2l8 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



years of experience in attempts to sell or otherwise dispose of 

 the public lands. The early idea of sales for revenue was 

 abandoned and a plan of disposition for homes was substituted. 

 The preemption system was the result of law, experience, execu- 

 tive orders, departmental rulings, and judicial construction. 

 It has been many-phased, and was applied by special acts to 

 special localities, with peculiar or additional features, but it 

 has always and to this day [1880] contains the germ of actual 

 settlement, under which thousands of homes have been made 

 and lands made productive, yielding a profit in crops to the 

 farmer and increasing the resources of the nation." 



The Homestead Act of 1862 was the final step in the direc- 

 tion of free land for actual settlers. This law was the result, 

 in part at least, of the agitations of the Free Soil Democrats. 

 They claimed " that the public lands of the United States be- 

 long to the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor 

 granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust 

 for the benefit of the people, and should be granted in limited 

 quantities, free of cost, to landless settlers." * 



The homestead law enables the landless farmer to secure 

 a quarter section, 160 acres, of land and acquire a title to the 

 same by maintaining residence thereupon and improving and 

 cultivating the land for the continuous period of five years. 2 



" The homestead act," says Donaldson, 3 writing in 1880, 

 " is now the approved and preferred method of acquiring title 

 to the public lands. It has stood the test of eighteen years, 

 and was the outgrowth of a system extending through nearly 

 eighty years, and now, within the circle of a hundred years 

 since the United States acquired the first of her public lands, 

 the homestead act stands as the concentrated wisdom of legis- 

 lation for settlement of the public lands. It protects the gov- 

 ernment, it fills the states with homes, it builds up communities, 

 and lessens the chances of social and civil disorder by giving 



1 See "The Public Domain," by Donaldson, p. 332. 



* Circular from the General Land Office showing the manner of proceeding to 

 obtain title to public lands, 1904, p. 11. 



3 See "The Public Domain," by Donaldson, p. 3SO- l 



