How to get a farm, and where to find one

Front matter

UNITED STATE8 OF AMERICA, f

^5

AND

Preface

The rich man needs no such work as this. His ample purse will enable him to purchase land whereever his fancy may lead, paying for other men's improvements, and lavishly expending his means on new ones. He has his idols in common with the poor man. The first thought of the former is to improve and embellish ; that of the latter is simply to acquire.

The now wealthy man was at one time actuated by a similar impulse. Henceforth his ambition is to spend. As the poor are always with us, there is a constantly existing crowd whose aspirations are identical with those which he once entertained. Many of them are equally deserving with their successful predecessors. Many of them have no thought of achieving fortune by commerce, trade, or manufactures, or the national vice of office-seeking. Their attention is directed exclusively to agriculture, and the acquisition of land. They have either been brought up as farmers, or a passion has been born with them to become such, or disappoint-

4 PREFACE.

ment elsewhere has turned their thoughts in the same direction.

In all these cases, they are aiming for a common goal — the securing of a farm. Multitudes succeed in their object, while other multitudes fail — some from ignorance, some from incurable incapacity, others from misdirection. The man who digs for gold at random will invariably become poor, while he to whom the precise spot has been pointed out wherein the precious deposit lies concealed, will, with a fraction of the same industry, become rich. To be successful in any thing, effort must be directed by intelligence. Fortunes may be stumbled on occasionally, but stumbling will be found to be a very precarious dependence.

So far as misdirection may be a cause of failure, it can to some extent be avoided. My object is to show how such result may be prevented, by suggesting practical methods for insuring success — some original, some derived from the ripe experience of others. I write with no reference to mere land speculation, such as induces men to purchase to-day for the sole object of selling at a higher price tomorrow, the new buyer selling a week later to a still newer one, while neither has, in the interval, expended a dollar in improvements. I treat almost exclusively of gradual increase of value, and only incidentally of sudden enhancement. Incidents of

PBEFACE. 5

tlie latter do occur without the owner's having ever contemplated them. While not to be disregarded as incidentals, they are not adopted as primaries.

My effort has been to group together in the following pages some of the many remarkable openings for agricultural enterprise which exist in our country. Wherever we turn they are to be found. The great West has long abounded with them, and the South will soon be equally prolific. The Middle States, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, contain thousands of these openings, where cheap lands within reach of cash markets have long been waiting for purchasers. But they have remained comparatively unknown to the agricultural public. The owners have not prized them as they deserved to be, and the speculators have overlooked them. The great West has carried off the honors as well as the population.

It is believed that an acceptable service will be rendered to inquirers, by bringing together, in a single compact view, a description of these several classes of openings. By thus having them in a hand-book, they can be readily and conveniently examined. Each inquirer can read and determine for himself. The variety may be pronounced confusing. No other country offers a tithe of the inducements that are held out to all classes in this. Wherever a man may incline to settle, there some eligible open-

6 PEEFACE.

ing will be found to exist, no matter whether he eontemplates engaging in agriculture or not. In endeavoring to show all how to get a farm, it was important to inform them where it might be had. On both points they will here find abundant information ; — the action must be taken by themselves.

An effort has been made to draw attention to the great but unappreciated value of the numerous tracts of swamp-lands which are to be found among the centres of population in all the older States. The subject might have been further elaborated by suggesting the application of organized capital to this enterprise on a large scale. It has been thus organized and applied in Europe; but our country is probably too young, and land too abundant, for an extensive undertaking of that character to be entertained.

Particular reference has been made to the vast quantities of cheap lands for sale in the three States of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. The information touching these lands and their productions, has been derived, in some instances, from correspondents on the spot. In others, as in Delaware and New Jersey, my account is mainly from personal inspection. I could reach them conveniently, and had the fullest opportunity for making a very thorough examination. I conversed with many per-

PREFACE. 7

sons who had settled there from other States, saw their improvements, as well as their crops, and received candid replies to all inquiries as to how they liked their new locations, and how they were succeeding. The facts thus acquired are reported without suppression or exaggeration.

I have travelled over most of the Illinois Central Railroad, and seen the astonishing improvements to which that great enterprise has given birth. Europeans, in common with Americans, are familiar with the wonderfully liberal terms on which the Company are offering their fertile lands to actual settlers. They have made thousands of industrious families the possessors of noble homes, and will enable other thousands to become equally independent. I have given a connected history of the Company's lands, with some items of information heretofore unpublished, which will be useful both to foreign and domestic readers.

