CHAPTER II 



HOW ONE MAN CAME TO WRECK 



1CAN 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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