2j^ SPEECH OF HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL. 



railroads and military bounties have been made with such loose 

 abundance as to destroy the gifts and more thau satisfy all de- 

 mands, whether of the hardy pioneer, or the velvet-footed specula- 

 tor. Our bounty has proved a deluge rather than a refreshing 

 shower. All markets have been glutted, until these Government 

 largesses, sweated and consumed by their own reeking fatness, 

 have shrunk to less than half of their original value, and in part 

 now remain, having conferred benefits only by halves, to clog the 

 operations of Government in its hour of largest beneficence and 

 largest need. 



The Government price for land, except to actual settlers for five 

 years, is now $1.25 per acre, and if it were five dollars per acre, it 

 would be no dearer, than $2.50 was twenty years ago to the settlers 

 of Indiana and Illinois and cheaper than any other land now to be 

 had under the most enlightened and liberal Government of the world. 

 Even in Australasia, where they sell land at auction for all it will 

 bring, the upset price in the poorest colonies has been not less than 

 one pound sterling, or about five dollars, and then what more they 

 can get, while the best lands, and those within three miles of any 

 town, are held much higher. To the 500,000 farmers in France, 

 who own upon an average, but seven acres each, $1.25 must ap- 

 pear a bagatelle, and to the Irish farmers, who in some rare locali- 

 ties, pay £10 to £30 (or $50 to $15D) rent per acre, it must look 

 like a bull on the part of Brother Jonatl^^n. 



Those who have given this subject that attention it deserves, 

 know settlement has already approached the limits of most of the 

 profitable farming lands within our domain. Some of the lands 

 are fertile, but destitute of wood or of water. The red man still 

 wanders on the verge, and where he has disappeared the prairie 

 wolf remains at least to frighten sheep. With some good there is 

 much poor land in our Western Territories. An acre may be 

 worth the Government price, provided there is a dozen prairie 

 chickens upon it ! In the new States there is much land yet to be 

 had of great value at very low prices, but comparatively little of 

 this remains in the hands of the Government. In our Territories 

 the fertile lands arc not found to be universal, as they v/ere nearly 

 so in Illinois and Iowa, but they lie in parcels — here a little and 

 there a little — embroidering the margins of streams, and standing 

 forth in greater beauty from the rule of contrast — oases in the 

 deserts. 



