Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-06-12
Interesting Nebraska Statistics.

braska: It's characteristics and Pros
meets by James D. Butler, Ii. D., we ex-
tract the following interesting statements.
Between 1850 and 1870 the number of
farms in the United States increased more
than half a million; in exact figures
e159Os, namely, from 2,044,077 to 1861
9s5 During the same decade the number
of farms in Nebraska grew from 2,7SO to
193O1. and has more than doubled within
the last two years.
The progress of demonstrating in Ne
braska. where more hOmesteads have been
taken than in any other State, with per-
hans one exception, will be plain from
the records of any of its Land Offices. The
following figures compiled at the office
now in Lincoln, but originally opened in
Nebraska City, afford representative
specimen. The first homestead claim filed
was by William Young, to a lot described
with the wonderful precision and concise
ness of the United States surveyors, as on
section "a, township 8, range east. This
record was made in 1868, on New Years
day:
On January 1, 1854, the homestead claims 90,
On January i, 1885, the homestead claims
On January i, 1855, the homestead claims 80
On January i, 1857, the homestead claims
amounted to. ......................... l,l4l
On january i, 1868, the homestead claims
amounted to- ........................ 1,663
On January T. 1869, the homested claims
amounted to. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 2,5o2
On January 1, 1870, the homestead claims
amounted to- Observation-Disclosures. 4,3s7
On January 1, 1871, the homestead claims
amounted tO.......................... $3.50
On January /, 1872 the homestead claims
amounted TO-. 5000
amounted tO......... .IS,oo4
In almost all cases each man or woman
flor there are many female hOmesteaders)
is head of family, if not actually, yet
hoped for in the near future.
In proof of what was said of home
steads as rendering adjacent lands salea-
BILE, it is worth notice that in this same
Lincoln Office, the claims filed by pre-emp-
tors, that is purchasers, outnumber by
more than thousand, those of homestead
ers, being on New Years, 1878, 13, AT.
On the 18th of August, 1872, a United
States Land office was first opened in Low
ell On the fifth day thereafter, the number
OF land claims already filed there amount
ed to 500.
How much wiser it is for poor man to
accept a farm where it is free to each enc
that will take it, than to scramble for land
where it can scarcely be bought. The
homesteader, if poor, must rough it-per-
haps live awhile in sod house-leave
most of his land fallow, and work for
neighbor till he earns his tools. But he
cannot become pauper. He is likely to
ma, for his first crop, home market at
nigh prices, among settlers that follow
him. His farm WILL all the time, rise in
value, SO that, before he is taxed at all, it
snot unlikely that he can sell it for sew
eral times the government price.
When several Roman Princes consulted
the Delphic oracle, they were told that he
OF them who first kissed his mother,
should become King of Rome: There.
upon one of them, Brutus, fell down and
kissed the earth. The oracle was fulfilled
when Brutus became the foremost Roman.
Homesteaders kiss that same mother, and
On the way to become more than Roman
Kings.
A majority of homesteaders are men of
family. Some of them enter Nebraska,
bringing their wives and children in their
own wagons, lodging on the way, and for
awhile OF their farms in those wagons.
If they have money they buy, at the
nearest railroad station, lumber for house
building, already SO far manufactured that
they need no carpenter to set up their
dwellings. But poorer men throw up
ssod-touses. The green sward turned up
by the breaking pillow is SO matted and
massed together as to form better brick
than the Hebrews turned out for Pharaoh,
even before he denied them straw. Out of
this material, and with no tool but spade
many a man by ten days labor has COM
pleted house, roof and all, (15x15 feet in
side)--a Nebraska "brown front"-both
warmer in winter and cooler in summer
than any house which can be made of
lumber. Doors and windows are for sale
IN all stores, and trees alongside every
brook afford rafters.
Many pioneers leave their families in
the old home until they have prepared the
new one. Few can leave their farms and
80 for them, but westward trains are full
OF wives carrying children to their hus-
Dands. Sixteen babies have been counted
In single car on this pilgrimage
1aphets in search of their Fathers.
But while most pioneers drop many a
comfort on their long march, some Yam
KEGS are shrewd enough to 60 West, and
yet not 90 Osa A Massachusetts man
chartered freight car, on Cape Ann, put
on board his household stuff, provisions,
Wife and children, and travelled without
cnange TO Nebraska, keeping house all the
II Il T. L. A