"Sing the Blessings of the Corn-fields!
Buried was the bloody hatchet,
Buried was the dreadful war-club,
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten.
There was peace among the nations; Unmolested roved the hunters,
Built the birch canoe for sailing,
Caught the fish in lake and river,
Shot the deer and trapped the beaver;
All around the happy village
tood the maize-fields green and shining, Waved the green plumes of Mondamin, Waved his soft and sunny tresses,
Filling all the land with plenty."

EBRASKA is one of the largest states in the Union, having 49,157,120 acres of land within the most fertile section of the world, with a population of 1,192,217 at the United States census of 1910. It is a rich and prosperous commonwealth. Its growth commercially is evident everywhere--in its farms, stock, business houses, railroads, schools, churches and beautiful homes.

88

     The western part of the state is adapted to stock raising and Omaha is the second largest live stock and packing center in the world.
     Its horse ranches yield fortunes every year to their owners. The fine stock is sought for in other states, and the American hog as well is a great source of revenue.
     It is estimated the little red hen added to the wealth of the state in 1915 $17,500,000, and Nebraska ranks first as a producer of poultry and eggs.
     It is the largest sheep feeder market in the world, the little animals with their soft coats pay their owners for all care and trouble. As a butter maker, the vast herds of cattle place the state eleventh in rank. Omaha has the greatest butter-market in the world, and Lincoln has the greatest creamery.
     The eastern part of the state is especially adapted to the growth of corn, wheat, oats, hay and potatoes. Vegetables and fruit are put up at local canneries, and apples are bought on the trees, picked and shipped by agents from eastern markets, and the broad alfalfa fields bring great wealth to the farmers. As a beet raising state, Nebraska ranks third.
     Wealth from all sources pours into the banks, and the state deposits were estimated at $221,198,442.94, in 1913. Nebraska's total wealth is estimated at about $5,000,000,000.
     Annual deposits of many millions are quite an increase over the little banks established in 1856 by Millard and Caldwell and by the Kountze

89

Brothers, which have now grown into the United States National and the First National Banks of Omaha.
     So silently and surely have the prairies of Nebraska converted the old canvas emigrant wagon into the golden argosy of state that it hardly seems possible to have come about within the memory of many men who live today.

EDUCATION.

     Along educational lines our growth has kept pace with our development in other ways, which is the best evidence of the intelligence of our people; and statistics show that Nebraska, although it has a large foreign population, has the least percentage of illiteracy of any state in the Union.
     As settlers with their children came to the state, school houses sprang up like magic. The day of the little sod school house and the small one-room frame building is not to be despised, for some of our best men began life as pupils under their humble roofs.
     In 1865 John M. McKenzie, under the Methodist denomination, started Mount Vernon College at Peru, Nebraska, to cost ten thousand dollars. In 1867, the state legislature set aside money to complete it and passed laws to establish a State Normal School for the training of teachers. Prof. McKenzie was made the first principal.
     The legislature, in 1869, established a State

90

University, which opened at Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1871, with eight professors and one hundred and thirty pupils. Dr. A. R. Benton was the first Chancellor. It now has about four thousand pupils enrolled and is fully equipped to meet the demands of a first-class university.
     The State Superintendent is now establishing, as fast as practical, vocational work.
     In 1898 was held in Omaha the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, which from the points of beauty, education and financial success, attracted the attention of the entire country.
     The state is greatly indebted to an organization known as the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben,--the name coming from spelling the word Nebraska backwards. This order brings together each year in Omaha not only the people of the state, but the business interests, and holds in the autumn a grand carnival, with day parades and night pageants, the floats of which have never been surpassed, closing with a grand ball in honor of the mythical King of Quivira.
     The beginning of a people, a state or a nation is always interesting, but when the beginning has resulted in a grand success the interest increases. The glow of youth is yet upon the brow of our beautiful state, which has been made in the lifetime of many living actors. The flag of liberty and glory waves over no people more intelligent, prosperous and happy than those who dwell in what was once the far-away barren land of the Great American Desert-now known as Ne

91

braska. We, therefore, pay reverent tribute to that honorable body of frontiersmen, the sturdy, strong fibered, princely pioneers who began the history of the beautiful state of Nebraska.

"I have no words to speak their praise;
 Theirs was the deed the guerdon ours.
 The wilderness and weary days
 Were theirs alone, for us the flowers."

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.

Sorenson's History of Omaha.
Thwaite's Early Western Travel.
Old Salt Lake Trail.
Journal of Lewis & Clark.
Histories of Nebraska, Watkins, Sheldon.
Supplement to the Omaha Bee.
State Historical Society.
History of Union Pacific.