The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1916-05-04
4 LAND PROBLEM AHEAD
tFRoM THE PEORIA JouRNAL.)

(fhOM TIE FGOnitA hNAA.@
The Nebraska State Journal calls at
tention to the fact that Uncle SAINTS
opening of q 4,000-acre tract in the
North Platte Irrigation district for set
Element practically winds up the free
land distribution OF the nation. 1t
adds:
Free OF cheap land has been
the American safety valve. A
population straining for self-bet-
terment has had its own remedy
to go west and grow up with the
country. With the government
reduced to advertising an opening
OF forty-three farms, the safety
valve may be considered forever
closed. The expansive energy for
merly exerted outward, must here
after work itself out in~tensively.
Increasing land speculation, with
rapidly rising prices of land and
proportionately increasing dissat-
isfaction among the landless would
seem inevitable. The tone of our
politics and the intensity of our
social problems cannot but be vi
tally changed under the strain of
dealing internally with a social
pressure which hitherto has had
the wilderness to vent itself upon.
Land hunger will soon become a
reality in this rapidly growing country
and the constant pressure of popula-
ton, increasingly higher than the ratio
OF production, is bound to bring us
face to face with economic problems
that we have heretofore considered re-
mote. The far-sighted statesman and
publicist must devote his thought
earnestly to the consideration Of these
questions If we are to escape the ex-
tremes which curse the older nations
Of the world
In the above will be found n of
the reasons that the Canadian Govern
ment is offering 160 acres of land free
to the actual settler. There is no
dearth Of homesteads of this size, and
the land is Of the highest quality, be-
ing such as produces yields of from 80
to GO bushels OF wheat per acre, while
oats run from fifty to over hundred
bushels per acre. 1t is not only a mat
ter OF free grants, but in Western Can
d are also to be had other lands at
prices ranging from $12 to $50 per
acre, the difference in price being
largely a matter of location and dis.
flnHa from r.0 i1yrnv ~ . re 49, 49,. s-4-
consideration the scarcity of free
grant lands in the United States it is
not difficult to understand why there
has been most material advances In
the price of farm lands.
A few years ago, land that now sells
for two hundred dollars an acre in
Iowa, could have been bought for sew.
enty-tive dollars an acre or less. The
increased price is warranted by the
increased value of the product raised
on these farms. The lands that today
can be had in Western Canada at the
low prices quoted will in a less time
than that taken for the Iowa lands to
increase, have a proportionate in,
crease. In Nebraska the lands that
sold for sixteen to twenty dollars pei
acre seven years ago, find a market al
Il hundred and seventy-five dollars
an acre, for the same reason given fol
the increase in Iowa lands. Values
in these two States, as we'll as in 9th
ers that might be mentioned, show
that Western Canada lands are goine
lat a song at their present prices. Ii
many cases in Western Canada today
there are American settlers who real
ize this, and are placing a value O.
sixty and seventy dollars an acre OF
their improved farms, but would sci
only because they can purchase un
improved land at such a low price tina
in another few years they would have
! equally as good farms as tI::eyy eft Of