Speech #620033050

The last seven years have marked a noted increase in taking possession of the abandoned farms. the reclaiming of the land which was skinned over and from which the parties passed on to richer lands of the West between 1870 and 1890. Not only have we the lands in private ownership. but we have. as I before stated. some 75.000.000 acres of public land which are agricultural lands. not including some ten or twelve million acres of swamp lands and perhaps five or seven million acres more of arid lands. About 1870 there began the great immigration for the settlement of the agricultural lands of the West. The region was a vast one and easily reduced to cultivation. Transportation facilities were pushed in every direction.