THE EXHAUSTION" OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 205 



forgotten that these figures include the great mountain 

 ranges, and all the barren lands. Only a comparatively 

 small portion is arable. The farming lands of the West 

 therefore, will all be taken before the close of this cen- 

 tury. And under private ownership they will naturally 

 appreciate in value with the increase of population. 

 Senator Wade, of Ohio, predicted, in the United States 

 Senate, some twenty -five years ago, that, by 1900, every 

 acre of good agricultural land in the Union Avould be 

 worth at least fifty dollars. This is very much of an 

 over-estimate, but it is nevertheless certain that our 

 wide domain will soon cease to palliate popular discon- 

 tent, because it will soon be beyond the reach of the poor. 

 But the settlement of the public lands has a further 

 and even deeper significance. The first permanent 

 settlers, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, im- 

 press their character on the community and common- 

 wealth for generations and centuries; and this abiding 

 stamp is to be given to the great West in the course of 

 the next fifteen or tioenty years. True, the land is not 

 settled as rapidly as it is disposed of by the govern- 

 ment. Many acres have passed into the hands of 

 wealthy syndicates or individual capitalists, and are 

 held by them for a rise in value; but this can delay 

 actual settlement for a short time only, and does not 

 modify the general statement that the great West is to 

 be settled by this generation. Robert Giffen, President 

 of the London Statistical Society, in an address on 

 "World Crowding,"! after following several lines of 

 reasoning to the same conclusion, says: "Whatever 

 way we may look at the matter, then, it seems certain 

 that, in twenty-five years' time, and probably before 

 that date, the limitation of area in the United States 

 will be felt. There will be no longer vast tracts of 

 virgin land for the settler. The whole available area 

 will be peopled agriculturally, as the Eastern States 

 are now peopled." Suppose the entire region west of 



» Topics of the Times, 1883. Vol. I., No. 1 p. 36. 



