Please inform one of your readers what portion of Nebraska is open to homesteaders. Please give some facts in regard to water and drought. I am told there are valuable lands, well watered, in Custer County. Any facts concerning the lands of Central and Western Nebraska will be gladly received.
Home-seeker.
Answer.—Most of Nebraska between Ft. Kearney and the western State line is open to homesteaders, but perhaps the greatest immigration at this time is to the Niobrara Valley. The Platte Valley is also very fertile. The agricultural country extends 180 miles west of the Missouri River, and produces great harvests of grain, flax, hemp, and all vegetables: while south of latitude 42 degrees the common small fruits grow in abundance. When Central Kansas and Nebraska are settled, what is now generally regarded as the “great corn belt” will be under cultivation. The portion of the State devoted to grazing comprises 23,000,000 acres, generally well watered, with Ogallala as a center. Except in the valleys, the water lies from 100 to 200 feet below the surface of the ground, and is obtained by boring. The sandy tracts are subject to drought, but where the subsoil is dry clay the ground is usually moist. Custer County is settling rapidly, although it has the reputation of being sandy, and adapted for the most part only to grazing. The mean temperature of the State is in winter from 22 to 30 degrees, and in summer from 70 to 74 degrees. The rainfall (greatest in May and June) averages about thirty inches in all but the extreme northwestern corner of the State.
FEUDALISM.
Tolono, Ill.
Please give the definition of feudalism?
H. B. Haskell.
Answer.—Feudalism is the state of society in which all landed property is considered as belonging to the crown. It is apportioned by the Kings to the nobles, as feudatories, upon condition that they render annually a certain amount of military service. These proprietors may, in turn, partition their lands to sub-tenants in consideration of like military service.
Feudal proprietors at first held their lands from a superior for life; later as an inheritance. The great feudatories lived in fortified castles, surrounded by villages of peasants who tilled their lands. In all matters of jurisprudence they exercised supreme authority over their dependents. To other feudatory lords each might stand in the relation of friend or foe, though he met with them as peers in the periodical councils of the realm. Among the services required from their dependents or vassals, were military service, when called upon, contribution toward the expenses of war, toward ransom of their lord if taken captive, toward marriage expenses of his son, and dowry of his daughter.