Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1916-05-04
A land PROBLEM AHEAD
{FRoM THE PEORIA JouRNAL.)

The Nebraska State journal calls at
tention to the fact that Uncle Sans
opening of a 4,000-acre tract in the
North Platte irrigation district for set
tlement practically winds up the free
land distributor o. the nation. II
ADDS:
Free or 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 intensiyely.
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 6
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 f~ar-sighted statesman ant
publicist must devote his though,
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 one O
the reasons that the Canadian Govern
ment is offering 100 acres of land free
to the actual settler. There is NJ
dearth OF homesteads of this size, AM
the land is of the highest quality, be
ing such as produces yields of from 3,
to 60 bushels of wheat per acre, Will,
oats run from fifty to over hundred
bushels per acre. 1t is not only a mat
ter OF free grants, but in Western Can
ada are also to be had other lands a
prices ranging from $12 to $50 pc
acre, the difference in price bein,
largely a matter of location and dis
lance from railway. If one takes int,
consideration the scarcity of fire.
grant lands in the United States it i
not difficult to understand why ther,
has been most material advances il
the price OF farm lands.
A few years ago, land that now sell
for two hundred dollars an acre i
Iowa, could have been bought for Sc,
enty-hve dollars an acre or less. TIL
increased price is warranted by tn
increased value of the product raise
on these farms. The lands that toda
can be had in Western Canada at tn
low prices quoted will in a less tim
than that taken for the Iowa lands t
increase, have a prop%ortionate il
crease. In Nebraska the lands tina
sold for sixteen to twenty dollars ne
acre seven years ago, find a market a
one hundred and seventy-fve dollar
an acre, for the same reason given fo
the increase in Iowa lands. Value
in these two States, as well as in otE
ers that might be mentioned, sho,
that Western Canada lands are goin
at a song at their present prices. |,
many cases in Western Canada TODAY
there are American settlers who rea.
ize this, and are placing a value O
sixty and seventy dollars an acre @,
their improved farms, but would sci
only because they can purchase ur
improved land at such a low price tina
in another few years they would hav
equally as good farms as they left O
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