New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-04-18
Value Of Land Grants.

The Boston Daily Adcrtiser has a long ar
ticle on the value of land grants to railroads,
which concludes as follows:
With respect to the grant of the North
ern Pacific Railroad and its prospective value,
Congress granted to this company 1900
acres of land to each mile of road, commence
ing on Lake Superior and extending to the
eastern boundary line of Dakota, and q, 900
per mile from that line to the Pacific coast,
! This grant was to aid in the construction of
railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound
and the vicinity of Portland, Oregon, and
calls for about $4,000 acres, or 10000 square
miles OF land, an extent equal to New York
and Indiana together, or eleven and a half
times Massachusetts. The route of this road,
commencing in Minnesota, on the shores OF
Lake Superior, passes through the timbered
lands west of that lake, and over the region
OF prairies, lakes, and groves in western Min
nesota; thence it crosses the wonderful val
ley of the Red River of the North, and strikes
out over the gently undulatng and fertile
pralries of Dakota, and crossing the Missouri
river at the mouth of the Heart, it extends
to the beautiful valley of the Yellowstone in
nearly straight line; ascending this valley
and passing through belts of timber and rich
rolling lands, it goes through the Boseman
Pass OF the Belt Mountains into the central
valleys of the Gallatin, Madison and Jeffer-
son forks of the Upper Missouri; going up
the valleys of the latter and Divide Creek, it
runs through Deer Lodge Pass at an altitude
under five thousand feet above sea-level, and
descendS the western slope by the valleys OF
Deer Lodge Creek, Hell Gate River, and
CLAIR ks Fork to Lake Pend Oreille, where it
crosses the great grass plain of the Columbia
to Wallula; thence it follows the Columbia
River through the Cascade Mountains to the
Pacific coast. The climate of this great
land-grant belt across the continent is brac-
ing, and unusually healthful, being free from
all peculiar diseases. The soil, as a whole,
is of excellent quality, producing large crops
of wheat, rye, oats, and barley; vegetables
yield without a parallel in the history of hor-
ticulture in America, and all kinds of small
fruits, wild and cultivated, yield the same as
in the New England States. The nutritious
grasses growing wild on the eastern and
western slopes of the Rocky Mountains and
in the valleys afford sustenance for cattle the
year round, the climate being so mild as not
to necessitate shelter for stock in the winter
large portion of this grant is covered with
forests of an immense growth, the like OF
which cannot be found on this continent.
The mineral wealth of this region seems as
yet to be hardly explored; at the present
time no portion of our country promises
greater amount of precious metals than that
through which this road will run. Immense
coal deposits are found underlying a great
portion of the grant. The Committee on the
Pacific Railroad, in the United States Senate,
in their report, February 10, 1869, say
Every element of wealth, every condition OF
social growth and prosperity exist in super
abundance and beyond exhaustion in the re-
gion lying between Lake Superior and Puget |
Sound. For this immense country, railroads |
can do more than they have done for Hi |
nois.'" |
Now if we compute the ultimate value of /
this grant Of the Northern Pacific Railroad at |
81 per acre, the average of the land grant |
sales, it will amount to s406 000, 600; if at IS |
per acre, it amounts to $500, 900, 900; if at |
s3.07 per acre, the lowest of all the grants, it |
will amount to Sis, 060, 900. The latter sum |
is more than twice the estimated cost of the |
road, as set forth by the most competent |
engineers. These prospective results seem |
astounding, yet it strikes us as not unrea-
sonable to believe that the financial results |
of this grant shall even exceed the highest of |
these estimates, insomuch as its resources are
so immense, and will be developed with so
great facility by the railroad, which will be
the shorter and more easily operated of our
Pacific roads,"