illing with men who work for wages rather than for the
love of the free life and bold companionship that once tempted men into
that calling. Splendid Cheyenne saddles are less and less numerous in
the outfits; the distinctive hat that made its way up from Mexico may or
may not be worn; all the civil authorities in nearly all towns in the
grazing country forbid the wearing of side arms; nobody shoots up these
towns any more. The fact is the old simon-pure cowboy days are gone
already."

=Settlement under the Homestead Act of 1862.=--Two factors gave a
special stimulus to the rapid settlement of Western lands which swept
away the Indians and the cattle rangers. The first was the policy of the
railway companies in selling large blocks of land received from the
government at low prices to induce immigration. The second was the
operation of the Homestead law passed in 1862. This measure practically
closed the long controversy over the disposition of the public domain
that was suitable for agriculture. It provided for granting, without any
cost save a small registration fee, public lands in lots of 160 acres
each to citizens and aliens who declared their intention of becoming
citizens. The one important condition attached was that the settler
should occupy the farm for five years before his title was finally
confirmed. Even this stipulation was waived in the case of the Civil War
veterans who were allowed to count their term of military service as a
part of the five years' occupancy required. As the soldiers of the
Revolutionary and Mexican wars had advanced in great numbers to the
frontier in earlier days, so now veterans led in the settlement of the
middle border. Along with them went thousands of German, Irish, and
Scandinavian immigrants, fresh from the Old World. Between 1867 and
1874, 27,000,000 acres were staked out in quarter-section farms. In
twenty years (1860-80), the population of Nebraska leaped from 28,000 to
almost half a million; Kansas from 100,000 to a million; Iowa from
600,000 to 1,600,000; and the Dakotas from 5000 to 140,000.

=The Diversity of Western Agriculture.=--In soil, produce, and
management, Western agriculture presented many contrasts to that of the
East and South. In the region of arable and watered lands the typical
American unit--the small farm tilled by the owner--appeared as usual;
but by the side of it many a huge domain owned by foreign or Eastern
companies and tilled by hired labor. So