H. Louisa Bedford

Purchase of Lots—Building—Boosting a Town.

Enough of odds and ends. To return to purely personal affairs. After selling the cattle and ranch the question at once came up—What now? I had enough to live on, but not enough to allow me to live quite as I wished, though never ambitious of great wealth. What had been looked forward to for many years was to have means enough to permit me to travel over the world; and at the same time to have my small capital invested in such a way as would secure not only as big a per cent. interest as possible, with due security, but also a large probability of unearned increment, so to speak; and above all to require little personal attention. Dozens of schemes presented themselves, many with most rosy outlooks. I was several times on the very verge of decision, and how easily and differently one's whole future may be affected! Perhaps by now a millionaire!—perhaps a pauper! At one time I was on the point of buying a cotton plantation in the South. The only obstacle was the shortage of convict labour! A convict negro must work; the free negro won't. Finally I bought some city lots in the town of Amarillo—the most valuable lots I could find, right at the city's pulse, the centre of business; in my judgment they would in all probability always be at the centre, and that as the city grew so would their value grow, and thus the unearned increment would be secured. I bought these lots by sheer pressure; the owner did not want to sell, but I made him name his own price, and closed the deal, to his astonishment. It was a record price and secured me some ridicule. But the funniest part has to come. In a little while I became dissatisfied with my deal, and actually approached the seller and asked him if he would cancel it. He too had regretted parting with the property, and to my relief assented. Once more I spent nearly a year ranging about the whole western country, looking into different propositions, and again I came back to Amarillo, again was impressed with the desirability of the same lots, and actually demanded of the still more astonished owner if he would sell them to me. No! no! he did not want to part with them; and I knew he spoke the truth. Again I forced him, and so hard that at last he put on what he considered a prohibitory price, a much higher one than before asked, but I snapped him up at once. The news soon got all over town, it could not be kept quiet. Once more the supposed knowing ones and "cute" business men eyed me askance, and no doubt thought me a fool, or worse. Only one man approved of my action, but I valued his opinion more than that of all the rest. This deal again made a stir amongst the Real Estate offices, and lot values went soaring; and when I had erected a handsome business block on the property a regular "boom" set in. It gave the little town a lift and the people confidence. One man was good enough to tell me that I had more "nerve" than anyone he had ever met. Did he mean rashness? Well, my nerve simply came from realizing what a fine outlook lay before the town. It seemed to me to be bound to be a great distributing centre, also a railroad centre; that the illimitable acreage of plains-lands was bound in time to be settled on, and that thus the population would rapidly increase; which anticipations have happily come true. My whole capital, and more, was now sunk and disposed of. My mind at least in that respect was at rest; and it certainly looked as if the long-nursed scheme was about to be realized. In a few years the unearned increment was at least 100 per cent.; rents also went up surprisingly, and also, alas! the taxes. Unfortunately, within a year after completion of the building, and while I was in Caracas, Venezuela, an incendiary, a drunken gambler who had been running a "game" illicitly in one of the rooms, and who had been therefore turned out, deliberately used kerosene oil and set fire to the building. Result, a three-quarters' loss! Luckily I was well insured; even in the rentals, to the surprise of many people who had never heard of rental insurance before. The insurance settlement and payment was effected between myself and the agent in less than half an hour, and just as soon as I could get at it an architect was working on plans for a new structure. With the three months' loss on account of my absence, it was more than a year before the new building was ready for occupancy. It was, and is, a better-arranged and handsomer one than the old block, and its total rental is much greater. The town has grown very much and seems to be permanently established. The building, and my affairs, are entirely in the hands of a responsible agent; and I am free to go where inclination calls. Nothing shall be said about the worries, the delays, the wage disputes, the lawsuits, etc., seemingly always in attendance on the erection of any building. Well, it is over now, and too sickening to think about! Nor shall much be said about the frequent calls on the property-owner to subscribe, to "put up," for any bonus the city may have decided to offer to secure the placing in "oor toon" of a State Methodist College, a State Hospital, a State Federal Building; or to induce a new railroad to build in; not to mention the securing for your own particular district of the town the site of a new court-house, a new post-office, etc. etc. The enmity caused by this latter contest is always bitter. But always anything to boost the town! This little town actually last year paid a large sum to the champion motor-car racer of America to give an exhibition in Amarillo. Even a flying-machine meeting was consummated, one of the first in the whole West.

