16 
The above estimates can only apply to the most barren parts of the 
arid districts. I think it can safely be said that there is very little land 
in Western Kansas and Nebraska where the native vegetation will not 
give support to cattle at the rate of 10 acres per head, and the ability 
of the land may readily be doubled by agricultural means. 
AGRICULTURE ON THE ARID PLAINS. 
The Akron (Colorado) Pioneer Press, August 20, 1886, says : 
The office of the Pioneer Press resembles somewhat an agricultural hall at a county 
fair. Com, millet, blue-joint, potatoes, buckwheat, oats, flax, beans, &c, that will 
compare favorably with any State in the Uuion. They were grown on sod in Col- 
orado, the great American desert, by teuderfeet. 
In the Homeseeker's Guide, published at Potter, Cheyenne County, 
in Southwestern Nebraska, are statements of the results of several in- 
stances of farming in that county last year, in which corn, potatoes, 
vegetables, turnips, &c, planted on sod land gave excellent results. 
In the Denver Times, August, 18S6, is the following article : 
The bountiful yield of agricultural products in Northwestern Nebraska is a matter 
of surprise to all heretofore strangers to this locality. Many homesteaders who came 
here last spring doubting and timid, are now enthusiastic with the outlook. Why 
should any one distrust a country where soil yields a plentiful harvest for the mere 
planting, and where boundless grazing fields furnish pasturage for vast herds of cat- 
tle tbe year round ? (Sidney Telegraph.) 
The above is a sample of the reports which are coming in from the arid region to 
the east and northeast of Denver, along the Union Pacific and the Burlington Roads. 
Not only Western Nebraska, but Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado are appar- 
ently moving forward in the agricultural line. Reports are to the effect that settlers 
from the eastward are crowding the rangers in the eastern halves of Arapahoe, Weld, 
and Bent Counties. They have generally settled upon the high lauds, and have 
planted crops which have had no water except that which has fallen from the skies. 
Strange as it may seem to the average man, who has been taught to regard the plains 
east of Denver as of no worth whatever, the crops are reported as prospering. One 
man is represented as having a 10-acre field of corn which aA r erages 8 feet in height. 
The importance of such development cannot be overestimated. If good crops can be 
regularly grown upon the plains lands without irrigation, the question of securing 
dense population in Colorado may be regarded as settled. 
Surveyor-general Lawson, of Colorado, in a recent report to Commis- 
sioner Sparks, says: 
The lands upon the plains in the eastern section of the State are being rapidly 
settled upon by a thrifty, determined class of farmers, who come with the avowed 
purpose of making permanent homes, and who claim that the so-called " Great 
American Desert" is no desert at all, but a most fertile region capable of sustaining 
a teeming population. They claim with apparent confidence that the notion that 
agriculture cannot, be profitably pursued in any portion of these plains except where 
irrigation is practicable is altogether erroneous, and maintain that there is ample 
rainfall to all the region east of the Rocky Mountains to secure abundant crops upon 
the soil, which is rich and genial, and that the apparently arid and unproductive 
character of these lands arise from the fact that in their natural state the water de- 
posited by the snows of winter and the rains of spring and summer have flowed from 
the surface and been carried off by the arroyas and sandy ravines in the proportion 
of at least four-fifths, whereas when the soil shall be plowed and cultivated it will 