It is known that foreigners are now seeking this country .in larger numbers than for several years past. This coming stream of immigration promises to expand into greater volume than ever. Multitudes of these are ignorant of our true condition, and need correct information. The majority are in search of land. Even our own citizens are deplorably ignorant of where to find the most eligible, and how to secure it. The facts contained in these

8 PREFACE.

pages have been collated with especial reference to the wants of both these classes of inquirers.

Some pages, not mentioned as quotations from other writers, may be recognized by the reader as having already appeared in the columns of different newspapers. All such were written by myself. Where the labors of others in the same field of inquiry have been used, the proper acknowledgment has been made.

Chapter I. Page

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 13

Chapter II

Number of Free Farms — Population, Present and Future — Increase of Public Wealth — Past and Future Immigration — Gold Mines — Farms — Enough for All

Chapter III

What makes Land valuable — Prices balancing each other — How poor Men pay for high-priced Farms — A practical Illustration — A Farm for the Right Man 52

Chapter IV

More Opinions and Experiences — Some Objections — Additional Light — Encouraging the Young — A personal History — Getting an Illinois Farm — One Example — Good Suggestions — Buying and going in Debt — Value of the

Discussion 69

1*

10 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER Y.

PAGK

Exhausted Farms always to be had — Thriving Tenants — Owners anxious to sell — Bartering Farms — A lucky Beginner — City Owners — Taking Advice — Where to search — Saving a poor Farm — Struggling with limited Means — A Cry from a Working Man 103

Chapter VI

Wanting the Best— The Poorer Lands first Cultivated, then the Richer Ones — Value of Swamps — History of three of them — Cranberry Swamps of New Jersey — Power of Example — The Mississippi Swamp Interest — Wealth following Reclamation — Public Loans to aid Drainage — John Johnston, the Great American Tile Drainer 119

Chapter XIV

Why Land so often changes Owners — Tenures and Estates in England — Absorption there and here — Results of English Husbandry — The real Value of Land — Stick to the Farm — Scarecrows — Why Farming is Unprofitable — Go where most wanted 318

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 encountered 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 slave-power 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, knowing that in such a community an aristocracycould not exist. It had uniformly been hostile to pre-emption laws, and all others which tended to aid the settler in acquiring a small tract of land, and hence its bitter opposition to the free-soil scheme. Such settlers would be working men, mostly from the Free States, who would not only till the soil with their own hands, but would build school-houses, establish newspapers, and diffuse education. As no such community of intelligent toilers was permitted in the South, so should it be forbidden in the West.

On the 20th of January, 1859, a bill relating to pre-emptions being before the House of Representatives, Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, moved a section that no public land should thereafter be exposed to public sale by the President, unless it had been surveyed for ten or more years before such sale. The force and effect of this provision would be to give pre-emptors a start of ten years ahead of the speculators, that is, settlers would have ten years in which to choose, buy, or locate on the public lands before they could be sold to the speculators — thus giving the poor and industrious man abundant time to clear up his farm and pay for it from the productions of the soil.

The slave-power wanted no such liberty extended to the poor man. It therefore sought to defeat the bill ; but Mr. Grow's amendment was adopted by a vote of 98 to 81.

The Republican vote was unanimous in its favor, and the entire slave-power voted against it, nine

AND WHEKK TO FIND ONE. 17

only excepted. Mr. Grow's amendment thus became part of the bill ; but when the vote on the bill itself came to be taken, 91 Republicans voted for it, while the whole body of slaveholders, with their Northern allies, 95 in number, went against it. Only two members from the Slave States voted for the bill, Mr. Blair, of Missouri, and Mr. Winter Davis of Maryland, who represented the free-labor interests of Baltimore.

In February, the Homestead Bill was voted on in the House, and was passed by 120 to 76, only three Southern members voting for it. The bill was killed in the Senate by smothering it, all but five of the Southern Senators going against it. It was then abandoned for the session. In both Houses of Congress the Republicans had gone solid for it, while the slaveholders and their allies had so unanimously opposed it as to insure its defeat.

In 1860, another Homestead Bill was introduced into the House by the Republicans, and was passed by 115, all from the Free States but one, to 65 against it, all from the Slave States but one, and he a Pennsylvanian. When this bill went into the Senate, it was superseded by a substitute, which the House subsequently accepted, with slight amendments, the Republicans as usual voting for free homes, and the slaveholders and their allies oj^posing them. This took place in June. But Buchanan, then President, and the feeble and truculent tool of the slaveholders, vetoed the beneficent enactment, and once more it fell to the ground.

