Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-02-25
Increase OF Public Lands.

Gen. w. Il. Hazen, In an article In tn.
last number of the North american Re
Uiew, dispels the delusion under which
many have labored regarding the in
exbaustible 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 inn
provement by irrigation, owing to nat
ural sterility While fertile oasis now
and then exists, these are not of suffi-
cient 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
deso.ation of their long, cold winters
precludes dense settlement and possibil-
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
unfrequent, 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, q
large portion of the natural domain has
been squandered, and the great desire TO
possess immense farms has been prpduc-
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 un.
have no more arabic lands to waste, there
is reason to hope for better Develop ent
in those now under cultivation, Since
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 geologists and explorers.
Most of the best locations have been
taken, and while those will admit of
| better development for generations tn
| 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 America, including the Territories
| of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado,
Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, portions OF
| Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, have
| been greatly overrated 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
| mcnts temporary, and as the minerals be-
come exhausted the country returns to
| its original wildness. The fertile allu-
vial bottoms of Illinois and Missouri
| and the 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
] to presumption are generally wet and un.
desirable. But as the fallacy of large
farms is daily becoming more apparent
these tracts will undoubtedly he divided
in time, since they who desire to live by
agriculture are beginning to realize the
advantages arising from the " little farm
well titled. "-IOledo Blade.
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