26 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [304 



quarter-sections, the average number of acres taken on each 

 entry was 146.3. 



Of these original entries, fourteen were pre-emptions, forty- 

 seven were homesteads, and nine were soldiers' homestead 

 declaratory statements, intended to mature in due time into 

 homesteads proper, all but four, in fact, doing so. It is 

 proper, then, to say that there were fourteen pre-emptions as 

 against fifty-six homesteads; that is, four-fifths of all entries 

 were homesteads. This shows, at least, the relative estima- 

 tion in which the two ways of taking land were held. It 

 might at first sight seem that the taking of a homestead indi- 

 cated that the settler came with the intention of residing 

 permanently, but did not have sufficient means to purchase 

 the land he desired, even at the very low prices demanded by 

 the government; thus it would follow that four-fifths of the 

 entries were made by settlers who were lacking the means 

 necessary for pre-emption. But such a conclusion must be 

 looked at with caution, for in considering the individual cases 

 we find that here and there a well-to-do " speculator wl took 

 a homestead, while on the contrary a pre-emption was occa- 

 sionally taken by one whose possessions were as nearly nil as 

 they well could be, and whose hopes for paying up on a pre- 

 emption must have been based entirely on some wild notion 

 of fabulous crops in the first years. Of the fourteen pre-emp- 

 tions mentioned above, only one 'was paid up, that one being 

 one of the two taken by the ranchmen whom we have spoken 

 of before. Three men relinquished their pre-emptions to 

 take homesteads on the same land, and four relinquished in 

 order to take timber-claims on the same land; the remaining 

 four gave up their holdings in the township altogether and 



1 The term " speculator," as used here and at other places in this 

 paper, always refers to residents. It includes both those who took 

 government land and resided thereon just long enough to "prove 

 up," and those who, coming later and purchasing land from the 

 railroad company or from other settlers, had a speculation as their 

 prime motive, but who really made their living out of the farms for 

 one or more years, while waiting for an opportunity to sell at a 

 profit. 



