Year: 1875

We are furnished proclamation from the
Land Commissioner of Jay Gould's Pacific
Railroad asking us to tell the people about
the rich farming lands located sin the great
belt of population, commerce and wealth
and adjoining the worlds highway from
ocean to ocean" We are informed that there
are twelve million acres of these lands and
that three millions are now for sale. The
terms under which they are to be sold are
ten years credit at six per cent interest and
at the rate of five dollars an acre. ''The
country is equally adapted to corn and
wheat, and there is no fever and no ague,
little snow in the winter time, and with tim
Der and coal" Nothing is said about
bananas or oranges or tropical fruits, as was
the custom when Jay Cooke was proposing
his Northern Pacific Railway. Altogether
we learn that on these three million acres in
the Platte Valley there may be found every
requisite of civilization


We trust that these flaming advertisements
asking people to go out and live in the West
ern country, away beyond the reach of civ
ilization, will be read second time before
they are accepted by our people. The advice
to ''go West is good to certain extent. The
fault with much of the emigration to the
Western country is that we spread out and
do not attain results that would come if we
were to concentrate upon certain advan-
tageous points. In other words, as an Eng
lish critic recently expressed it, America
swells but does not grow. We have certain
points in the West that are strong in agricul-
ture and in commerce, with every feature of
civilization. But around these points-Chi-
cago, st. Louis, Cincinnati, Denver, Topeka
there is vast, unimproved country In 60
ing into a country like this Platte Valley,
which Jay Goulds railroad agents are so
anxious to develop" the emigrant begins
with nothing. The price of the land, five
dollars an acre, added to the cost of
transportation and the necessary sub
sistence until the farm is made to pay,
will make it cost a great deal more than
better land nearer home. The land secured
by the Union Pacific is about as bad as any
land we have in the Territories 1t is not a
land of timber 1t has only recently recovered
from the grasshopper plague It's resources
are limited. We do not know any section of
the United States, except, perhaps, the ex-
treme southern part of New Mexico or Alaska,
that we would not prefer to see occupied by
emigrants than these acres which jay Gould
now offers for sale.


We think, also, that our settlements should
be made nearer home. Here we have Virginia,
large sections of Pennsylvania and New Jer-
sey and New York land still virgin, to be
purchased for small sum, adequate for
population of ten millions of people. Why
not, if our people want to ego West, go into
the northern counties of Pennsylvania or
into Southern New Jersey or into that beauti-
ful country that lies beyond the Blue Ridge?
They can find better land here than in Ne
braska, at a cheaper rate near the seaboard,
near their friends, within the shadow of the
older civilization. Before we encourage these
stock-gambling enterprises to carry hard
working, intelligent people out into the will
derness to pay for land great deal more
than it is worth, simply to strengthen the
stock of badly handled railroad, let us see
that we have thoroughly explored and devel-
oped the great country within five hundred
miles of New York