LANDED ESTATES AND FARMS. As a nation increases in wealth the acquirement of large landed estates seems to become a passion among the wealthy. In Great Britain, the accum ulation of land by the wealthy has been carried to such an extent that the entire land of the country is held by less'than 50,000 individuals in a population of over 30,000,000. The same rule holds good, though not to the same extent, in other European countries except in France, where the land is generally held in small areas. In the United States, within the last ten years, the same passion has taken root among a certain class of wealthy Americans, and bodies of land running from one thousand to hundreds of thousands of acres, are now held by individuals. Yet, from the fact, that in this country, we have no law of primogeniture, the estates are eventually sub divided and disintegrated. In England there are 32,342,000 acres of land. This vast area of land fifteen years ago, was owned by less than 44,000 proprietors. In Scotland there are 19.738,930 acres of land. It is owned by 4,000 proprietors. Within the last fifteen years these accumulations have steadily gone forward, and the accumula tions have become greater and greater in indivi dual hands. In France, the waste land in 1826 was one-twelfth of the whole surface, 10,000,000 acres; and since that time improvements have steadily been carried forward. In 1850 there were but 5,000,000 acres of waste land, and now there is scarcely an acre but has its money value, either in the crops it produces, in timber and brush wood, or in other valuable products. In many countries the pastoral lands form the chief wealth of the country; such are the steppes of Asia, the grazing regions of South Africa, Austra lia and South America, where herds may live the year round. Corresponding to these are the plains of the United States, extending from the Mexican boundary on the south, to the British possessions on the north, and from the twenty-first meridian of longitude west of Washington to the Pacific ocean, comprising an area of over 1,000,000,000 acres, which is covered with rich grasses, a con siderable portion of it now occupied with fertile farms; the mountain ranges rich in timber, and with inexhaustible mines of both the precious and baser metals beneath the surface. In Colorado, Wyoming and mountainous Utah, the first cattle were shipped east from these mountain and valley ranges, and now vast herds are there raised, feeding winter and summer on the bunch, and other nutritious grasses that retain their sub stance even when dry. This country is bisected into nearly equal portions by the lofty and snowy range of Sierra Madre, or Mother of Moun. tains, of the old Spanish explorers. This moun tain range, in its windings, measures fully fifteen hundred miles in length, and from its snow covered tops a thousand streams take their rise and plentifully water its mountain slopes. It is here that the Rio Grande, the Red, the Arkansas, the Plattes, the Yellowstone, and the Missouri on the east, and the Columbia, the Sacramento, the Humboldt, the Green, and the Colorado on the west, with their many tributaries, take their sources in the everlasting snows. The soil of the country is produced by the disintegration of the limestone, sandstone and granite ridges of this mountain range, and it is therefore, dry, gravelly, and porous, except ou the border of the streams.
Along the streams the soil is a dark mold, formed from the decomposition of the vegetation growing on the mountains. The grasses of the wide plains and valleys and the lower mountain sides are the bunch, buffalo, grama, mesquite, and in some valleys the blue-joint, red-top, and wild rye grass. The grasses grow and flourish up to the timber and snow line—to an altitude of 10,000 feet. In addition to the grasses, there is a great variety of sweet, tender, and aromatic herbage, upon which sheep and goats delight to browse. Of the artemisia there are twelve to fifteen varieties, of which the wild sage furnishes five or six. There are four or five varieties of sheep-sorrel ; and of the wild pea-vine there is an extensive family. There are also many kinds of the wild dock and the balm. The climate of this region is much like that of Asia. The rain fall is light, being about eight inches annually in the country west of the Missouri river and east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; while the snow fall, at the altitude of 7,500 feet, is only two feet. The fall of snow at any one time is small, and never lies on the ground to afford sleighing or to cover the grasses. The rainy season is in May and June, and after these months the only rain that falls is from electrical showers. While the rain is falling in May and June, vegetation grows luxuriantly; but, when the rains cease, the grasses gradually dry on the ground, so that by the time the frosts come. in September, they have become perfectly cured uncut hay. The post surgeon at Fort Kearney, says of the country surrounding that post: The average tempera ture for the year 1868 was 52° Fahrenheit. Snow does not remain any length of time. The report from North Platte station, Union, Pacific Railroad, states that the climate is healthful, and the extremes of temperature, on account of the dry and rarefied atmosphere, are well borne. The rain and snow fall are small. From Fort Sedgewick, Dr. Monroe, United States Army, reports: The mean temperature for 1869 was 50° Fahrenheit, rain-fall 8.9 inches, snow-fall 10.82 inches. The atmosphere is usually dry. The prevailing winds are from the west. From Fort D. A. Russell, near Cheyenne, at the base of the Rocky mountains, at an altitude of 6,100 feet, Dr. C. H. Alden, United States Army, reports: The mean temperature for the past two years, 1868 and 1869, has been 46.53° Fah renheit; average rain-fall for the past two years, 6.25 inches. From Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory, Dr. Schell, United States army, writes: The mean annual temperature is 50.6'. The climate is healthy, autumn and win ter mild, summer dry and sultry, spring usually rainy. Dr. W. E. Waters reports from Fort Bridger, in the extreme western portion of Wyom ing: The climate is temperate and salubrious the greater part of the year; the weather during the fall months is mild and delightful, excepting a few storms of short duration. During the months of May and June there is a greater rain fall than in all the other months. The rain-fall for the last year amounted to 7.97 inches. Dr. F. L. Town, of Fort Shaw, Montana Territory, in latitude 47° 30' north, writes: The climate of the Territory is exceedingly dry all the year round. The aggregate fall of rain and snow (melted) for the year 1868 was 10.14 inches.