SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION IN GREAT LAKES STATES 719 
‘who were not suited by temperament, experience, and available 
capital to make a success. Long experience had made this dealer 
an adept in selecting those who were likely to succeed on the land. 
Furthermore, although he had not seen fit to pose as a colonizer 
and had not set up any form of machinery for carrying out a pater- 
nalistic policy, he took a great deal of personal interest in the welfare 
of the settlers and gave them valuable advice based on his long 
experience. In general, therefore, his experience represents an 
instance of success in land settlement that does not rely upon elabo- 
rate methods of colonization, but upon selecting good land and suit- 
able settlers, upon low selling expenses, and upon the strictest 
integrity in advertising and in dealing with buyers. His contracts 
were of the old-fashioned kind, running for five years or more and 
calling for equal annual payments, but he had always granted 
extensions freely to any settler who had any chance of succeeding. 
If any of his settlers became dissatisfied he bought them out or 
otherwise attempted to appease them. 
A DEALER CONSOLIDATING FOR RESALE SMALL SEPARATELY OWNED TRACTS 
One dealer was operating in that section of Minnesota where 
nearly all the land is held in small separately owned tracts. The 
area which he had sold was formerly recorded on the plat book under 
the names of perhaps a hundred different persons, in tracts of 
from 40 acres to a few sections. The land was fairly good and 
he was reselling it, at time of survey, largely to farmers with more 
capital than most settlers have. Accordingly, he did not need to 
give any financial assistance. He was bringing in most of these 
settlers from the county in which he himself had formerly lived 
and where he had a large acquaintance. He was depending upon 
the satisfaction of his customers to enable him to attract other 
prospects. He also carried on 2 considerable business in buying up 
the partly improved farms of discontented lumbermen and other 
transient settlers and reselling them to permanent farmers. 
His method of operating was first to look up the records at the 
county courthouse, check up the titles and then go out and buy. He 
had spent most of his winters buying land and had done most of 
the selling in summer. The expense involved in buying the land 
was fully as large as the expense of selling it, for some of the titles 
were difficult to clear, requiring the expense of advertising. 
The significance of the methods used by this type of land agency 
rests on the fact that a large part of the good land in northern Minne- 
sota is held in small scattered tracts by small speculators, or by large. 
speculators whose holdings are scattered through many counties. For 
some years it has been difficult to find land in northern Minnesota 
suitable for colonization and in tracts large enough so that intensive 
colonization methods can be used. Moreover, it is generally ad- 
mitted that there is at present a scarcity of such available tracts in 
Wisconsin and Michigan. Anyone who goes into the colonization 
business in the Lakes States is likely to be forced either to use 
inferior land or to go out and consolidate numerous small tracts 
by purchase. Most of the colonization companies are either un- 
willing or unable to do this. 
