572 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lands granted to private individuals have been, since 1860, usually in 

 small tracts, varying from eighty (80) to one thousand (1,000) acres, 

 the greater share being in tracts known as quarter sections of one 

 hundred and sixty (160) acres. This is the one always required under 

 the Homestead and preemption laws. The lands of railroads were 

 originally granted to them in large tracts. Some of it has been dis- 

 posed of by them in large tracts to wealthy corporations and individuals 

 and by them converted to vast farms, known usually as 'bonanza' 

 farms. The balance has been sold or is in the process of sale, in smaller 

 tracts on long-time credit to poor settlers. The usual method of sale 

 is one tenth cash and the balance in nine annual payments with inter- 

 est. The ordinary sale of this railroad land is a tract of one hundred 

 and sixty (160) acres, the one on which the poor settler, as a rule, 

 begins his career on the frontier. 



The first settlement of the frontier, as now described, is accom- 

 panied with many transfers of land title, owing to the facilities of such 

 transfer and by reason of the benefits that all parties can find in the 

 same. Many who have acquired land under the Homestead law sell it 

 to their neighbors or to a newcomer with ready money. They then 

 take up a new farm under the preemption law, and use the money re- 

 ceived for the sale of the first farm to improve the second. The 

 divisions of the bonanza farm, the land of which is usually purchased 

 from the railroads, combined with the results of those transferred 

 among the original settlers, give to the farmer on the frontier an aver- 

 age size of from two hundred and forty (240) to three hundred and 

 twenty (320) acres, the largest containing thousands of acres and the 

 smallest from twenty (20) to forty (40) acres. 



When first settled, these large and small farms in the grain-growing 

 sections are always cultivated on an extensive system, largely in grain. 

 The original occupants, whether of large or small farms, turned over 

 the sod and planted their grain with the application of very hard labor 

 and without fertilizers and, as a rule, without any very gen- 

 eral comprehension of the art of agriculture. This was the 

 necessity of the case, and it has been and is still a success un- 

 der the conditions of the frontier. Under these conditions a 

 vast body of pioneers have become prosperous, some of them 

 attaining large wealth, and with their wealth buying out their 

 less successful neighbors and adding to the area of the great farms. 

 That phase has nearly passed by in the great Mississippi Valley and 

 in the States named. With the passage of years, in every part of these- 

 twelve States, this extensive system of cultivation comes to an end and 

 the intensive system of working the land in various crops takes its 

 place. With this change the large bonanza farms are broken up and 

 the smaller farm becomes the rule. This change is a progressive one,. 



