168 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



plan a small lot so far from his place of employment that he 

 cannot live on it and travel to and from his work every day, 

 and where there is the strongest probability that he will never 

 make more than two or three payments, and will consequently 

 lose what he does pay." The writer hears of one plot which 

 was sold nineteen times and the contracts defaulted on after 

 payments, before any one took title. 



If the seeker is not satisfied with the opportunities which 

 the state of New York offers, he may turn to New Jersey, 

 equally accessible and equally rich in chances. 



New Jersey Year-Book : " There are in the southern part 

 of the State large tracts of land which are still uncleared, or 

 covered with brushwood, and which are adapted to tillage 

 and capable of producing large crops of small fruits and mar- 

 ket garden vegetables. The wood on them is mainly scrub 

 oak, with some dwarfed pitch pine and yellow pine, and hence 

 they are called oak lands to distinguish them from the more 

 sandy lands and tracts on which the pitch pine grows almost 

 exclusively. The latter are known as pine lands. The total 

 area of cleared (farm) lands in the southern division of the 

 State, southeast of the marl belt, is about 450,000 acres. The 

 pineland belts have an aggregate area of 486,000 acres, mak- 

 ing at least 800,000 acres accessible by railways from the 

 large cities and also near to tidewater navigation. The 

 maps of the Geological Survey show the location and the 

 extent of these lands, their railway lines, and their relation 

 to the settlements already made and to the cities. 



"The soils of these tracts are sandy and not naturally so 

 rich and fertile as the more heavy clay soils of the limestone, 

 the red shale, and the marl districts of the State, but they 

 are not so sandy and so coarse-grained as to be non-produc- 

 tive, like some of the pineland areas. The latter are often 



