CONCERNING LANDS.

ISSOURI may be classed among the older States, having been made

one of the Union in 1821. It may, therefore, be taken for granted that there is not a large quantity of public lands, either State or government, still remaining open for homesteads. The railroads were induced to construct lines through the State in its earlier years, by the donation of large tracts of land. These, also, as in the case of government lands, are nearly exhausted. There is some still remaining, and a small portion of government land in southeast Missouri, which will be taken up and treated under headings of their own.

The great inducements for coming to Missouri lie, not in the free government lands and cheap railroad lands, but in the low price of well improved and excellent farming lands, near to through lines of railroad and in close proximity to first-class markets. Missouri, during the whole period of its existence as a State, has done very little to induce immigration by setting off the advantages of the State agriculturally, or in letting the world know what it had to offer in the way of making money and homes, to those who had money to invest and industry and enterprise to acquire a competence. The State has grown slowly, because the process of finding out its worth has been slow. People, by gradually finding out in a slow way, by handing from one to another, what Missouri is, have come in, acquired wealth, and pushed the State, with their unaided efforts and scarcely without the knowledge of the outside world, into the third rank in agricultural resources and wealth. Very few realize, outside of the State, that Missouri stands third in the value of agricultural products. Yet such is the case, and it is all the more astonishing when it is taken into consideration how much of her resources are still undeveloped, and many, as yet, untouched. It is a matter of wonder, too, that so prominent and successful an agricultural State should reach its proud position and her general farming lands, from which her wealth is derived, remain so cheap. It is a fact well known that much of the improved land of Missouri can be obtained at figures at least as low, if not lower, than land several hundred miles farther west, on the

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extreme frontiers of civilization, where there are none of the advantages of schools, churches, railroads, cities and towns, and well organized and excellent society. The Missouri lands are cheap, and have improvements which will only come to the frontiersman by years of labor under the greatest drawbacks. There, there is no building material or timber. Missouri is overflowing with it. Fuel must be brought from a long distance, and can be had only at high prices. In Missouri the cost of fuel is almost nothing. In Missouri there is fruit in plenty and all the luxuries of a comfortable home life on the farm.

We have said that it was in the cheapness of general farming lands of

the State that the inducements to immigration mostly lie. The general price of land, except near to the larger cities, is low. No State, so well surrounded by good markets and so near the great centers of commerce, and with sucl. complete systems of traffic thoroughfares, and with such great manufacturing centers within its borders, shows such a discrepancy between its land values and great natural and commercial advantages.

Of course there is a great range in land values here as elsewhere. Much of the land is broken and rocky, and fit only for pasturage, and there can

be no better for this purpose. The famous dairy regions of New York are not better adapted by nature for dairying than are the hill and valley lands of central southern Missouri. This can be made the dairy region of the West. The price of these lands at present is a mere bagatelle, and the best of pasture lands, with abundance of water and shelter, can be purchased for from $3.00 to $7.00 per acre.

The lands adapted to general crop raising range considerably higher than the preceding, but are still fabulously low, considering their quality and productiveness. If you are about to move West you are warned to beware of excursions into the wilderness. You will pass through some of the most fertile agricultural regions in the country, where failure of crops is almost unknown, where markets are convenient and agriculture profitable. You will pay nearly as much per acre for semi-improved land on the frontiers of civilization as for land in Missouri which is all under cultivation and provided with house and stables that would require nearly as great an outlay as the original cost of the farm, owing to the scarcity of timber and high price of building materials. Good farming lands in Missouri may be purchased as low as $18 per acre that will produce all the grains and fruits of the United States. And the prices range from this amount up to $50 per acre for land in the choicest localities. The very best of farming land near to markets and railroads can be purchased for $20, $25 and $30 per acre, on which can be raised as much grain, hay and other produce as on the $100 acre farms of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.

EXEMPTION AND TAXATION LAWS.

It will be of interest to the home-seeker who contemplates taking up his abode in Missouri to be acquainted with the safeguards which the laws of the State throw around the workingman to protect him from the encroachments of money lenders.

The laws of Missouri reserve from execution, in the hands of every head of a family living in the country, a homestead, consisting of one hundred and sixty (160) acres of land, not exceeding $1,500 in value; to every head of a family, in cities of over 40,000 inhabitants, a homestead, consisting of not more than thirty square rods of ground, and of the value of not more than $1,500. Thus, it is seen, that a farmer's homestead in Missouri consists of one hundred and sixty acres of land and the improve

ments thereon, not exceeding in value $1,500; the homesteads of the residents of the smaller towns are of the same value; while that allowed to the inhabitants of St. Louis, St. Joseph and Kansas City, where land is more valuable and the cost of living greater, is fixed at $3,000.

The Constitution places it beyond the power of reckless or dishonest public agents to burden the people with excessive taxation. Taxes for State purposes, exclusive of the taxes necessary to pay the bonded debt

of the State, cannot exceed twenty cents on the hundred dollars valuation; and whenever the taxable property of the State shall amount to $900,000,000, the rate shall not exceed fifteen cents. The rate of taxation for county, city, town and school purposes is likewise strictly limited. Counties, cities, towns, townships and school districts cannot become indebted beyond the revenue provided for each year, without a twothirds vote of all voters therein, nor, in any event, to an amount exceeding five per cent on the value of taxable property.

THE TIMBER OF MISSOURI.

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ISSOURI is not so densely and thoroughly timbered as some other States, and yet its resources in this respect are by no means inconsiderable. In truth, Missouri makes a very creditable showing in the amount and variety of her standing timber, as behooves a great State singularly blessed in respect of natural advantages. Possibly one-fourth of the total area north of the Missouri river is forest land, and one-half of that south of the same stream. The general line of demarkation between the prairie and timbered sections cannot be described to a nicety, because even the extreme western parts of the State are dotted, and its streams fringed, with forests of greater or less magnitude; but, for all practical purposes, that part of the State lying east of a line drawn from Hannibal to Jefferson City, and thence south to the Arkansas border in Stone county, may be regarded as the more heavily timbered section. Over this large area are to be found an almost infinite variety of hardwoods, besides yellow pine in the direction of Arkansas, and many of the woods that are technically "soft." For instance, there are three sorts of locust, three of walnut, four of maple, four of gum, six of hickory and eighteen of oak.

The distribution of the different species of wood is admirable, on the whole, for mill work. There are regions of many miles in area over which only one or two, and certainly not more than three or four, varieties occur. In the counties of Mississippi, Stoddard, Scott, Pemiscot, Dunklin, New Madrid and Butler, in southeastern Missouri, the prevailing timber is white oak, gum, poplar, cypress and one or two varieties of ash. The oak of this region is among the best found in the State, and the gums are beginning to be used to a large extent now as a substitute for black walnut for many uses. The pine timber lands extend through Jefferson and Washington counties in a southeasterly, southerly and southwesterly direction, embracing Madison, Wayne and the northern part of Butler on the east, touching the Arkansas line in Ripley county. To the westward they pass through Reynolds, Carter, Shannon, Oregon,