AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 313 



Island. Some of this drift of population away from these rural 

 districts of the Eastern states was westward. The secretary of 

 state of the state of New York, impressed by the shifting popu- 

 lation of that state, sent out circulars inquiring the probable 

 causes of the changes ; and in about 230 replies received we 

 find that 65 towns attributed their loss to emigration, chiefly to 

 the West. Newspapers and railroad reports add their testimony 

 to the same effect. St. Paul (Minnesota), a typical town of 

 13,000 in the growing sections of Minnesota, in the five years 

 from 1 86 1 to 1865 received 2200 persons from other states. 



Another strong indication of the growth of population in the 

 agricultural West was the constant occupation of new lands in 

 every year of war. The Illinois Central Railroad, in the counties 

 bordering along its lines, in i860 sold 53,841.70 acres ; in 1861, 

 102,247 acres ; in 1862, 87,599 acres ; in 1863, 221,578 acres ; in 

 1864, 264,422 acres; in 1865, 154,252 acres. These heavy sales 

 were, moreover, not to speculators, in large amounts, but to a large 

 number of holders, in small amounts. In 1862 and 1863 approx- 

 imately 6000 buyers, many of them from the Southern and border 

 states, took an average of less than 60 acres each. During the 

 whole war the counties along the line of the railroad grew in popu- 

 lation 430,000. In other states, for example, in Minnesota, 

 the railroads were actively disposing of their lands. 



The state and government lands were also filling up. Wiscon- 

 sin sold 340,000 acres of school lands, swamp lands, and univer- 

 sity lands; Minnesota, 155,000 acres of school lands. Under the 

 Homestead Act, by the terms of which the general government 

 gave away to actual settlers (not to speculators), for a nominal fee, 

 farms of 160 acres each, 140,988 acres were taken up in the 

 various states and territories from January 1 to July I, 1863 ; 

 1,261,592.61 acres from July 1, 1863, to July 1, 1864 ; and 

 1,160,532.32 acres from July I, 1864, to July 1, 1865, more 

 than 21,600 farms occupied in two and a half years by permanent 

 settlers. Of these homesteads 7864 were in Minnesota; 221 1, in 

 Wisconsin; 711, in Iowa; 1755, in Nebraska; 31 15, in Michi- 

 gan ; 2067, in Kansas ; and a smaller number, in several other 

 states and territories. The government disposed of much land in 



