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Show I XLII REPORT OF THE C031MISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. ing them to erect houses, to procure seeds, farming implements, and stock, or to be paid them in casb, as the President may direct. This agreement was submitted by the agent to the Indians ill council assembled at the Crow Agency on the 12th of Jnnelast,, and was confirmed b~ a majority of the tribe, with thefollowing modifications, viz : Taking for the westelm boundary of the lands agreed to be cedecl, in plane of the 109th meridian, a line about ten miles west of the same, reducing the area of the cession about 115,200 acres. The portion of the Crow Reservation agreed to be ceded is that which has been rcpresented as chiefly valuable for its mineral resources, and whose occupation has long been desired by the whites. It is believed ' that the agreement as it now stands will fully answer the requirements of I the people of Montana ; the strip of land which t,he Crows refused to sell I not being considered of any speoial anvantage to thc whites, if; indeed, , it is of any particular value to the Indians. I In anticipation of the confirmation by the Indians of the agreement, as originally framed, bills (E. R. 6227 and S. 1760) to accept and ratifythe same and to make the necessary appropriations mere prepared in this j office, and introduced in both Houses of Congress at the last session. I The change of boundaries will now necessitate a new bill, which will be 1 duly prepared and sublnitted to t l~ed epartment at the opening of the next Congress. GRIGAT NE3tAFA AGENCY, NEBRASKA. This ageucy ia composed of two sn~altlr ipes, the Iowas, and Sac and Fox of the iKissouri, oocapyiug contignons reservations in Northeastckn Kansas and Southeastern Xebraska, containiug abont 2,200 acres of ex- ~ ~. cellent farming and grazing lands. The 1olva.s now at the agenc3: number 171, over 30 having witKlu the last two years emigrated to the Indian Territory. They are an indus-trious, agric~~lturpaelo ple, and have made a marked improvement within the past fern years. Nearly all have farms or Eelds well fenced, ranging from 10 to 160 acres each, and many of their houses will compare favor-ably with those of the white settlers around them, being furnished in a similar manner, and some of them carpeted with carpets of their own manufacture. Almost every house has its flourishing orchard of various kinds of frnit trees, and they not only imihte the whites in their dress, their manner of living, and in cultivating and ornamenting their grounds, but many of them snrpass some of their white neighbors in'industrial pursuits. This Fear they have raised, in addition to corn and other erops, over 2,700 bushels of wheat, more than 16 bushels to every man, rnoman, and child. They are self-sustaining, and take quite an iuterest in the education oE their children. Eigl~tya cres of land are cultivated |