farmer, at almost no cost for transportation, in any part
of the new West. He would after that be dependent upon the railroad in
every way. The railroads deliberately devised the great land boom of
1886, which was more especially virulent in the State of Kansas. Many of
the roads had lands of their own for sale, but what they wanted most was
the traffic of the settlers. They knew the profit to be derived from the
industry of a dense population raising products which must be shipped,
and requiring imports which also must be shipped. One railroad even
offered choice breeding-stock free on request. The same road, and others
also, preached steadily the doctrine of diversified farming. In short,
the railroads, in their own interests, did all they could to make
prosperous the farms or ranches of the West. The usual Western homestead
now was part ranch and part farm, although the term "ranch" continued
for many years to cover all the meanings of the farm of whatever sort.

There appeared now in the new country yet another figure of the Western
civilization, the land-boomer, with his irresponsible and unregulated
statements in regard to the values of these Western lands. These men
were not always desirable citizens, although of course no industry was
more solid or more valuable than that of legitimate handling of the
desirable lands. "Public spirit" became a phrase now well known in any
one of scores of new towns springing up on the old cow-range, each of
which laid claims to be the future metropolis of the world. In any one
of these towns the main industry was that of selling lands or "real
estate." During the Kansas boom of 1886 the land-boomers had their desks
in the lobbies of banks, the windows of hardware stores--any place and
every place offering room for a desk and chair.

Now also flourished apace the industry of mortgage loans. Eastern
money began to flood the western Plains, attracted by the high rates of
interest. In 1886 the customary banking interest in western Kansas was
two per cent a month. It is easy to see that very soon such a state of
affairs as this must collapse. The industry of selling town lots far out
in the cornfields, and of buying unimproved subdivision property with
borrowed money at usurious rates of interest, was one riding for its own
fall.

None the less the Little Fellow kept on going out into the West. We
did not change our land laws for his sake, and for a time he needed no
sympathy. The h