76 BULLETIN 1295, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
the land was laid out in tracts of 40 acres and sold to settlers for a 
down payment of $25. Lumber for building a house and seed for 
24 acres of potatoes were advanced and 24 acres of land was cleared 
by the land company. ‘The total price of the 40 acres was $400, 
including the clearing and potato seed. ‘The settlers agreed to pay 
half of their potato crop as a means of retiring their indebtedness. 
In all, 53 tracts were sold. Only a few of the original settlers were 
still holding their land in the summer of 1919, and 35 of the tracts 
had been resold. This enterprise was an experiment in carrying out 
an idea frequently held by highly optimistic promoters that a man 
can buy wild land, clear it, grow one or two crops of potatoes or 
something else on it, and pay for it in a year or two. It is true, 
perhaps, that such an achievement may be possible in years of ex- 
ceptionally good harvests and favorable prices, but not as a regular 
thing. The net income from half of 24 acres of potatoes would not 
ordinarily go far toward supporting a family even under pioneer 
conditions. 
It is but fair to say that this operator was not intending to engage 
in a fraudulent business. The price asked for the land was not high 
considering the financial risk involved and the overhead expenses of 
development and sale. The agent himself, as well as the purchasers, 
was really the victim of the excessive optimism so common with land 
promotors. 
Another firm studied was engaged in promoting the sale of orchard 
lands on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. This concern was 
fortunate in having a superior soil, and was appealing mostly to a 
class of fairly well-to-do people who might wish to combine an 
advantageous residential location with out-of-doors employment. 
Some tracts in the settlement were sold to the poorer class of settlers, 
but with the expectation that they would find employment on the 
lands of their more opulent neighbors. The methods of the concern 
appear to have been reputable, although the price asked for their 
land was high. The land was sold on fairly easy terms, but only 
about half of the tract was occupied at the time of the survey 
and it was reported that some of the settlers had had a very hard 
time. 
The land company described (on p. 83) as deliberately engaged in 
putting settlers on inferior land was selling small 10-acre tracts for 
poultry and truck farming on sandy jack-pine land. 
Still another case of a concern endeavoring to effect settlement of 
land on the basis of specialized farming was that of a small foreign 
colony promoted for the most part by exchanging houses in Chicago 
owned by the prospective settlers for small farms with 5 acres cleared 
in advance, in order that they might grow a crop of potatoes the first 
year. The company owned a number of houses in the colony, which 
it allowed its settlers to use while they were building. 
A COMPANY RECLAIMING SWAMP LAND 
It was the policy of one company to drain swamp land and then 
sell it in tracts averaging about 160 acres to settlers having at least 
$5,000 in cash plus some farming equipment, an amount about four 
or five times the average initial net worth of settlers on the projects 
already described. The average terms were $10 an acre cash with 
