Omaha daily bee., 1893-09-17
End OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
Final Distribution Comes with the Settle
ment of the Cherokee Strip.
THE ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS
The Significance OF the psning and It's
Bearing on the 0ountry's Future
Whence Shall the land Hun
ter Torn HIS Face?

SO keen is the desire for farms anC
homes, so scarce the available lands, so
numerous the land-hungry, so sharp the
competition for this remnant of a vas,
arabic area, and 80 common the belief
that the Cherokee Outlet affords the
last chance" that thousands of people
have been upon the border many weary
months awaiting the opening.
With the Cherokee Outlet divided
among a fraction of the horde of home
seekers, says the New York Sun, there
VIII come an end to the greatest and
most peaceful movement of agricultural
population the world has ever witnessed,
and the future of American development
Will be hedged about by many of the
limitations so long prevalent in other
lands.
heretofore when an American rural
district became overcrowded the re-
duhdant population could choose be-
tween the n~eighboring town and the
vacant western lands. Whenever the
d~lfflcultles attending the earning of q
livelihood in the towns were increased
TO an unpleasant degree by reason of the
adoption OF some labor-saving device.
VIZ uioSohbclbcu UT ulSDlacCu altlSan
and laborer could, and often did. resort.
to the public domain.
This ecourse has had the effect of
maintaining and, at times, of advancing
wages; but when the Cherokee Outlet
snall nave been occupied, such q chance
Tor the homeless will have forever dis
appeared and the territorial extension
of American agriculture will have come
to an abrupt end.
End of Extension.
Fro!1 and after the occupation of the
land now thrown open to settle
ment-amoumting but to same 5000, 900
acres, only two-thirds of which is in the
area OF fairly distributed rainiall-agri-
cultural production can, in effect, in
crease only in the limited way and tardv
manner which will follow from the adop-
ton OF better methods, and by bringing
unde the plow such portions of the
older farms as are now lying waste or
but partially utilized. Additions to the
cultivated portions of existing farms
will necessarily be slow, as we'll as linn
tied, for the rapid increase of the urban
population necessitates great annual ad-
dltions to the number of dairy and
draught animals, and this necesSitates
proportionate additions to meadow and
pasture. So great have been the added
requirements in this direction that the
rich grain-bearing lands of Illinois and
OF other central states are converted into
pastures.
Whatever may prove to be the addi-
ions to the productive areas by bring
ing under cultivation the unimproved
lands of existing farms, there will not
result, such founding of new homes as
has obtained upon the public domain
since thalni1Hlnf f thA paun-too,L -
tury; and Hon Hoke Smith awill have
the distinction of proclaiming the end of
the most impressive phase of American
development.
1t is true that the public domain will
be far from exhausted when the Chero-
kee Outlet shall have been occupied: but.
Tor other thar %pasturing purposes. the
vacant lands are mostly valueless ex-
cept as here and there may be found
some small fraction of the arid area re-
by irrigation. or some swamp
that may be drained. Involving much of |
time, labor and money, either process
implies a scarcity of good lands capable
of being reduced to cultivation at low
cost. The land susceptible of irrigation
at limited cost is so limited in quantity,
as we have recently shown. as to war
rant the assertion hat the area which
can be added, within the span of an
average life, to the productive cXpanse
by this process, is not likely to double
the 1851 600 acres under irrigation in
1889.
At the south, in Maine. in Michigan.
Wisconsin and Minnesota, swamps of
considerable extent will eventually be
reclaimed: but, in themselves, such ad-
dltlons to the productive areas will af-
ford conclusive evidence of the scarcity
of nu1ti va hla lon1s of thn ;,,...
mand for farm products. as we'll rs of
she absence Of any considerable areas
which can be made productive at the
cost which has attended the opening of
farms upon the treeless plains.
Forty-four years measure but p frac-
ton of national life; yet forty-four years
ago the gold seekers traversed an nm
broken Wilderness from the Mississippi
to the western ocean. Since then Minnie
sofa, Kansas, Nebraska, the two Da-
kotas, the mountain states and those of
the Pacific slope have been evolved from
this wilderness and have aided i'm
inehse!y IN quadrupling the productive
area of the nation. These states. with
Iowa and Missouri, have added TO the
cultivated area more than 80, 0OO. 600
acres since 1865, which year marks the
lirst effort to estimate officially the area
under cultivation.
The rapidity with which the trans
mississippi regions have been subdued
and made productive is as wonderful as
1t is unrivaled in the progress of indus
trial life elsewhere. The ogr made
m reducing these wastes to cultivation.
and the sudden cessation of this phe-
development about the middle
the last decade although more people
than ever have, during the last eight
years, been DESTROYS of securing farms
and homes upon the public domain
afford abundant proof of the now prac.
ideally complete occupancy of the arabic
'ands.
Unfortunately, ensus tabulations did
not, until 1880 and near the close of the
period of greater development, furnish
l measure of the increase of cultivated
and the progress made in subdu-
ng the wilderness; nor do the census
ables of 1880 and 1890 help us, eXcept
theoretically, to determine the relative
Increase OF cultivated acres in the inter-
Mediate five-year periods, nor are there
,ther data that do so prior to 1865. AL
hough not wholly satisfactory, such
Iata exist in the reports of the Depart
nent OF Agriculture for 1865 and suisse
Iuent years, and they, with the census
lgures of 1880 and 1890, enable us 10
MEASURE the astounding strides made be-
1863 and 1884: to see how sudden
7as the halt called when most OF the
OF the Dakotas had been occupied.
nd nNV glA.V. a. 49,