But undismayed by these reverses, the friends of the bill persevered in their determination to provide free homes for the poor ; and overcoming all opposition, passed the present law, which Mr. Lincoln, on the 20th of May, 1862, did not hesitate to sign. The provisions of this act are as follow :

AN ACT to Secure Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public Domain, and to Provide a Bounty for Soldiers in lieu of Grants of the Public lands.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled : That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the 1st of January, 1863, be entitled to enter one quarter section, or a less quantity, of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to pre-emption at $1.25, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated lands, at $2.50 per acre, to be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed : Provided, That any person owning and residing on land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate 100 acres.

Section 2. And be it further enacted, That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the Register of the Land-office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before the said Register or Receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one years or more of age, or shall have performed service in the army of the United States, and that he has never borne arms against the Government of the United States, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever ; and upon filing the said affidavit with the Register or Receiver, and on payment of $10, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified : Provided, however, That no certificate shall be given or patent issued therefor until the expiration of five years from the date of such entry ; and if, at the expiration of such time, or at any time within two years thereafter, the person making such entry — or if he be dead, his widow ; or, in case of her death, his heirs or devisee ; or, in case of a widow making such entry, her heirs or devisee, in case of her death — shall prove by two credible witnesses that he, she, or they have resided upon or cultivated the same for the terra of five years immediately succeeding the time of filing the affidavit aforesaid, and shall make affidavit that no part of said land has been alienated, and that he has borne true allegiance to the Government of the United States y then, in such case, he, she, or they, if at that time a citizen of the United States, shall be entitled to a patent, as in other cases provided for by law : And provided further^ That in case of the death of both father and mother, leaving an infant child, or children, under twenty-one years of age, the right and fee shall enure to the benefit of said infant child or children ; and the executor, administrator, or guardian may, at any time within two years after the death of the surviving parent, and in accordance with the laws of the State in which such children for the time being have their domicil, sell said land for the benefit of said infants, but for no other purpose ; and the purchaser shall acquire the absolute title by the purchase, and be entitled to a patent from the United States, on payment of the office fees and sum of money herein specified.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the Register of the Land-office shall note all such applications on the tract books and plats of his office, and keep a register of all such entries, and make return thereof to the General Land-office, together with the proof upon which they have been founded.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That no lands acquired under the provisions of this act shall in any event become liable to the satisfaction of any debt or debts contracted prior to the issuing of the patent therefor.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That if, at any time after the filing of the affidavit, as required in the second section of this act, and before the expiration of the five years aforesaid, it shall be proven, after due notice to the settler, to the satisfaction of the Register of the Land-office, that the person having filed such affidavit shall have actually changed his or her residence, or abandoned the said land, or shall have ceased to occupy said land for more than six months at any time, then and in that event the land so entered shall revert to the government.

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That no individual shall be permitted to acquire title to more than one quarter section under the provisions of this act ; and that the Commissioner of the General Land-office is hereby required to prepare and issue such rules and regulations, consistent with this act, as shall be necessary and proper to carry its provisions into effect ; and that the Registers and Receivers of the several land-offices shall be entitled to receive the same compensation for any lands entered under the provisions of this act that they are now entitled to receive when the same quality of land is entered with money, one-half to be paid by the person making the application at the time of so doing, and the other half on the issue of the certificate by the person to whom it may be issued ; but this shall not be construed to enlarge the maximum of compensation now prescribed by law for any Register or Receiver : Provided, That nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to impair or interfere in any manner whatever with existing pre-emption rights : And provided, further, That all persons who may have filed their applications for a pre-emption right prior to the passage of this act shall be entitled to all privileges of this act. Provided further, That no person who has served, or may hereafter serve, for a period of not less than 14 days in the army or navy of the United States, either regular or volunteer, under the laws thereof, during the existence of an actual war, domestic or foreign, shall be deprived of the benefits of this act on account of not having attained the age of 21 years.

Sec. V. And be it further enacted, That the fifth section of the act entitled "An act in addition to an act more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for other purposes," approved the 3d of March, in the year 1857, shall extend to all oaths, affirmations, and affidavits, required or authorized by this act.

Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent any person who has availed him or herself of the benefit of the first section of this act, from paying the minimum price, or the price to which the same may have graduated, for the quantity of land so entered at any time before the expiration of the five years, and obtaining a patent therefor from the Government, as in other cases provided by law, on making proof of settlement and cultivation as provided by existing laws granting pre-emption rights.

