SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION IN GREAT LAKES STATES 81 
tioned were engaged chiefly in making collections on contracts held. 
The significance of these concerns is in the effect that their activities 
have had on the character of landholdings, particularly in Min- 
nesota. They have been responsible for the large amount of absentee 
ownership and for the diffusion of ownership pointed out in an 
earlier section of this report. 
LOCATORS 
The passage of the Volstead Swamp Homestead Law created an 
especially good opportunity for the class of land concerns known as 
professional locators. Such agencies are also found in other sections 
of the United States, and eenerally they press very close to the mar- 
gin of fraud if they do not actually violate law. 
Several of these firms had been operating in the disposition of the 
swamp or muskeg lands which are so abundant in Beltrami and ad- 
jacent counties in Minnesota. Under the Volstead Homestead Act, 
freeholders in any district needing drainage may establish a drainage 
- district, issue bonds to cover cost ‘of drainage, and levy taxes against 
all holders of land in the territory to pay “for the bonds, including 
the United States Government. Since the latter pays no taxes, the 
law provides that at the end of three years the lands may be sold at 
delinquent tax sale, the purchasers to pay $1.25 per acre. It was the 
practice of the so- “called homestead locating companies to pay the 
delinquent taxes, with interest, and procure the land at tax sale. To 
the $1.25 an acre plus taxes, they added a fee for locating the home- 
stead. 
To understand fully the character of these operations, the nature 
of the area being disposed of must be known. It consists of a vast 
swamp composed principally of peat. The swamp is rather uniform, 
except that around the edges the peat is sufficiently shallow so that 
in some places it has been possible to establish farms. 
How these conditions have been seized upon as a basis for mislead- 
ing advertising is illustrated in the following excerpt from a price 
circular issued by one of these concerns: For certain lands close to 
rivers and settled communities where ditches and roads are already 
built “ with soil consisting of a vegetable loam or black loam from 
one to six feet deep on erayish clay subsoil free from stone, very 
easily cleared and easily developed for general farming * * 
the price is,” etc. Such a statement succeeds in avoiding specific mis- 
statement and yet creates an absolutely false impression. 
These firms made a great pretense at careful selection and some- 
times advertised themselves as agents of the United States Govern- 
ment, as shown in the following quotation : 
We positively guarantee that these complete reports .d plats now shown 
at our office contain all the information required to enable us, who are thor- 
oughly familiar with them, together with the applicant after he comes to our 
office, to select the best and most valuable tract of government land obtainable 
on the day the applicant or his application arrives at our office. It has taken many 
years of expert professional work, involving a great expenditure of money, to 
obtain all the absolutely accurate information contained in these reports and 
plats, but when all this vast information is acquired and these plats are com- 
plete, same enables us then to absolutely guarantee to each and every pros- 
pective purchaser that we, in ten minutes, can and will make, all things con- 
sidered, a better selection at our office for our customers than can possibly be 
made by a hurried trip to the land by the average land seeker or anyone else 
not having the knowledge we hav. of these government lands, and thus every 
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