The Future Of The Far West

A gentleman who lias spent many years in the Western Territories, has traveled extensively in all of them, and is thoróughly familiar with tlieir topogvaphy aHd resources, givcs the following estímate of the maximum population they are likely to attain and support : Colorado '1X1,000 New Mexico 175,00(1 wyraniug 11X1,0011 Washington 150,000 Daiola 175,000 Novada 75,000 Montana 200.000 Iilnho 125,000 Total 1,400,000 Bah 200,000 He adds Nevada and Colorado to tho list because they are States only in form of governrnont, and resemble the Territories in the poverty oí soil and iiicapacity for much further development. 'i'his' estímate, if correct - and it is sustained by the best information that comes from army ofiieers and scientific travelers - has an important bearing upon many interesting public questions. The time is at hand when there will be no vast áreas of fertile land tempting the emigrant to the West. Even now the limit of profitable agricultural settlement in Western Nebraska and Kansas has been reached. Beyond stretch vast plains available for grazine purposes only where water can be obtained. Further west comes the región ot mountains and table lands, where no rain falls, and "where agriculture is only practicable along the banks of rivers, or in a few localities where water can be obtained for irrigatioü irorn the streams formed by the melting snows on the mountains. These localities are rare, because the mountain peaks and chains are, for the most part, bare of snow in siimmer. West of the Kocky mountains and their lateral ranges the sage-brush desert, utterly worthless for culture, extends to tho Sierrag. Washington Territory lias difterent characteristics from the elevated rainless interior región, but timber is its cliief resource, and f arming is confined to a few valleys. The section of country described has an area greater than that of all the States east of the Mississippi river, but its population a century henee will probably not equal that of Massacliusetts today. Each Territory, by making the most of its inining and farming resources, may acquire jjopiilation sufficient to entitle it to admission as a State, but not one is likely to ever have more thm a single member of Oongress. Except in the Senate the relative power of the East and the West will not therefore be much changed in the future. There will be few more new States erected in the present generation. Colorado was only admitted after a long fight. Nevada ought to be set back into a Territorial condition. Her population is less than 50,000, and it is not to be expected that she will ever have as many inhabitants as in the old States are requisito to fonn a Congress district. The influence which the cessation of the movement of population West may have upon the social, industrial and politica! phases of our national life opens a wide field for thought and discussion. Xooked at in one way it will be an evil day when there is no more virgin soil awaiting tho plowshare of the farmer, no new towns springing up and inviting the enterprise of the young men of the East, no región for the restless and unfortunate to flee to with the hope of bettering their condition. But there is another view to take, and it will probably be the view taken by the social scientist. It is that high civilization is inconsistent with sparse settlement, and that culture, wealth and happiness will rather increase than diminisli when the population of the whole country is much more dense than at present, and the vacant spaces are filled up that have been skipped in the rush to the West.