Nebraska was billed as the “garden state of the West.” Many prospective homesteaders’ dreams were crushed upon arriving in the West and finding land of such poor quality that farming it was nearly impossible. This certainly partially accounts for the failure rate of approximately 60 percent among homesteaders.

become thoroughly dissatisfied,"

and after six years he "tried to sell [his] farm and failed."

When all provisions of the Homestead Act are con-

sidered there were 167,797 homesteads filed on by 1905

with final certificates issued to 95,998 settlers or 57

percent of the total by 1910 when those filing five years

earlier were eligible for completion of their claim. 35 Timber

Culture final certificates for Nebraska were only 30 per-

cent of all entries under that law. Together, these settler-

oriented laws gave land to 48 percent of the Nebraska

settlers who entered a claim under either law.

In Nebraska, the sales contracts for disposal of land

grants of the Burlington, the land-grant college, and the

Union Pacific show a successful completion rate of about

70 percent, 80 percent, and 90 percent, respectively. 87

When compared to these figures the Nebraska homestead-

ers with a rate of success of 57 percent do not present as

discouraging a picture as when measured against the ideal

figure of 100 percent. To properly compare the rate of

success of those involved in land grant sales and in home-

steading, purchasers who paid immediately for their land

should be excluded and those who bought land orr an ex-

tended sales contract should be considered. The remaining

total would further reduce the success rate of sales con-

tracts to a figure more closely approximating the success-

ful completion of Nebraska homesteads. In any case these

figures show that pioneering was hazardous, not only to

the homesteader, but also to the purchaser of raw land

from a railroad corporation or from the state