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Show • 22 EMIGRANTS' AND SETTLERS' GUIDE Vegetables of all kinds thrive well throughout the Territory, and it also produces grapes of a fine quality. STOCK RAISING, ETC.* As a grazing country Nebraska cannot be surpaRsed, and stock-raising is extensively carried on. The wild grass predominates here as in Utah, and cattle, horses, and mules fatten on it very readily. The bottom lands abound :Vith rushes, and stock are often kept out the · whole wmter through, and are found to fatten without fodder. In regard to the advantages of Nebraska for raising sh~ep, an old and well-informed settler of that Territory Writes : "I know of no part of the United States where ~beep are so healthy, or do so well, and I doubt if there Is a place on the globe equal to Nebraska for wool-grow1.~ g. " I n some of. the newly settled counties, the . sto?k IS herd~d and the crops raised without fencing, winch makes It much easier for persons of small means to make a start. · PRICES OF LIViNG, LABOR, ETC. Consid~ring its recent settle~ent, Nebraska is a chea.p place to hve, almost every article of consumption being abundant. Pork sells at three cents per pound· flour $2.-50 to $3 per cwt.; eggs, six to eight cents per' dozen; chickens, $1 50 per dozen; and other articles in like proportion. · Unskilled labor is in great demand, and readily commands high rates. Farm hands find ready employment at $18 to $25 per month, with board. Carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, and mechanics generally make from $2 to $3 per day. The best hands readily obtain the latter figure. Nebraska, being a fine agricultural and stock-raising * By ?- Ia:W: of the Territory, sheep to the number of 500, owned by any one Individua~ are exempt from taxation. TO THE NEW STATES .AND TERRITORIES. 23 country, and also being the great starting-point and highway for travel over the Plains, her lands are much sought after by emigrants. Fine lands can be taken under the Homestead Law in the immediate neighborhood of good settlements, where the settler will have all the advantages of churches and schools already es~blished. Improved farms can be purchased, say In tracts of 160 acres, with from 40 to 80 acres under cultivation, with small dwelling and out-buildings, for from $2.50 to $5 per acre. As a general rule, farms can be bought at less than the cost of the improvements, owing to the constant emigration to the a~jacent gold mines of Colorado and Idaho. The Territory has adopted a liberal free-school system, which will furnish a free school in a short time the year round in every scb.9ol district. At the present time the schools are free on an average about six months in the year. Tilnber and stone are everywhere to be found in sufficient quantities for building purposes. Stone-coal has been discovered in several places. . There are no railroads in the Territory, but tberr .. absence is more than compensated by excellent wagon roads, which furnish ready means of communication between the river towns and the interior at all seasons of the year. The length of post-routes within the Territ? ry is 1772 miles. RIVERS, OOMMUNICA.TION, ETC. The principal rivers are the Missouri and the Platte. The first forms the entire eastern boundary of the TerI'itory, and is navigable by the largest class of steamboats for many hundred miles above the most northern point in Nebraska. The Platte enters the Missouri River near Omaha City, the capital of the Territory, about 75 n1iles north of the southern boundary of the Territory. This river runs almost due west, through one of the finest valleys on the continent, extending four |