40 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [318 



may have had its influence on this fact is the low standard 

 of living which prevailed during the early years and which 

 we have discussed above. 



The first man here listed leaving in '74 would probably 

 have stayed had his health been better and his energy con- 

 sequently greater. The next one, in '76, was a hard worker, 

 though with very small capital; after repeated crop failures 

 he became so discouraged that he gave up his land and 

 moved away. The case occurring the following year is 

 almost exactly similar, except that a general tendency toward 

 shiftlessness plays quite a large part in the failure to raise 

 good crops. Of those leaving in '82, one had really left his 

 claim a few years before under circumstances similar to the 

 second case named above, but did not sell until this year; 

 the other had come in '79 with a small capital of, say $500, 

 and had begun to open up a piece of railroad land, but find- 

 ing that he could not meet his payments, he moved back to 

 his old home to resume work at his trade and allowed his 

 contracts to be canceled. The case of '84 was similar to 

 the first one of '82. Of the two who thus lost their farms 

 in '88, one was an original settler on government land, who 

 kept steadily running behind till he was forced to sell his 

 farm to pay his debts ; the other had settled on railroad land 

 in '78, and what with poor management and bad crops got 

 into such a financial condition that he was forced to sell 

 and had practically nothing left. The six cases remaining 

 in this column, who left during '90, '91 and '92, were, with 

 one exception, all purchasers from other individuals. No 

 doubt the serious drouth of 1890 had much to do with 

 accelerating their ruin. One of these had too little capital to 

 enable him to pay up for his farm, and so had to give it up; 

 he is now a renter in the same precinct; the second and third 

 were at start moderately well off, but ran through every- 

 thing and are now renters; the fourth was still better off at 

 the start, but got into debt to everybody and so lost his land ; 

 the fifth, after twelve years' residence on and cultivation of 

 an eighty-acre farm, found himself considerably behind- 



