CO-OPERATION IN FARMING. 249 



to migrate from one of the old States to Kansas, 

 Minnesota, or one of the Territories : he has heard 

 that he will there find public land whereon he may 

 make a home of a quarter-section, paying therefor 

 $20 or less for the cost of survey and of the necessary 

 papers. So he may : but, on reaching the Land of 

 Promise, whether with or without his family, he finds 

 a very large belt of still vacant land beyond the set- 

 tlements already transformed into private property, 

 and either not for sale at all or held on speculation, 

 quite out of his reach. The public land which he 

 may take under the Homestead law lies a full day's 

 journey beyond the border settlements, to which he 

 must look for Mills, Stores, Schools, and even High- 

 ways. If he persists in squatting, with intent to earu 

 his quarter-section by settlement and cultivation, ho 

 must take a long day's journey across unbridged 

 streams and sloughs, over unmade roads, to find 

 boards, or brick, or meal, or glass, or groceries ; while 

 he must postpone the education of his children to an 

 indefinite future day. Gradually, the region will be 

 settled, and the conveniences of civilization will find 

 their way to his door, but not till after he will have 

 suffered through several years for want of them ; often 

 compelled to make a journey to get a plow or yoke 

 mended, a grist of grain ground, or to minister to 

 some other trivial but inexorable want. He who 

 thus acquires his quarter-section must fairly earn it, 

 and may be thankful if his children do not grow up 

 rude, coarse, and illiterate. 



