Whereas The Speculator Must Wait Till The Land Is Surveyed And Advertised For Sale; And Then He Can Get Only What Has Not Been Preempted, And At A Price Which It Brings At Auction, Not Less Than $1.25 An Acre.

Then what land is not sold at public sale is open to private entry at $1.25 an acre.

It is such land that bounty warrants are located on. Thus it is seen the pioneer has the first choice. Why, I have walked over land up here that would now bring from ten to twenty dollars an acre if it was in the market, and which any settler can preempt and get for $1.25 an acre. I am strongly tempted to turn farmer myself, and go out and build me a cabin. The speculation would be a good one. But to acquire a title by preemption I must dwell on the soil, and prove that I have erected a dwelling and made other improvements. In other words, before a man (or any head of a family) can get a patent, he must satisfy the land officers that he is a dweller in good faith on the soil. It is often the case, indeed, that men get a title by preemption who never intend to live on their quarter section. But they do it by fraud. They have a sort of mental reservation, I suppose, when they take the requisite oaths. In this way many valuable claims are taken up and held along from month to month, or from year to year, by mock improvements.

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