Omaha daily bee., 1874-04-29
TIE PLATTE VALLEY.
The Garden Spot of the Continent.
What Nature has Done, and What
Men are Doing.
A Birds Eye View.
special Correspondence oil the BEEF

~ lC" lOoiS o6oe Wh
trans continental railway scheme,
now a thing of the past, was strug-
Cling toward the light, Nebraska
was comparatively unknown, and
the few who were sufficiently in
formed of the rare fertility of its
soil to speak boldly in its favor
were regarded as mercenary specu-
lators, who hoped to reap fortunes
by making dupes of those who were
foolish enough to emigrate thither.
Slow-paced truth seemed to have
forgotten her walk as the territory
of Nebraska drew slowly toward
public recognition. American
youth and middle age, educated that
this whole country was a desert
devoid of soil, too barren to produce
even a stunted timber growth; a
sun-parched plateau above the re-
gion of rain, uninhabited and I'M
inhabitable, were slow to believe
that their books and teachers erred,
and that i'm reality this elevated
| plain, overscored with numberless
water courses was the most fertile,
bounteous and healthy of all natures
dominion.
A rival to the southwark, made
prominent by the force OF circum-
/ stances, advertised over the whole
world by the struggle then e%nacting
within her borders between the
clashing interests of freedom and
slavery, secured the attention of
lovers of freedom everywhere (all
emigrants are suchT and for the
time overshadowed this territory
already free, and drew toward her
self the strongest current OF immi-
grafton. But there came a time /;
it was when the U. p. II. II. took
definite shape and started from
Omaha ON along, and by many con-
sidered, doubtful journey toward the
setting sun, when the world looked
again upon our wide prairies and
broad valleys and saw that they
were exceedingly fair. Whoever
looks upon it acknowledges that
the Platte Valley is the finest agri-
cultural spot on the face of the
earth.
Varying from twenty to fifty
miles in width, it has no marshes as
it is everywhere from ten to forty
feet above the rapidly flowing river,
defending toward the Missouri with
an even fall of about six feet TO the
mile, for the whole distance from
North Platte, where the two main
sources unite to its mouth, three
hundred and seventy-five miles,
and nearly two thousand feet be-
low.
Every foot of land i'm this valley,
nearly ten million acres in one
body, is rich as the Oldest garden in
the world, and before broken by the
settlers plow, was clothed with a
strong thick growth of grass from
one to four feet in heighth, which
billowed under the breeze like an
immense field of waving grain.
There Is not an acre in the whole
area-larger than some of the East
ern States-but that is susceptible of
| easy cultivation, and its entire sur
face is so smooth that a moving
machine may be run over every
square foot as easily, and cutting as
closely as on the best rolled mead
ow of the Gennesee or Connecticut
Valleys, where generation succeed
ing generation, has exhausted its
strength in making an artificial
farm. The U. p. Railroad runs
through its entire length, b%ringingtO
the settlers door, all requisites for
building the cottar's home, or fur
nishing the wealthy planters man
sion; carrying to the east Or west
whichever pays the highest price
the productions of soil and labor.
The Government granted this road
each alternate section of the land
within twenty miles each way
along its line through this valley,
and reserved the other sections for
actual settlers. The government
sections have nearly all been taken
up, and cultivated more or less fully
by h~omesteaders, as far west as
Grand Island, one hundred and fifty
miles from Omaha and also a large
portion of it for q hundred miles be-
yond that point. But all along the
line fully three-fOurths of the rail-
road lands are yet unsoldand unoc-
cupied, situated too, i'm the midst of
a thickly peopled, and a well organ
lied country.
These lands can be bought so low
that the price is hardly worth men,
tioning-from 50 to SO per acre on
ten years time according to lOca-
ton near or remote from. the road.
The original grant was about $780,
900 acres, of which but n million
have been sold, and though there
is vet so much land unsold, the
country is actually more thickly
settled than many portions of the
very oldest States. ~
The Government sections which
! have settlers on them comprise
more of the country and embrace
more cultivated farms than il is
possible To find in any equal area in
the agricultural districts of the New
England States, New York or Penn
sylvania. And at the same time
the millions of acres given to the
railroad do not cover 50 large an
area in this country as is wasted in
the useless mountains, rocky ridges,
vast marshes, and immense forests
in the States mentioned.- So rapid
has been the developement of this
country that along the line of this
road already are towns and cities of
considerable Importance and size,
varying from the station hamlet of
half a dozen houses to the city of
two or three thousand inhabitants
carrying on and living by the vari-
Gus industries incident to all coun-
tries. The little labor required to
build roads i'm all directions across
the country has been done, and
bridges built over all the water
courses. School houses have been
built i'm every township, 50 that
when the settler moves his family
into even the most thinly settled
portion of this valley, as good facili.
ties for the education of his children
are already provided, as those left
behind in the east.
After visiting all portions of the
Canadas, Eastern, Southern, MIDI
Ill - fIa NyvaCfopv Sfofoa /