16 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [294 



of sand-hills ; and so it has been much better fitted for grazing 

 purposes than for agriculture. Consequently agricultural 

 settlements, the only kind with which we are concerned, 

 date back in many cases only five or six years. The sparse 

 populations have had great difficulty in withstanding the 

 partial failures of crops to which they have repeatedly been 

 subjected; and their term of occupation has been so short, 

 and the real nature of their lands is yet so imperfectly known, 

 that a discussion of them would teach us very little of value. 



To return now with more of detail to the region of the east- 

 ern Platte, we notice that nearly all the settlements along its 

 banks, with the exception of those near the Missouri river, 

 were on the northern side. 1 The reason for this is to be 

 found in the difference of the lay of the land on the two 

 banks. The bluffs on the south border directly on the river 

 for long distances, and in consequence, the first settler, with 

 the whole land before him to choose from, turned to the 

 north where the rich bottom lands stretch back from five to 

 twenty miles before reaching the bluffs. To these bottom 

 lands the settlements were very largely confined for many 

 years, and in very many cases it was not until several years 

 after the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad that the 

 back lands in these counties were entered upon at all. It 

 has been shown before that much the same Conditions 

 affected the settlement of the bottom lands of the small 

 streams in the whole eastern part of the state. 



During the decade 1860 to 1870 settlements in the 

 eastern counties became much thicker and there was a grad- 

 ual pushing westward all over the state. In 1870 the rate of 

 settlements seems to have been greatly accelerated again, 

 several new counties being entered upon, and the back lands 

 of the Platte River comties being to a considerable extent 

 taken. For several years this rate was kept up and then 

 settlers were forced, in order to get any land at all, to enter 



1 Of the counties previously enumerated, Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, 

 Colfax, Platte, Nance, Merrick, part of Hall, and Buffalo, lay to the 

 north. 



