COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 35 



years it was the unknown land, the land of possibilities and 

 wonders, as well as of danger and death. Therefore it has at- 

 tracted the hardy pioneer, and here, for lack of any other fron- 

 tier on the continent, the pioneer, though with the germ of 

 westward ho ! still lingering in his blood, has been compelled 

 at last to settle down. I shall not soon forget the sorrowful 

 desert-dweller whom I met in what seemed the ends of the earth 

 in Arizona. His nearest neighbor was fifteen miles away, his 

 post-office twenty-five miles, and yet he was bemoaning the fact 

 that the country was becoming crowded. "If there were any 

 more frontier," he said, "I'd go to it." 



It is hardy blood, that of the pioneer, good stock on which to 

 found the development of a country. For years the West has 

 been the lodestone for those adventurous spirits who love the 

 outdoor and exciting life of the mining prospector, the cow-boy, 

 the hunter a healthy, rugged lot, virtually all pure Americans. 



THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER 1 



JAMES BRYCE 



So America, in her swift onward progress, sees, looming on the 

 horizon and now no longer distant, a time of mists and shadows, 

 wherein dangers may lie concealed whose form and magnitude 

 she can scarcely yet conjecture. As she fills up her western re- 

 gions with inhabitants, she sees the time approach when all the 

 best land, even that which the extension of irrigation has made 

 available, will have been occupied, and when the land now un- 

 der cultivation will have been so far exhausted as to yield scan- 

 tier crops even to more expensive culture. Although transpor- 

 tation may also have then become cheaper, the price of food will 

 rise ; farms will be less easily obtained and will need more capi- 

 tal to work them with profit ; the struggle for existence will be- 

 come more severe. And while the outlet which the West now 

 provides for the overflow of the great cities will have become less 

 available, the cities will have grown immensely more populous; 



i Adapted from "The American Commonwealth, II," New Edition, (1916), 

 p. 913. Macmillan, N. Y. 



