The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-11-02
TEXAS LAND fever
STILL IS UNDATED
The Big Ranches Are Fast Be-
ing Cut UP to Make
Small Farms.
UNLOADING is NOW ON
Farmers from Iowa and Other North
ern States Are HustIing to Get in
Position to Act as bag
Holdcrs."

From the Philadelphia North American.
Westerners are having another virul-
ent attack of land fever. A couple of
years ago it was Oklahoma to which
the homeseeker was steered. Then it
was Canada. Now it is Texas. If a
third of the farmers from Iowa, Ne
braska, Kansas and Missouri who have
gone down there this fall remain, it
ont be long until Texas is among the
doubtful political states.
This is no spontaneous outburst, but
the result of the business methods of
the land agents. In the last two years
practically all of the big ranches in
the TeXas Panhandle have been bought
by land companies. These have ar
ranged with the railroads to run ex-
cursion trains from as far east as In
~dianapolis at half fare.
Their eastern agents gather up the
all punched at Kansas City, Wichita or
FL Reno, and there westerners who
know the land thoroughly and can talk
a mummy into a purchase take charge.
Amarillo. Tex, is the center of the
big land boom. Two years g it was
a cattle shipping point. the center of
the Gigantic LX ranch, with several
hundred Inhabitants. Today it has
5000, and nightly people have to sleep
on the streets Tor lack Of accommodate
lions '.'
Original Price, 20 Cents Per Acre.
The old ranch was twenty-seven miles
wide and sixty long. and was all un-
der fence. There We're 1900 sections,
or nearly nc, 600 acres. The company
bought the land originally for 20 cents
an acre.
The land boom in the Panhandle be-
4 when the company that owned the
ranch divided it up into sections and
began offering it at from 81, 500 to 50, 500
a section. A fourth of the land is yet
unsold, u the company has gathered
in $4,000. 900 for the Ian disposed of.
It's sale value is now from $40 to $40
an acre.
There are other big ranches in the
Panhandle. out in the Big Pasture. as
they call it. These are all being cut
UP and offered to the hungry land
seekers.
There has been ain enough this
summer, however, to make some of
these lakes present the appearance of
permanent institutions, and the land
agent employs them right handily in
clinching his propositions. The Pan
handle contains about $4,000 square
miles, and practically all of it has been
sold several times in the last three
years.
The final unloading is now on. Take
a farmer from Illinois and Iowa, and
he finds it difficult to make more than
6 per cent. on his s125-an-acre land at
home. A quarter section will readily
sell for 100000, and with that sum he
gets from 1000 to 1000 acres in Texas,
or land enough for all of the boys and
some left to make a new home on.
One Des Moines firm has options on
100000 acres in three counties. The
firm has agreed to build $50 miles of
railroad through the counties and to
plant $4,000 settlers there within
eighteen months. 1t looks now as
though it would have no difficulty in
making good.
1000 Families Represented.
1t recently "a a special trair Of
Iowa farmers, men who represented L.
900 families In their section, in a land