PASSING OF THE FEDERAL PASTURE 



of the avidity with which somewhat arid 

 and forbidding tracts are seized upon and 

 settled. In the domain covered by the 

 lease-bill drafts no preceding year witnessed 

 so many agricultural settler entries as the 

 fiscal year 1900-01. That year, on the terri- 

 tory referred to, 53,654 original homesteads 

 were taken, covering 7,874,000 acres, and 

 27,904 final homestead entries were made, 

 embracing 4,135,819 acres. Here were 

 81,558 persons, most of them heads of fami- 

 lies, making homes. 



Vast portions of the public domain long 

 thought unfit for cultivation are now profit- 

 ably tilled even without irrigation. Other 

 considerable sections are irrigated into fer- 

 tility, by private effort, from streams or by 

 artesian wells. Intensive culture, now com- 

 ing to be understood, turns other semi-arid 

 regions into blooming farms almost irre- 

 spective of rainfall. Every patriot wishes 

 these processes continued. 



However difficult to frame a leasing law 

 which would not hinder homesteading, such 

 a feat seems not beyond human skill. It 



59 



