24 BULLETIN 1295, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
doing road building at its own expense unless it controlled nearly 
all the immediate territory. The same is true, although in a less 
important way, in the establishment of schoolhouses, creameries, 
and stores. The expenses of supervision and furnishing aid to 
settlers is also considerably increased if the area is scattered. 
No companies are following intensive colonization methods on. 
widely scattered tracts. Project XI had the most widely distributed 
holdings, and it was experiencing the full consequences of this 
condition, especially in the matter of road building. 
Table 10 shows the percentage of the different classes of land 
included in the plats sold to the settlers covered in the surveys. 
As a matter of fact, a considerable part of the land in most tracts 
is too rough and too stony or too wet to sell to settlers for general 
farming and was not included in settler’s plats. The area of this 
noncultivable land not included in settler’s plats varied greatly 
with different companies, being especially high with Projects XI 
and XIII. The variation, however, is partly a matter of accident. 
If the noncultivable areas are small, they are usually sold with the 
adjoining cultivable land; if they are large, only a portion of them 
can be so included. ‘The price at which the land is sold should 
take account of the amount of noncultivable land included. The 
presence of such land is almost as serious an obstacle to colonization 
methods as interspersed owners. 
The proportion of the land sold to the settlers which is in mer- 
chantable timber depends upon the condition of the timber, the 
length of time since it was logged off, and whether it has recently 
been burned over. It also depends upon the policy of the company 
as to removing the timber before selling the land. It will be noted 
that the range was from 0.6 to 63.3 per cent, the latter percentage 
being representative of companies that are selling land with a 
heavy second growth and not logging them in advance. The best 
choice in this matter depends upon many things. The easiest lands 
to colonize, at least at the start, are those that have recently been 
burned over and those with a light covering of second growth. 
However, if the market is good for timber products at the time, the 
timber may pay well for the cost of removing it, whether the com- 
pany does it or it is left for the settler. In either case, it furnishes 
a much-needed market for the settler’s labor during the first few 
years after settlement. 
The task of establishing settlers on good land ig so much simpler 
and pleasanter that one wonders why any land company should ever 
choose poor land. There are several reasons why poor land is fre- 
quently sold: (1) The most important of these reasons is that it 
may be more profitable to carry on certain types of business with 
poor lands than with good lands. (2) In the territory in which 
the members of the company grow to manhood, only poor or fair 
land may be available. Nevertheless, the whole community is 
anxious to see this land made into farms, and so are the land men. 
In such cases, the best interests of the particular settlers are fre- 
quently a minor consideration. (3) The land may have been 
acquired for other purposes, usually lumbering or mining or as a 
railway grant, very little attention being given at the time to its 
agricultural possibilities. (4) The land may have been acquired for 
speculative purposes, and the speculator subsequently compelled to 