In this plains country, such as surrounds Amarillo, during the land boom, immense tracts were bought by speculators, who then proceeded to dispose of it to farmers and small settlers. They do this on a methodical and grand scale. One such man chartered special trains to bring out from the middle States his proposed clients or victims. To meet the trains he owned as many as twenty-five motor-cars, in which at once on arrival these people were driven all over the property to make their selection.

The first breaking of this prairie country is done with huge steam ploughs, having each twelve shares, so that the breaking is done very rapidly, the depth cultivated being only some two inches or three inches. The thick close sod folds over most beautifully and exactly, and it was always a fascinating sight, if a sad one, to watch this operation—the first opening up of this soil that had lain uncultivated for so many Æons of time. The seed may be simply scattered on the sod before the breaking, and often a splendid crop is thus obtained. Simplicity of culture, truly!

BREAKING THE PRAIRIE.

FIRST CROP—MILO MAIZE.

Before leaving the United States of America a few notes about that country. Though as a rule physically unpicturesque, it has some great wonder-places and beauty spots, such as the Yosemite Valley, the Grand CaÑon of the Colorado, the Yellowstone Park, the Falls of Niagara, and the big trees of California, which trees it may be now remarked are conifers (Sequoia gigantea and Sequoia sempervirens), which attain a height of 400 feet. Sempervirens is so called because young trees develop from the roots of a destroyed parent.

If the reader has never seen these enormous trees he cannot well appreciate their immense altitude and dimensions. Remember that our own tallest and noblest trees in England do not attain more than 100 feet or so in height; then try to imagine those having four times that height and stems or trunks proportionately huge. It is like comparing our five-storey buildings with the forty-storey buildings of New York, eight times their altitude.

Yet these big trees are not so big as the gums of Australia; the Yellowstone Geysers are, or were, inferior to the like in New Zealand; and Niagara is surpassed by the Zambesi Falls, still more so by the waterfall in Paraguay, and infinitely so by the recently-discovered falls in British Guiana. The Guayra Falls, on the ParanÁ River, in Paraguay, though not so high in one leap as Niagara, have twice as great a bulk of water, which rushes through a gorge only 200 feet wide.

Its cities, such as San Francisco, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans and others, are not as a rule beautiful; even Washington, the capital, was a tremendous disappointment to my expectant gaze; though my judgment might possibly be affected by the following incident. While standing at the entrance of the extremely beautiful New Union Railway Station a cab drove up, out of which a woman stepped, followed by a man. He hurried after her, and right in front of me drew a pistol and shot her dead, and even again fired twice into her body as she lay on the ground. Then he quickly but coolly put the gun to his own head and killed himself.

This city seems badly planned and some of its great federal buildings are monstrous. The Pennsylvania Avenue is an eyesore and a disgrace to the nation. Boston, I believe, is all that it should be. Denver is a delightful town. New York, incomparable for its fabulous wealth, its unequalled shops, its magnificently and boldly-conceived office buildings and apartment blocks, its palatial and perfectly-appointed hotels, its dirty and ill-paved streets, is the marvel of the age and is every year becoming more so. Its growth continues phenomenal. If not now it will soon be the pulse of the world.

There is never occasion in American hotels, as there is in English, in my own experience, to order your table waiter to go and change his greasy, filthy coat or to clean his finger-nails! No, in the smallest country hotel in the United States the proprietor knows that his guests actually prefer a table servant to have clean hands, a clean coat, etc., and waiters in restaurants are obliged to wear thin, light and noiseless boots or shoes, not clodhoppers.

That phenomenon and much-criticized individual, the American child, is blessed with such bright intelligence that at the age of ten he or she is as companionable to the "grown-up" as the youth of twenty of other countries, and much more interesting.

English people are inclined to think Americans brusque and even not very polite. Let me assure them that they are the politest of people, though happily not effusive. They are also the most sympathetic and, strange as it may appear, the most sentimental. Their sympathy I have tested and experienced. Their brusqueness may arise from the fact that they have no time to give to formalities. But a civil question will always be civilly answered, and answered intelligently. Nor are Americans toadies or snobs; they are independent, self-reliant and self-respecting people.