MEANS OF ACQUIRING LAND 



day [1880] contains the germ of actual settle- 

 ment, under which thousands of homes have been 

 made and lands made productive, yielding a profit 

 in crops to the farmer and increasing the resources 

 of the Nation." 



The Homestead Act of 1862 was the final step 

 in the direction of free land for actual settlers. 

 This law was the result, in part at least, of the 

 agitations of the Free Soil Democrats. They 

 claimed "that the public lands of the United 

 States belong to the people, and should not be sold 

 to individuals, nor granted to corporations, but 

 should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of 

 the people, and should be granted in limited quan- 

 tities, free of cost, to landless settlers." 1 



The homestead law enables the landless farmers 

 to secure a quarter-section, 160 acres, of land and 

 acquire a title to the same by maintaining resi- 

 dence thereupon and improving and cultivating 

 the land for the continuous period of five years. 2 



"The homestead act," says Donaldson, 3 writ- 

 ing in 1880, "is now the approved and preferred 

 method of acquiring title to the public lands. It 

 has stood the test of eighteen years, and was the 

 outgrowth of a system extending through nearly 

 eighty years, and now, within the circle of a hun- 



1 See The Public Domain, by Donaldson, p. 332. 

 a Circular from the General Land Office showing the 

 manner of proceeding to obtain title to public lands, 1904, 



3 See The Public Domain, by Donaldson, p. 350. 

 203 



