The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-08-07
UnsOld Public Lands.

Major Powell, the well-known ex-
plorer, of the United States surveying
corps of engineers, recently read paper
which attracted considerable attention
for the remarkable character of some
of his statements regarding the guam
tity and agricultural value of the I'M
sold public lands in the United States.
First he divides the whole area of the
United States into two parts, which he
designates as ''humid'' and ''arid, p" dis
playing the comparative areas by color
ed charts. The humid portions, as he
puts it, are those in which the rainfall
is sufficient for the purposes of agricul-
ture; the arid those where it is not.
According to him the arid PORTIONS,
excepting narrow strip on the Pacific
coast, comprise all the land west of a
line drawn north ana south through
the center of Minnesota, east of
Nebraska, and near the centres of Kan
sas, the Indian Territory and Texas.
He says that within the arid region
there are localities of great fertility in
valleys watered by streams, but the in
stances where the fertility depends di-
rectly upon the rainfall are exceedingly
few, and of all the unsold public lands
in the humid region the only portions
available for agriculture are small
proportion of the Minnesota lands"
The arid region he puts as including
/, 1,4S7, 300 square miles; of this some
100000 square miles he designates as
the ''pasturage" region, the remainder
being divided among what he terms the
mountain region, desert lands, bad
lands, timber lands, canon and lava
region, and so on. OF the pasturage
rapior ha fbat ,bi1a in, itc r,racapt
condition it is not entirely valueless,
sit is not entirely unfit for use as farm
ing lands" He "culminates'' by say
ing: "All the good public lands fit for
settlement are sold. There is not left
unsold in the whole United States of
land which a poor man could turn into
farm enough to make one average
county in Wisconsin,
These statements have excited some
comments and wonderment, as putting
the valuable lands of the country at a
figure very much below what people
generally had supposed. Mr.. James b.
Power, of st. Paul, writes letter to the
New York Tribune taking issue with
Major Powell, and giving quite another
and different view of very large por-
tion of the country described. Mr..
Power says that on the line of the
Northern Pacific Railroad alone, within
the limits of the grant to that road and
entirely within the limits of the Majors
'arid" region, q section of country
only opened to settlement within the
past five years, there is now popula-
tion of some 30, 900 people and culti-
waited area of at least 10000 acres.
Other parts of Western Minnesota are
equally well populated, and in the same
proportion are demonstrating the fer
tility of the country. The part of the
country thus included takes in the
western half of Minnesota and a por-
tion of the eastern part of Dakota,
probably in what the Major calls the
''pasturage'' region. Within these
limits alone there is now population
of over 1900 people and a cultivated
area of at least 100000 acres, from
which in the year 1876 were produced
100000 bushels of wheat, 1,S00,0
bushels of corn, 100000 bushels of
oats, 320, 1000 bushels of potatoes, and
other crops in equal proportion. Now
these facts go to prove that practical
farmers, by actual occupancy and culti-
walton, have demonstrated that very
considerable part of this 'sarid'' region,
declared by Major Powell as "entirely
unfit for use as farming lands,'' is in
fact uneXcelled for agricultural pur-
poses; and his st. Paul critic thinks if
he is as wide of the mark in other To-
calities as in that section of his ''arid"
region, very little reliance whatever can
be placed upon his judgment as to the
agricultural value of any country.