CHAPTER XIX 

 THE FARMER'S MEANS OF ACQUIRING LAND 



Free land. Hitherto the progress of American agriculture 

 has been powerfully influenced by the presence of vast areas 

 of government lands which were easily secured, easily brought 

 into cultivation, and which gave large returns upon invest- 

 ments. The presence of these vast areas of cheap land of great 

 fertility in a country where labor was scarce led to the inven- 

 tion of many labor-saving devices until America became noted 

 the world over for her agricultural machinery ; but, above all, 

 the presence of free land has made oppressions by landlords 

 impossible. The farmers have been able to take up valuable 

 government lands. This means of acquiring land ownership 

 has been very important from the time the first settlers landed 

 in the New World until the present time. When, in the earlier 

 days, land became scarce in Massachusetts, emigration to Con- 

 necticut set in, and when the best lands in both of these colonies 

 were occupied, there still remained unoccupied good land in 

 New York. When the small farmers of Virginia were crowded 

 out by the great planters, they found unoccupied lands in North 

 Carolina, and later they followed Boone into the wilderness of 

 Kentucky. In time the occupation of the Mississippi valley 

 was completed, and in more recent years, since the great plains 

 have been made easily accessible by railways, the settlement of 

 new land has gone on at an exceedingly rapid rate. 



That the acquisition of landownership was an easy task for 

 the American farmer of the earlier days is indicated by the 

 following quotation taken from a description of the settlements 

 along the Monongahela in 1772 and 1773 : "Land was the 

 object which invited the greater number of these people to 

 cross the mountains, for as the saying then was, ' It was to be 



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