200 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



Table lands, the property of tlie nation at large, and transform- 

 ing what ought to be a blessing into a veritable curse. 



According to the reports of the General Laud Office down to July 

 1, 1899, the latest available, the average rate of alienation of our 

 public lands for the decade last preceding that date was nearly 

 11,500,000 acres per annum, which is approximately 1,000,000 

 acres per month, over 31,000 acres per day, about 1,300 acres per 

 hour, more than 21 acree per minute, or say one acre every three 

 eeconds, day and night, Sundays and holidays all included. Let 

 us try to picture to ourselves what these figures mean. They 

 mean that more than 17,000 square miles, an area considerably 

 larger than one-third of the State of New York, is given away, 

 practically given away, every year of our lives; nearly 1,500 square 

 miles, considerably more than the State of Rhode Island, every 

 month that pasises; more than two square miles every hour. 

 Imagine yourselves standing at the boundary, if there were such 

 a boundary, between the land now -the property of individuals and 

 that which still belongs to the nation at large, and seeing that 

 boundary moving before your eyes into the government posses- 

 sions at such a rate of speed that the latter were steadily shrink- 

 ing, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, at the rate 

 of 21 acres per minute! Such is the rapidity with which we are 

 energetically squandering our most inestimable possession. Our 

 property burns our pocket, as they say of a spendthrift's money, 

 end it seems that we shall never rest easy until we have dissipated 

 the whole. j 



Kow, of course, you will say at once: " Well, well, but we are 

 not giving the land away; the national treasury gets something 

 for it; and besides, we are developing the country. What in the 

 name of common sense is land good for, arable laud, if not for 

 civilized man to cultivate? We are giving homes to the home- 

 less of all the world. There is no grander chapter in the history 

 of mankind than the filling up of our great western territory with 

 industrious, intelligent, free and happy people." 



Let us consider these points. 



