CHAPTER II 



HOW ONE MAN CAME TO WRECK 



I CAN show what the resulting conditions 

 meant for the average farmer by citing 

 one example of many that fell under my 

 observation. 



About 1899 a young man from my own 

 state of Iowa joined the tide that flowed 

 toward North Dakota, and pre-empted 160 

 acres west of the Missouri. That is to say, 

 he got the land for nothing on condition 

 that he should build a house on it and live in 

 that house a year. He was more fortunate 

 than many of his fellow-settlers because he 

 had a little money. He had saved about 

 $400, which, in his calculations, was enough 

 to give him a start — on free land. He had 

 also a wife, newly wedded. Both had been 

 reared on farms; they knew the farming 

 business from end to end, or thought they 

 knew it. John Evans, the husband, had even 

 taken a course at an agricultural school and 

 could analyze soils and do the rest of the 

 college stunts. 



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