William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[364] out west, hardly how far it ran up north; yet every acre of that region is now owned, and under such cultivation as suits a poor and swampy soil. So, when Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas were incorporated. No one had drawn a line about Kansas and Nebraska. These regions were supposed to offer homes to any number of inhabitants, thirty millions each at least,with a farm for every family. In these four states the land is already taken up; at least such land as anybody cares to fence and register. The greater part of Kansas and Nebraska, and enormous sections of Dakota and Colorado, are unfit for settlement. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah are mountain plateaus, high and barren for the greater part, suited, as a rule, for nothing more than cattle-runs, conducted on a large scale, too vast for anyone but a great capitalist to occupy. On the Pacific Slope, from Washington to Upper California, no “ wild land,” remains, and not a great deal of available public land. According to Hazen's Reports, the same rule holds good in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Near the Mississippi, the lands are damp enough; but as you march towards the Pacific they become high and arid. Water and wood are scarce, the