Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1879 — TH SALE OF LANDS. [ARTICLE]

TH SALE OF LANDS.

Unusual Activity in the MarketVast Numbers Looking to the Soil aa a Means of Bettaring their Condition. Texas, which- sold in the first year after the panic but 1,333,000 acres to actual settlers, sold 3,800,000 acres iu 1878, and there to every reason to believe that the sales of theJttete during the twelve months, covered by the returns of the United States, amounted to 4,000.000 acres. The sales by the principal railroads in the country were, in the calendar years immediately after the panic, from 400,000 to 600.000 acres yearly. They rose to 1 000,000 in 1877, and 2,550,000 acres in 1878. Partial reports and the rate of increase makes it {irobable that the sales in the year endng June 80 were at least 8,000,000 acres. Extremely incomplete returns in regard to the sale of land on behalf of States exist, but judging from the fragmentary returns for 1878 the sales in the last twelve months may be safely estimated at 500,000 acres. These estimates, all based on actual returns for the first six months of the year include in the annual return of tiie General Land Offloe, make the total amount of public lands sold at least 13,500,000 acres, of which it is known that threefourtns was sold to small holders; and it to probable that nine-tenths was. Lands are sold in larger quantities to settlers under the Texas land law and by the railroads than under the Homestead act, so that no accurate data exist for an estimate of the number of single purchasers interested in these rates; probably not less than 77,000, making an addition of almost 500,000 to the population of the West in the past year. As for the total amount of acres purchased, it about equals in area New. Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Grouping all the accessible returns of land sales for the previous year (ending June 30, 1878), we find them to be: Government homestead entries, 4,500,000 acres; Texas, 3,500,000 acres, railroads, 1,250,000 acres; from State giants, 250,000 acres—the last three estimated—and the total sales amount to 9,500,000 acres. During the last twentyfour months accordingly the sales of land in the West have amounted to fully 23,000,000 acres. The total area of the farming lands in this country was placed by the census of 1870 at 400,000,000 acres, less than half of which were improved. The additions made to this area, judging fron the land sales down to 1877, were not larger, certainly not over 20,000,000 acres, so that the increase in the tost two years, and much the larger part of it in the last twelve months, has added 5 per cent to the farming lands of the country. If these lands add in time in the same proportion to the demand for labor of those engaged in farming occupations, they will need the services of 600,000 persons, men and women, young and old, employed on farms in one capacity and another.