232 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



Northern Pacific Railway the public land lies adjacent 

 in alternating sections, and is consequently without any 

 difference of quality, the immigrants will, at the outset, 

 prefer the public land, and the railway company will 

 only be able to effect exceptional sales. 



" 23. To what extent public land is disposed of under 

 the Homestead law may be gathered from the fact that 

 during the year 1869, the Government of the United 

 States sold for cash 2,900,000 acres, and allotted under 

 the Homestead law 2,737,000 acres; during the year 

 1870, it sold for cash 2,150,000 acres, and allotted under 

 the Homestead law 3,700,000 acres. If thus the land 

 sales of the railway company should be of little ac- 

 count for several years, one of the means already alluded 

 to, of supplementing the fund out of which the interest 

 on the bonds is to be paid in years of deficiency, will 

 simultaneously fail. The statutory regulations stipulate 

 that the bonds shall be successively bought up with 

 the proceeds of the land sales and cancelled. At the 

 same time, however, it is permitted, in case of the 

 treasury of the company being exhausted, and conse- 

 quently without the necessary means for paying the in- 

 terest on the bonds, to make up the deficiency out of 

 the proceeds of the land sales. Of course the company 

 is bound to make restitution to the land fund of the 

 amount taken out, by handing over the first net profits 

 of the line. But if the land sales are only of a limited 

 extent at first, and the proceeds correspondingly small, 

 it will not be possible to make any substantial advances 

 toward paying the interest, and simultaneously, as I 

 have previously asserted, the line will not produce the 

 requisite amount for the payment of the interest on the 

 bonds ; and thus, in my opinion, it is certain that a 



