Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-03-04
MORE SETTLERS WANTED
By Frederic J. Haskin
[Continucd from Editorial Page ]

lContinucd from Editorial Page.
ers have their own ideas as to how
tho situation should be handled.
Many of them do not believe that the
arid lands still open to entry can sup
port farmer. Six hundred and
forty acres of such land will only run
about forty or fifty cattle, and that is
not enough for a family to live on,
even in this day of high beef prices.
So some stockmen hold that settlers
should not be encouraged to take
up any great part of the land now
available.
The National Wool Growers Asso-
citation recommends that the Interior
Department classify all the land left
open into two classes-that suitable
for agriculture, and that suitable for
grazing. Then the former should be
parcelled out in whatever size units
are necessary to support homestead
ers, and the latter withdrawn from
entry entirely, to be leased for grazing
purposes. Such a proceeding would
stabilize the stock business as at pres
ent constituted, for under the present
system stockman does not know
when his range will be settled on by
homesteaders. The stocKmen say also
that this course would save many
homesteader from wasting his time
and his money on land that could
never yield him an adequate return.
On the other hand, the States with
public land in them have a strong
sentiment in favor of homesteading as
much land as possible. If GAO acres
will not support a family, they say,
/ then give them 1880. The western
States want homes, they want taxable
property developed, and new citizens
to throw their interests in with those
of the section. All the legislation in
favor of the grazing homestead has
| mi o. NNritb
and Representatives. The present
$40 acre bill was introduced last year
| by the late Mr.. Ferguson of New
Mexico, and this year by Mr.. Taylor"
of Colorado-both States with inn
mense tracts of public land.
In its relation to the emigration
| problem, there is little doubt that a
measure by which a man could take
up $40 acres and farm as much of it
| as possible, using the rest to run
sheep and cattle, would prove very
attractive to the homesteader. and
turn many eyes from Canada to our
own West.
Another bill which will have the
same effect is one to make It possible
for n boy or girl of eighteen to take
up a homestead. The present mini
mum age is twenty-one for anybody
who is not the head of family. Can
ada has a law setting the minimum
age at eighteen, and many young Am
ericans have taken advantage of the
opportunity to start in life three years
earlier than is possible in their own
country. The Canadian law in this
respect is particularly liberal. It pro-
vides that if the young homesteader
is living with his parents on Sec
ton of land adjoining the one he
wants to homestead, he can live at
home and still fulfill the residence re-
quirements of the homestead act.
Under the proposed law in this
country, the homesteader will not
have to begin living on his or her
claim until he is twenty-one years
old, but he cannot take out a final
patent and possess the land until he
is twenty-four. In other words, all
that he can do at eighteen is pick out
his land and make sure that nobody
else gets 1t. He can of course also
live on it in the mean time If he de-
sires, make a home, and improve it
as much as he cares to. In this way,
the bill is expected to prove a strong
supporter of the back to the farm"
movement A boy with 160, or $40
acres of the great outdoors for his
get a job as a ribbon clerk s
There is no doubt but that the as
poets of the public land question have
changed greatly in the last two or
three decades. The public land made
half the nation, and it is still vital
question in the West. On its proper
solution depends the prosperity of
great section of the country.