| OCR Text |
Show A Land Office Business. The real estate agency that does the largest business of any similar establishment establish-ment in the world is the United States general land office. During the past year this office has sold nearly 19,000,000 acres of farms to settlers. It hardly 6eems as if that much land could still be left that was fit for agriculture, yet such is the fact, and some more remains yet. The land office business brought to the government during the past year $7,780,-517. $7,780,-517. Of the land sold over five and a half million acres went into original home steads. One feature of the United States land commissh tiers' report that is striking is the great number of tairies of desert lands. There are nearly half a million of these. It means that shrewd speculators specu-lators are buying up arid lands, that they intend putting irrigating canals through them, or sinking artesian wells, and then selling the lands to farmers and stockmen and making a handsome sum. Uudoubtedlj' one of the most important im-portant subjects on which this country Tvants information is that of irrigation. The public domain where there is rainfall rain-fall is nearly used up. There is vast f cr-tility cr-tility in 6ome of the arid lands that are left. This speculators already recognize and are preparing for. The demand for coal and mineral lands, as well as for the desert, greatly increased during the past year. |
