The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-02-25
Increase of Public Lands.

Gen. w. B. Hazen, in an article in tn.
last number of the North american Re
uie,o, dispels the delusion under which
many have labored regarding the in
exhaustible extent of our public lands.
No man in the United States is better
calculated than he to give truthful and
reliable information upon this subject,
since he has passed many years in the
army service in different portions of
Great West, and has by travel and ex-
ploration become familiar with the en-
tire territory embraced between the
thirty-sixth and forty-sixth parallels of
north latitude. Very little land in those
regions now not pre-empted is fit for
agricultural purposes. In the southern
portion, from Western Texas to the
Pacific, he describes the physical feat
ures of the country as elevated, rugged,
arid and not even susceptible of i'm
provement by irrigation, owing to nat
ural sterility. While fertile oasis now
and then exists, these are not of suff1-
Gent frequency to have any material
effect upon the general character of the
soil. Farther nOrthward rich valleys are
of greater frequency, but they, too, are
as arid as the more southerly localities,
and water for irrigating purposes is
not often accessible; then their destitu-
ton of wood and timber and the bleak
desolation of their long, cold winters
preclusies dense settlement and POSSIBLE
ity of maintaining . large population.
To the extreme north, where the North
ern Pacific Railroad has been surveyed,
the outlook is; discouraging and forbid
ding in the extreme, since the lands are
barren and desolate, the cold intensely
severe, the winters long, while rains are
unfreque1t, and tillable, tracts are of
small extent and few in numbers.
Though available public lands for our
increasing population still exist in the
territory above named, their extent is of
far smaller proportions than those unac-
quainted with the real state of the facts
are willing to believe. The truth is, a
large portion of the natural domain has
been squandered, and the great desire to
possess immense farms has been produc-
tive of no good results, having prevent
ed agricultural development by vast half
cultivated tracts, large exhausted fields,
and Idle capital locked up In wholly I'M
cultivated acres. Therefore, while we
have NO more arabic lands to waste, there
is reason to hope for better development
In those now under cultivation, since
sgriculturists will in the end be obliged
to make more profitable use of those
they now possess. The popular belief
that our, public lands are of sufficient
magnitude to enable all who desire for
hundreds of years to come to pre-empt
fertile farms is being quite rapidly dis
PEELED by impartial and disinterested re-
ports from biologists and explorers.
Most Of the best locations have been
taken, and while those will admit of
better development for generations to
come, the immense unoccupied tracts
which lie between the fortieth and
twenty. fourth parallels of longitude west
from Washington and the northern line
of Mexico and the southern line of Brit
ish Americs, including the Territories
of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado,
Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, portions of
Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, have
been greatly oyerrsted regarding their
natural fertility and susceptibility for
agricultural purposes, Minerals, 1t is
true, abound, but. enterprises connected
with the industries resulting therefrom
never, tend to permanent settlement.
The population is transient, the improve
ments temporary, and ~ the minerals be-
come exhausted the country returns to
Ito original Hiidness. The fertile allu.
vial bottoms of Illinois and Missouri
and tho rolling wheat lands of Minnesota
and Eastern Kansas are now principally
In the hands Of large spectators, and
those lands In these localities yet open
70 presumption are generally wet and I'M
desirable. But 40 the fallacy of large
farms is daily becoming more apparent
these tracts will undoubtedly be divided
In time, since they who desire to live by
agriculture Arc beginning to realize the
advantages arising rom the |" little farm
well tillod. ""-zel1de BLADE.