12 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [290 



And now followed a great rush by the waiting emigrants for 

 the best claims all along the river, although the land had not 

 yet been formally opened for pre-emptions. In order to pro- 

 tect the squatter rights, and later the pre-emption rights, 

 clubs, or claim associations were founded in the various 

 river counties, and " club law," dealing out summary punish- 

 ment to claim-jumpers and others of their ilk, became the 

 order of the day. 1 Before the close of 1854 several towns 

 had been projected, among them Omaha, Florence, Platts- 

 mouth, and Nebraska City, the opening of the latter having 

 been celebrated "on the spot," July 4th, 1854. 

 ^ ; The air was full of speculation, and the early activities of 

 * the settlers were directed mainly to the advancement of their 

 civic interests, or in other words, to the sale of corner lots. 

 At first agriculture was very little thought of, the new-comers 

 looking upon themselves for the most part as transients, and 

 Nebraska as their abiding place only until the happy day 

 when they would have finished the accumulation of small 

 fortunes, for enjoyment in their eastern homes. In fact, 

 there seems to have been a pretty general belief that the new 

 territory was very ill adapted for farming, and that whatever 

 else it might become, it would at least never be a great agri- 

 cultural state. Even after the lapse of five or six years farm- 

 ing was a matter of very minor importance, as can be seen 

 from the figures of the census of 1860. In this year the popu- 

 lation of Nebraska was 28,841, but only 3982 of these were 

 reported as engaged in farming; and even of these latter the 

 greater number were only nominally farmers, so that, on the 

 authority of Senator Paddock, 2 the area of regularly honestly 

 cultivated land probably did not at the outside exceed more 

 than 500,000 acres for the whole territory. 8 But with the rap- 



1 See Transactions Nebraska State Historical Sociey, Vol. II, here 

 and there. Also Jesse Macy's Institutional Beginnings in a West- 

 ern State, Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. H., No. 7. 



2 Address before the State Board of Agriculture, Lincoln, Neb., 

 Sept. 26, 1878. 



"The census of 1860, however, reported 118,789 improved acres 

 and 512,425 unimproved acres hi farms; but its figures are undoubt- 

 edly too large. 



