of Nebraska is suitable for irrigation, and farmers have found that it has multiplied the productive capacity of soils.

The Mormons seem to have started irrigation in the West when they conveyed the waters from the mountain streams of Utah and distributed them over the valleys and tablelands.

For years after this there was no progress made in the matter of irrigation. In fact, the matter was hardly thought of by residents east of the Rocky Mountains until a few years ago, when the Union Pacific took the matter up and urged it upon the settlers of the western portion of the state. For a time it was slow work, but by being persistent and advocating it in the press and in pamphlets, it soon took root, and as a result today more than 1,500,000 acres of land lying along "the Overland Route," beyond Columbus can be flooded by the waters of the Platte that are tributary.

The first place where irrigation was tried in Nebraska was along the valley of the Platte. The water was diverted from the natural channel and conducted over the fields. The result was marvelous. That year, while, generally speaking, there was an average supply of moisture-as much as in many of the other western states-the crop yield on the irrigated land was nearly two-fold of that upon land where nature only supplied the moisture. The result of this experiment induced the passenger department of the Union Pacific to urge upon farmers the necessity of constructing irrigation ditches. Not only did the Union Pacific urge this. It assisted in bringing settlers at reduced rates and in many other ways. At this time about fifty irrigation companies are operating in Nebraska near the main line of the Union Pacific.

Taking Dawson county as example, it will be found one of the most prosperous counties in the state. The main line of the Union Pacific traverses this county.

The following figures show what Dawson county has done in the way of irrigation:

In assisting the irrigation movement, in reclaiming arid wastes and making the soil productive despite parching winds, the Union Pacific has helped to make a more prosperous community by laying a sure foundation for the creation of revenue and the development of the state by inducing the influx of immigration and wealth within its confines.

It is well known that the Union Pacific R. R. is equipped with heavy eighty-pound steel rails, that its main line is nearly all ballasted with the famous "Sherman gravel" hauled at great expense out to points on the line. During the past two or three years millions have been spent for labor and improving the physical condition of the system. While not all these vast items have been expended in Nebraska, much of it has gone to enrich the residents of the state.

Since the construction of the road, the Union Pacific has maintained large shops at Omaha and smaller ones at Fremont, Grand Island, and North Platte. For over a quarter of a century this road has carried thousands of these shopmen on its payrolls, annually exchanging hundreds of thousands of dollars with them, the company giving them its money and they giving the company their labors in return. In the headquarters at Omaha, the Union Pacific maintains an army of officers and employees who are paid good salaries

regularly. This money has amounted to millions of dollars during the past thirty years, and has been spent chiefly in Nebraska, a large portion of it going to the merchants and the tradesmen and others along its line. When you consider that the Union Pacific has been doing business since 1865, that the vast sums of money referred to have been paid out year after year, you may then get some idea of what it has done and is doing toward the support of the people of Nebraska.

It is not too much to state that for more than thirty years the Union Pacific expenditure in Nebraska has been far greater than any other corporation doing business in the state.

Let me answer the question, "What has the Union Pacific done for Nebraska?" by pointing to some of the coming cities of the commonwealth, Fremont with a population of 8,000; Lincoln, 40,000; Columbus, 3,600; Grand Island, 7,500; Norfolk, 4,000; Kearney, 6,000; North Platte, 4,000; not omitting South Omaha with a population of 26,000, the third largest packing center in the United States, and hundreds of other thriving cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, which, by the magic hand of the Union Pacific alone, sprang into existence. But for the Union Pacific, the pioneer railroad company, these towns would not exist. But for the Union Pacific, we might be crossing the plains and climbing the mountains to the Pacific Coast in covered wagons or slow trains of less ambitious roads, instead of in the palatial cars of "The Overland Route."

The Union Pacific has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in advertising the state of Nebraska, not only in the United States, but all over the world. Not only in our new possessions but in the cities, towns, and villages of Europe has the Union Pacific placed Nebraska before the emigrant or traveler as a desirable spot, by maps and pamphlets, by magazines, newspapers, and sundry other ways.

The following extract from a report of the senate committee on Pacific Railroads, dated February 19, 1869, shows that the

Union Pacific has been instrumental in building up the state of Nebraska since its earliest days.

"It can be shown by official records," says the report before mentioned, "that the Kansas Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific have been instrumental in adding hundreds of thousands to the population of the states of Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, California, and Nevada. Minnesota owes to the rapidity and cheapness of transportation by rail her best immigrants--over 100,000 Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes. Every foreign laborer landing on our shores is economically valued at $1,500. He rarely comes emptyhanded. The superintendent of the Castle Garden (New York) Immigration Depot has stated that a careful inquiry gave an average of $100, almost entirely in coin, as the money property of each man, woman, and child, landed in New York. From 1830, the commencement of our railway building, to 1860 the number of foreign emigrants was 4,787,924. At that ratio of coin wealth possessed by each, the total addition to the stock of money in the United States made by the increase to population was $478,792,400. Well might Dr. Engel, the Prussian statistician, say: 'Estimated in money, the Prussian state lost during the sixteen years by emigrants a sum of more than 180,000,000 thalers. It must be added that those who are resolved to try their strength abroad are by no means our weakest elements; their continuous stream may be compared to a well-equipped army, which, leaving the country annually, is lost to it forever. A ship loaded with emigrants is often looked upon as an object of compassion; it is nevertheless in a political-economical point of view generally more valuable than the richest cargo of gold dust.'"

The words of Sidney Dillon uttered many years ago are not inappropriate now. He said: "The growth of the United States west of the Alleghenies during the past fifty years is due not so much to free institutions or climate or the fertility of the soil as to railways. If the institutions and climate and soil had not been favorable to the development of commonwealths railways would not have been constructed, but if rail

ways had not been invented the freedom and natural advantages of our western states would have beckoned to human immigration and industry in vain. But increased facilities for travel are among the smaller benefits conferred by the railways. The most beneficent function of the railway is that of a carrier of freight. What would it cost for a man to carry a ton of wheat one mile? What would it cost for a horse to do the same? The railway does it at a cost of less than a cent. This brings Nebraska, Colorado, Dakota, and Minnesota into direct relation with hungry and opulent Liverpool, and makes subsistence easier and cheaper throughout the civilized world. The world should, therefore, thank the railway for the opportunity to buy wheat, but none the less should the West thank the railway for the opportunity to sell wheat.

No fact among all the great politico-economical facts that have illustrated the world's history since history began to be written is so full of human interest or deals with such masses of mankind since the railway opened to the seaboard these immense solitudes.

Within fifty years over 30,000,000 people have been transplanted to or produced upon vast regions of hitherto uninhabited and comparatively unknown territory, where they are now living in comfort and affluence and enjoying a degree of civilization second to none in the world, and greatly superior to any that is known in Europe outside of the capitals. This could not have happened had it not been for the railways, and as a helper in developing this great area the Union Pacific has been a very potent factor.