars per acre, end one was sold at that price only a few days ago, and others have occasionally been sold as high or even higher than that.
     Why are so many farms offered for sale at such unreasonably low prices? And why are they not all purchased at once by men who live here? The answer to the last question is brief; there is not money here to buy them with. Occasionally one is taken by some resident or the county, who has the means of raising the money, but what little capital is owned here is fully employed in the actual business transactions of the country. They are offered cheap because the men who hold them are not able to do so. They came here some years ago without any money and became heavily involved. Money was scarce and interest was high. The country was new, land