The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1873-06-12

(for there are many female homesteaders
is head Of family, if not actually, We
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 sam
Lincoln Office, the claims filed by preemp
tors, that is purchasers, outnumber b,
more than a thousand, those of homestead
ers, being on New Years. 1873, 3,447
On the 10Th of August, 1872, a Unitet
States Land Office was first opened in Low
ell. On the fifth day thereafter, the numbe
of land claims already filed there amount
ed to SOC.
How much wiser it is for poor man tt
accept farm where it is free to each en-,
that will take it, than to scramble for lane
where it can scarcely be bought. Thu
homesteader, if poor, must rough it-per
haps live awhile in sod house-leavt
most of his land fallow, and work for {
neighbor till he earns his tools. But hi
cannot become a pauper. He is likely t.
find, for his first crop, home market a,
high prices, among settlers that follow
him. His farm will, all the time, rise ir
value, so that, before he is taxed at all, il
Is not unlikely that he can sell it for sew
eral times the government price.
When several Roman Princes consulted
the Deiphic 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 on 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
sod-houses. 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, Q5x15 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
60 for them, but westward trains are full
of wives carrying children to their hus.
bands. Sixteen babies have been counted
in a single car on this pilgrimage
Japhets 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 ont. A Massachusetts, man
chartered freight car, on Cape Ann, put
on board his household stuff, provisions,
wife and children, and travelled without
change to Nebraska, keeping house all the
time till he and his were landed at the
nearest station to Plymouth Colony.
The rapidity of settlement has been
largely owing to the recent extension of
railroads through these land districts.
But these roads could not have thus de-
veloped the country, had they not run on
the parallel along which settlement natu-
rally flows. Had their lines been far north
or south, population would have been no
more increased by them than the entrance
fees exacted at the gates of Florence were,
when stupid duke thought to double his
revenue by doubling the number of the
city gates, or than the early growth of
Illinois was accelerated by laying it all
out in town lots, so as to leave no land for
farms.
Regarding matters educational in Ne.
braska, the present Governor thus speaks
1--WE already have more organized schools,
more school houses erected, and those OF
superior character, more money invested
in buildings, books and apparatus, than
were ever had before by any State Of our
age. We have land endowment embrac.
ing one-eighteenth of the entire area of the
State. The value of local buildings
ranges from one thousand to two hundred
thousand dollars each. I am of the
opinion that our whole educational system
from common school to university, can,
with sound and careful management, be
made entirely independent of State aid
within q very few years."