Here is land for almost nothing. A quarter section is a hundred and sixty acres. The whole cost of obtaining such a farm is the ten dollars to be paid to the Keceiver of the Land-office in which the farm may be located. On payment of this sum he enters into immediate possession, and after remaining five years upon it, he receives a patent from the government, which is equivalent to a deed in fee.

It may be supposed that this cheap way of getting a farm would occasion an instantaneous rush from East to West, to secure locations on the public domain, as well as an enormous influx of European immigrants. The act did not go into effect until January 1, 1863 ; yet, within four months from that date, notwithstanding the troubled state of the country, more than a million of acres were taken up under its provisions, and, by the close of September, this amount was increased to nearly a million and a half. But the great bulk of enterprising and adventurous Americans have either been drawn into the army or been too much occupied at home by the pressure of business forced upon them by the brisk demand for manufactures, occasioned by the war, to undertake the founding of a new home in the West. Neither of these classes has been at full liberty to embrace the provisions of this beneficent act. Neither, until very recently, have Europeans been well enough informed of our actual condition during the rebellion, to feel themselves safe in venturing among us, even for the purpose of securing the magnificent sift which Government holds out for their acceptance.

They have been led by rebel emissaries to believe our whole Northern and Western country to be the scene of battle, with desolation everywhere, and safety nowhere. The same dishonest agencies have been employed in leading them to believe that foreigners were conscripted at the moment of their landing among us. As men avoid rather than seek tumult, so, from these causes, the foreigner has been content to remain at home. But when the country shall have become entirely at peace, and when the provisions of the Homestead Law shall be thoroughly known in Europe, we may look with confidence for a revival of the vast stream of immigration which, a few years since, was seen pouring into our country.

What this influx has already done for us may be learned by looking at the single State of Wisconsin. The Legislature of that State found it necessary, in 1864, to order the Governor's message to be printed in eight different languages — English, German, Norwegian, Irish, Welsh, Holland, French, and Bohemian. "The North American" remarks, on this singular spectacle, that, in Wisconsin, " the old vigorous Teutonic stock is thus largely represented. The sons of the Jarls and Yikings ; the descendants of Eric and Hengist ; the riders of the sea, and for many generations its rulers — a brave, thrifty, intelligent, and economical people — are "building up the Northwest with a rapidity which is most wonderful, and with a strength of basis which cannot be toppled over. They have contributed nobly to the nation in putting down the rebellion. They will contribute even more largely to its future welfare. They draw to them, by the irresistible magnetism of prosperity and happiness, hundreds of thousands who enjoy little of either at home ; they assimilate readily with our interests and institutions. Let them continue to come. No long period will elapse, nor many generations pass to the great majority, before they will be bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh — wedded into our great unity : an element of new strength, a means of more lasting national coherence and vigor. They are of the pillars which support the power of the present and give promise to the future."

It was the cheap Government lands which drew to us all this mixed population of Wisconsin, as well as the overshadowing immigration from Germany. The still cheaper lands that can now be secured, will bring them hither in even greater numbers. The census of 1860 shows how powerful has been the attraction of cheap farms. The percentage of native Germans in this country at that period was as follows :

Wisconsin 15.97 1 California 7.10

Indiana 14.94

Minnesota '. 10 . 59

Illinois 7.65

Missouri 7 . 50

Ohio 7.19

New York 6.61

Maryland 6.39

Iowa 5 . 71

Michigan 5 18

New Jersey 5 . 03

Pennsylvania 4 . 74

District Columbia 4 . 33

Kansas 4 . 03

Louisiana 3 . 48

Texas 3.40

Kentucky 2 36

Oregon 2.0G

The Territories 1 . 86

Connecticut 1 . 85

Delaware 1.13

Massachusetts 0.81

Virginia . 66

Rhode Island 0.47

South Carolina . 38

Tennessee . 35

Florida 0.34

Alabama 0.27

Arkansas . 26

Mississippi . 25

Georgia 0.23

New Hampshire 13

North Carolina . 08

Vermont 0.07

Maine 0.06

The total foreign-born population of the Union was 4,136,175, or 13.15 per cent, of the aggregate population. The English formed 1.37 per cent., the Irish 5.12, the Germans 4.14:. The number of the natives of Germany was 1,301,136. The number of Germans (including their children born in this country) was four millions.