The Elk Mountain pilot., 1916-08-26
A LAND PROBLEM AHEAD
{FRom THE PEORIA JouRNAL.)

n
The Nebraska State Journal calls at
tention to the fact that Uncle Sans
opening of 4.OOO-acre tract in the
North Platte irrigation district for set
tlement practically winds up the free
land distribution" of the nation. 1t
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 intensively.
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.
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
questions If we are to escape the eX-
tremes which curse the older nations
of the world.
In the above will be found one of
the reasons that the Canadian Govern
ment is Offering 160 acres of land free
to the actual settler. There IL no
dearth OF homesteads of this size, and
the land is of the highest quality. be-
ing such as produces yields of from 30
to 60 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
ada are also to be had other lands at
prices ranging from s12 to $50 per
acre. the difference in price being
largely a matter OF location and dis
tance from railway. II one takes into
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-flve 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 less time
than that taken for the Iowa lands to
increase, have proportionate in
crease. In Nebraska the lands that
sold for s:~teen to twenty dollars per
acre seven years ago, find a market at
one hundred and seventy-five dollars
an acre, for the same reason given for
the increase in Iowa lands. Values
in these two States, as well as in 9TH
ers that might be mentioned. show
that Western Canada lands are going
at song at their present prices. In
many cases in Western Canada today.
there are American settlers, who real
ize this. and are placing value of
sixty and seventy dollars an acre on
their improved farms, but would sell
only because they can purchase un-
improved land at such low price that
in another few years they would have
equally as good farms as they left or