32 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



320 Acre Homesteads. 



"There was passed by the representative of Wyoming in Congress 

 the other day, a bill which I think is going to make a great upward 

 movement in this entire western country and especially in the arid lands, 

 by an amendment which he made to the Homestead Act, which provides 

 that a person settling on the public domain can now locate on 320 acres 

 instead of 160 acres. That will give the farmer who is accustomed to 

 having a farm of 160 acres, the right and privilege to alternate under 



Biennial Cropping. 



the Campbell system, to cultivate one-half of his farm one year, and then 

 let is rest for a year and cultivate the other half the next, thereby con- 

 serving two years' supply of water in the land, so that when he calls upon 

 it to meet the demands of nature for growth he will have a larger quan- 

 tity by reason of having left it unfilled for one year. 



"My friends, I have always thought the Homestead Bill ought to 

 have been provided for a larger acreage in the arid West than in the fer- 

 tile valleys of the Mississippi, and there has been a desire on the part of 

 Congress to permit that larger amount of land to be taken as a homestead 

 and I am glad to know that the representative of the State of Wyoming 

 has been a pioneer in that movement and has accomplished this great 

 result for the benefit of the entire West. 



Immigration Increasing. 



"Now you will find that men who hesitated about taking up simply 

 160 acres will not hesitate to take up the much greater area, namely 320 

 acres, and I believe that that act will put an impetus into settling on 

 the public domain to such an extent that it will not be many years 

 before all of these arid plains will be settled by homesteaders. 



"My friends, with an area of land such as we have, and the best 

 minds on earth to devise ways in which growth can be made, it seems to 

 me that under this system which we are attemping now of scientific 

 farming, under the selection of seeds and under the greater area which 

 persons can take up land on the public domain,- all this area between 

 the Rocky Mountains and the One Hundredth Meridian is going to be a 

 land where there will be prosperity; land which will be placed in private 

 ownership; land that will be subject to taxation and will deliver taxes 

 for the county and state governments, and which will assure our states 

 a happy and prosperous future. This condition is what we want. We 

 are meet'ng here to devise means of accomplishing this end and I have 

 no doubt that that end one day will be reached. 



"I notice that the Governors of the various states, nearly all of 

 them have sent invitations to this Congress to meet in their state at the 

 next annual meeting thereof, and I want to tell you we have a beautiful 

 city about 100 miles below here called the city of Denver. (Applause.) 

 That we are in the habit of having conventions there from the national 

 convention of a political party down to our own state and county con- 

 ventions, and the conventions of numerous congresses which exist in 



