on several of the trips to secure the land. The first place optioned was the Hiersche 200 acres. We then secured the W. S. Cline land and the lands of J. E. Armstrong, Albert Harrison, Norman DeMott, W. H. Johnson, Harry Walker, John A. McGowan and part of the F. F. Everett farm. Two others were desired but not obtained, although in one case the party signed up an option then declined to deliver it. I remember McCreary saying, "we either want it or know that we do not have it. If you cannot give it to us burn it up," and it was burned in the kitchen stove. The highest price paid for any of the land was $250 per acre for the McGowan forty. No land was bought for less than $115, and most of it for around $150. In the totals it was found that the purchase price was about $23,000 more than the price the company wished to pay. This was made up by popular subscriptions from the local people. As usual some paid more than their business would justify and others paid less, and some who subscribed refused to pay at all and were let out of it without any attempt to collect.

Then came the question of acreage. When about six thousand of the ten thousand acres were subscribed it was found difficult to get more. Some of the beet acreage subscribed was raw prairie and hardly to be classed as beet land. In this we are all surprised at the results from prairie land put into beets. It took considerable emphasis on the part of such positive natures as Craig McCreary to get the company to accept our claim that the acreage question was solved and that the additional four thousand acres would be subscribed as soon as it was definitely given out that the factory was to be located at Scottsbluff.