303] The Condition of the Western Farmer. 25 



square miles. Its southeast corner is, as nearly as may be, the 

 geographical center of Hall county. The main channel of 

 the Platte river lies, at its nearest point, about five miles 

 distant, while the northwestern corner of the township is 

 some thirteen or fourteen miles distant from the river. The 

 lands are what we have designated in this paper as " second 

 bottom" lands. The surface is very slightly undulating, so 

 slightly indeed that one who was not a close observer might 

 call it an almost perfect level. Through the northwestern 

 quarter of the town runs a small stream, Prairie Creek, and 

 there is one other streamlet which contains running water 

 only at certain times of the year. The fertility of the land is, 

 on the whole, of a very high grade; this matter, however, 

 will receive more careful attention hereafter. 



The first settlement in Hall county, on that part of the 

 "second bottom" lands which is drained by Prairie Creek, 

 had been made in the year 1871, but it was not until 1872 that 

 a claim of any sort was taken within the limits of Harrison 

 township. By the end of that year, however, entries of some 

 kind had been made on all of the government land therein. 

 The first entry was in the latter part of March, when two pre- 

 emptions were filed on quarter sections in the southeastern 

 part of the township. In April nine entries were made, most 

 of them homesteads, near the two claims taken in March; 

 two, however, were pre-emptions, placed in the western part of 

 the town by ranchers who hoped, while controlling under their 

 own claims but a few hundred acres, to be able to have the 

 use of many thousands of acres of unclaimed land around 

 them for grazing their cattle. Needless to say, the rapidity 

 of settlement surprised these men so greatly that they gave 

 up their claims in disgust and moved farther away. In May 

 there were six entries; in June, eleven; in July, six; in 

 August, twelve; in September, nineteen; in October, three; 

 and in November, two. This includes, it must be remem- 

 bered, only the first entry on each tract of ground, the total 

 number of such entries being seventy ; and as the government 

 land originally available for entry consisted of sixty-four 



