produce eventually a race of men very different from the inhabitants of New England, the Southern or Rocky Mountain States,
It is very hard for a stranger passing through a country as rapidly as I did to form a correct opinion as to the actual condition of the settlers; many of those you converse with are personally interested in making things appear better than they really are, and little reliance can be placed on the statements of real estate agents, railway agents or settlers them¬ selves, when they smell a possible investor, and until you live amongst the people you can hardly tell how many there are who are fairly prosper¬ ous and out of debt. There have been a great many utter failures, mostly among people who came into the country insufficiently supplied with capital, and among those who, having capital, had not enough energy, health, industry and business ability to hold their own in the very hard struggle which every settler in a new country must go through. A great many who had these qualities were still more or less crippled by mort¬ gages ; and the position of a heavily mortgaged farmer in America is much worse in a bad season than that of an English farm tenant; because the creditor of the one is a hard man of business whose only object is to keep his debtor in a condition to pay his interest regularly and who will foreclose and sell him up without mercy if he cannot, whilst the English landlord is usually not a strict man of business, and, if he is, does not like to get the reputation of dealing hardly with his tenants, A most interesting account of the actual condition of settlers in the agricultural township of Harrison in Hall County, Nebraska, will be found in a pamphlet published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, in 1893, called The Condition of the Western Farmer, by Arthur F. Bentley. This county was selected as a fair example of the land in the State, where not influenced by the proximity of towns, and certainly presents a very unfavourable picture at the time it was written. It gives in detail the number of settlers who have settled on land purchased either from Govern¬ ment, from railway companies, or from settlers who wished to move, and gives minute particulars of their number, length of residence, amount of indebtedness and other facts. It shows that between 1873, when this part of the State began to be settled, to 1892, a period of twenty years, 190 persons purchased and resided in the township, of whom 106 have resold, 10 have moved, and 74 still reside; the duration of ownership has been seven years for those who have sold and twelve years for those who still own. It gives the causes of selling for the 106 as follows:
| Owing to prevalent agricultural conditions | 14 |
| Sales by those who had bought in hopes of a rise | 19 |
| Failure to improve or cultivate the land | 9 |
| Involved in other troubles | 16 |
| Died | 7 |
| To move to better farms | 16 |
| To move to cheaper farms | 7 |
| To move to towns or villages | 18 |
| 106 |
