GREAT AMERICAN LAND HOLDINGS. 89 



.and more acres ; a cattle raiser in New Mexico with 

 his seven hundred and fifty thousand acres ; and 

 numbers of them in Texas whose acres are counted 

 by hundreds of thousands. In the great Northwest 

 the land holdings for agricultural purposes for 

 grain, grass, and vegetables by hundreds, range 

 to fifty thousand acres and upwards, occupied by 

 tenants or machinery, or by both. The whole coun- 

 try, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, is dotted 

 no, they are not dots is patched with these huge 

 holdings. In comparison with the monopoly of the 

 lands here shown, that of the English landlords ap- 

 pears quite insignificant. And yet we are only in the 

 third decade of our movement. 



One of the great sources of supply for this mon- 

 strous monopoly is found in the railroad land grants 

 that have been so lavishly made by the general gov- 

 ernment, in tracts of tens of millions of acres each. 



But there are other sources in almost every State 

 in the Union. New Hampshire has shown her power 

 of development in this direction up to two hundred 

 and fifty thousand acres in the hands of one company. 

 Texas is lavish in the creation of single holdings, indi- 

 vidual and coparcenary, all through the hundreds of 

 thousands to near the millions of acres. Florida 

 wanders wildly in the millions of acres in her grants. 

 Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and other 

 States do not let slip any opportunities by which 

 these monopolies may be created. 



For every purpose for which lands can be used, 

 whether for denudation of their timber for foreign 

 export and home consumption, for cultivation, or for 



