295] The Condition of the Western Farmer. 17 



the more sandy lands in the western part of the state, which 

 have already briefly been spoken of. 



In order to get a better idea of the way in which these set- 

 tlements progressed, an outline of the development in one or 

 two counties may be given. 



Seward county lies immediately west of Lancaster county, 

 in which is situated the capital of the state, and is some sixty 

 miles west of the Missouri. The first arrivals were in 1859, 

 when some disappointed gold-seekers on their way back to 

 the "states" determined to stop in Nebraska and try their 

 luck there. They established ranches, but did not do farming 

 at this time. The next comers established ranches in '62, 

 and in '63 a few more appear. The next year immigration 

 started out very briskly; but soon a great Indian scare drove 

 most of the settlers out of the county to safer parts on the 

 Missouri, and at the election in the fall only seven votes 

 were polled. Prior to 1867 the most of the settlements had 

 been made in the southern part of the county, but now the 

 location of the state capital at Lincoln, only a few miles away, 

 gave a great impulse to immigration, and by the close of the 

 spring of '68 a large proportion of the government land in 

 the county had been taken. In 1870 the school census 

 for Seward county showed 782 children of school age, while 

 the total number of inhabitants was 2953, and there were 

 some 24,000 acres of land under cultivation. The county 

 may then be called settled, and it proceeded in its growth 

 with the various ups and downs incident to agriculture. Be- 

 tween 1865 and 1875 the assessed value of property increased 

 from $29,000 odd to $1,597,000; and by 1879 it is said that 

 one-third of the acreage was actually under cultivation, while 

 the population had increased to over 11,000. 



Taking up now Adams county, which lies in the third tier 

 of counties west of Seward, we find a very different course. 

 Though it is nqw one of the richest and most populous 

 counties in the state, before the spring of 1870 Adams county 

 had not even had a ranch of any description within its bor- 

 ders. Two facts may be mentioned which indicate the causes 



