p. 723 | The Government Lands

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 3, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 46.

The Government Lands.

THE rate at which the public lands of this country are being disposed of is astonishing, and can only be realized by comparison with some known areas of territory. Dakota contains ninety-five million acres. Of this, thirty-five million acres, equal to the State of Illinois, have been disposed of in the past nine years. Taking in two years more, the investigator will find that the amount of public land disposed of by the Government in eleven years is greater than the area of Spain, but a trifle less than the area of France or Germany, and one-fourth as great as British India with its 200,000,000 inhabitants. The amount of land disposed of in the last eleven years is 200,000 square miles, an area eighteen times as great as Belgium, which sustains over 5,000,000 inhabitants.

The areas disposed of in some of the States, given approximately, during the past nine years, are as follows: Wisconsin, over 3,000,000 acres; Michigan, nearly 2,500,000; California, nearly 6,500,000; Kansas, 14,500,000; Minnesota, over 9,000,000; Nebraska, over 13,000,000; Oregon, over 3,000,000, and Washington Territory, nearly 5,000,000 acres; Alabama, nearly 3,000,000; Arkansas, nearly 3,000,000; Louisiana, over 3,000,000; Mississippi, 1,500,000, and Florida, 2,500,000 acres.