70 LAND TENURE 



and giving the individual absolute ownership of the soil. The 

 owner of the soil may transfer the ownership at will and with 

 very little formality and with very little expense. This has pro- 

 duced in the United States an unorganized market for real estate. 

 In every city, in every village, in every hamlet, we have now 

 dealers in real estate. Some are stable dealers occupying perma- 

 nent quarters, guaranteeing the titles to the lands they handle and 

 rendering other services incidental to real property. Some dealers 

 are merely scalpers in the market looking for a few chance bargains 

 here and there, having no standard prices or commissions and 

 rendering no services of any kind to the community. It is this 

 class of dealers that charges a commission on land sales ranging 

 from $1.00 to $50 an acre. It may be truthfully asserted that 

 nowhere is speculation more rife or more injurious than in the 

 unorganized market. Oddly enough the farmers manifest a tre- 

 mendous and ardent interest in the activities of Wall Street, the 

 produce exchanges, and the grain exchanges of the country, which 

 have very little effect upon the farmer and at the same time they 

 remain largely unconcerned about the unorganized speculative 

 land market which lies at their door. In this unorganized market, 

 as intimated above, we have the reliable dealers, the scalpers, and 

 the out-and-out frauds. For instance, the Federal government 

 has but recently succeeded in convicting a group of prominent 

 men of frauds in connection with the sale of Florida lands. Misuse 

 of the mail brought the case into the Federal Court. This case is 

 typical of hundreds of others which are known to every reader of 

 our daily and weekly press. 



Free trade in land has been undoubtedly the best thing for 

 the country in spite of the many abuses which have crept in. The 

 question now is how to remedy some of the obvious defects in our 

 methods of land trading. Some hopeful signs are now in evidence. 

 Two things are now being done. In some localities farmers' 

 organizations are now listing all farm lands which are for sale. 

 The list is prepared by the farmers and contains a correct and 

 honest description of the land and, what is more important, a 

 fair price. This list is brought to the attention of would-be settlers, 

 thereby precluding the chance for the middleman to take an unduly 

 large commission. Another step which has been taken may be 

 called state oversight of land sales. For example, in connection 

 with the state departments of agriculture in the states of Connec- 

 ticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Alabama, and others, 

 a booklet is issued from year to year giving a descriptive and accu- 



