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HOW TO GET A FARM,

AND

WHERE TO FIND ONE.

CHAPTER I.

Poverty no Hindrance-Government Lands-Free Farms-The Homestead Law-Its Friends and Enemies-Settlers in Wisconsin-Germans in the Union-Immigration-A Southern Homestead Law-Continued Grants of Public Land.

THE buyer of a commodity seeks to purchase it at the lowest price; the seller, to dispose of it at the highest. This is the unvarying law of trade. The wealthy merchant acts up to it as closely as the poor man whose whole capital is the shilling on which he expects to dine and sup. It may be said, indeed, that it is the successful practice of this rule that constitutes the difference between the rich and the poor. It breaks down the barrier between the two, and elevates the latter to the condition of the former; for it is an accepted dogma of trade, that a thing cheaply purchased is already half sold.

Apply it to the acquisition of land. The man desirous of obtaining a farm seeks to obtain the

greatest number of acres for the smallest amount of money. It is as much the governing principle of the rich as of the poor. Common sense, sharpened by long habit, teaches it to the former, but necessity teaches it to the latter. But it happens that the poor of this country cannot allege poverty as a bar to the acquisition of as much land as one man ought to possess. The vast public domain of the Union has been thrown open for them to enter in upon it as a gift. No such munificence has been displayed by any other government, either ancient or modern. When the Norman overran and conquered England, the land was partitioned off among those who assisted in the subjugation; but the mere poor man received no share because of his poverty. In our own day, the boundless fields of Australia and New Zealand are sold, not given away. This government alone has enunciated the principle that the poor man who desires to acquire land is entitled to it without price. It seeks no money compensation, but looks for remuneration to the growth and prosperity of the nation consequent on the settlement and cultivation of its vast unoccupied domain. The stranger from a foreign country, though he neither fought for it nor has been taxed for it, comes in an equal sharer with the native-born citizen.

Such lands would therefore seem to be cheaper than all others, and hence the most to be sought after. Price has no bearing upon them—they are to be given away. The causes of this unexampled liberality, the men in whose comprehensive statesmanship it originated, the opposition they encoun

tered in its advocacy, and the conditions on which the great boon was finally wrung from its slaveholding enemies, should be fully known and understood.

It will be seen hereafter how immense the public domain yet is, even after the squandering of millions of acres on speculators and monopolists, which the last few years have witnessed. What disposition was to be made of this vast domain, was a question which long occupied the minds of thoughtful men, and of all who had the best interests of society at heart. Like most other questions in this country, it degenerated ultimately into one of party. It was clearly seen by one body of citizens that unless some radical change were made in the law, the public domain would continue to be the spoil of monopolists and speculators, the inevitable end of which would be the creation of an odious landed aristocracy. To prevent an evil so dangerous to public liberty, they determined that the only remedy was to set it aside for the exclusive use of actual settlers, in small quantities, giving it to them either at a nominal price, or as an absolute gift.

The question was an exceedingly simple one, if to be decided on its own merits. But no sooner had the free-land policy been enunciated, than the slavepower rose up in opposition. It was a measure in the interest of freedom, and slavery could not tolerate it. As the latter had for many years controlled the action of the government, so it was to override it now. Being itself a huge landed aristocracy, it saw with instant alarm the prospect of a multitude of small freeholds being established,

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