82 BULLETIN 1295, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
common-sense landseeker, can and will, buy this land from the government 
thru our office with utmost confidence and with absolute assurance of getting 
the best land there is to be had without going to see the land for himself. 
The fact is that the only service rendered is to select on a map a 
piece of peat land which (since it is muskeg) contains no timber of 
importance, and which probably may not be economically employed 
for agriculture for at least another half century, if then. For this 
service, and for inducing the victim to assume the burden of taxes 
and special assessments, a sum ranging from $25 to $40 a quarter 
section, the charge was from $560 to $680 per quarter section in the 
case of a typical concern of this kind. These prices included the back 
taxes paid by the company. 
The drainage proceedings under the Volstead Homestead Act 
began about 1910. Between then and 1918, nearly a million acres of 
land was added to the taxable valuation of Beltrami County alone. 
The other side of the picture is shown by the fact that in the summer 
of 1919 out of 80,000 descriptions of land on the tax rolls of the 
county about 12,000 were delinquent. Most of them were lands to’ 
which purchasers had secured title and had then grown tired of 
keeping up the ditch taxes. In the opinion of some of the local real- 
estate men, the business of locating Volstead lands was about over, 
since practically all of the Government lands available had been 
taken up. However, the business of selling relinquished holdings had 
assumed considerable dimensions, and there is prospect that unless 
some measures are taken to put an end to the game, the process of 
buying in these lands at tax sales and reselling them to unwary pur- 
chasers will continue for generations. 
Fraud in connection with the operation of the act has not con- 
sisted alone in inducing people to buy practically worthless lands 
through specious and misleading advertising. In some cases home- 
stead rights had been purchased for a small sum. There appear to 
have been shady practices in connection with the establishment of 
drainage ditches. Apparently, certain contractors had made a bust- 
ness of establishing drainage ditches and floating bonds, usually on 
very wide margins. 
Although engaged in selling land substantially worthless under 
present conditions, these locators were not causing any appreciable 
number to settle on the land; for as soon as the prospective settler 
saw what he had bought he realized at once the impossibility of es- 
tablishing himself on it. At the same time he was usually prevented 
from prosecuting the company which had defrauded him, because 
he himself had inadvertently violated the law by acquiring a home- 
stead without fulfilling the legal requirement of preliminary in- 
spection. 
Many of the victims were small speculators, and there is a distinct 
tendency among some of the dealers in land to feel that they are 
justified in “ soaking ” speculators, though they feel themselves under 
obligation to deal more fairly with the bona fide settlers. A large 
part of this sentiment is doubtless due to the fact that the local 
dealers have to live in the same community with the settlers and 
find the hostility of a disillusioned and often desperate man not only 
unpleasant and sometimes dangerous, but also a distinct source of 
difficulty in making additional sales. However, it is not always easy 
to distinguish between a speculator and an intending settler. A large 
number of purchasers of these Volstead swamp homesteads have been 
