He
Concludes That It Is Best To Sell Out The Place He Has, And Try
Ploughing Where There Are No Rocks To Obstruct Him.
The farmer of Ohio
does not expect to find better soil than he leaves; but his
inducements are that he can sell his land at forty or fifty dollars an
acre, and preempt as good in Minnesota for a dollar and a quarter an
acre.
This operation leaves him a surplus fund, and he becomes a more
opulent man, with better means to adorn his farm and to educate his
children.
Those who contemplate coming West to engage in agricultural employment
should leave their families, if families they have, behind till they
have selected a location and erected some kind of a habitation;
provided, however, they have no particular friend whose hospitality
they can avail themselves of till their preliminary arrangements are
effected. It will require three months, I judge, for a man to select a
good claim (a quarter section, being 160 acres), and fence and plough
a part of it and to erect thereon a cabin. There is never a want of
land to preempt in a new country. The settler can always get an
original claim, or buy out the claim of another very cheap, near some
other settlers. The liberal policy of our government in regard to the
disposal of public lands is peculiarly beneficial to the settler. The
latter has the first chance. He can go on to a quarter section which
may be worth fifteen dollars an acre, and preempt it before it is
surveyed, and finally obtain it for $1.25 an acre.
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