SUR OS PCRS PE RE Cee Oe ee Pee eee eee 
SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION IN GREAT LAKES STATES 15 
Table 6 gives statistics of ownership for two typical townships in 
Cass County. In one of these 87 owners hold an average of 176 
acres each, and in the other 78 owners hold an average of 192 acres 
each. Only a very few of these 165 holders in the two townships 
were actually hving on the land. The rest were small speculators 
who had bought their land from lumber companies, land jobbers, and 
the like, at prices usually from $2 to $15 per acre, according to qual- 
ity and time of purchase, with a view either to reselling later at a 
profit or to holding until such time as they or some member of their 
families might want to live on the land. 
Table 7 shows that over half of the acreage in holdings of 1,000 
acres. or over in three counties are owned by persons living in the 
large cities of Minnesota, about one-sixth by persons living outside 
the State, and one-ninth by persons living in the same counties. 
Although no statistics were obtained, apparently the holders of the 
smaller tracts listed in Table 6 are almost as widely scattered. 
Colonization methods require fairly large and compact tracts of 
land, and it is difficult to organize such projects on lands the owner- 
ship of which is so widely scattered as in most of northern Minne- 
sota. Under such circumstances other sales methods must be used. 
Concentration of ownership, such as found in Michigan and Wis- 
consin, is conducive to the use of colonization methods. However, 
most of the lands in Wisconsin and Michigan suitable for coloniza- 
tion by reason of quality and compactness of sufficiently large areas 
are already in process of colonization. 
TABLE 7.—Holders of 1,000 acres or more in three Minnesota counties classified 
by residence 
Itasca County Beltrami County Cass County 
Residence 
Number | Acreage | Number | Acreage | Number | Acreage 
ofowners| held ofowners| held of owners held 
PE OWES MICOU TE Via es ee ee 10 32, 800 24 42, 000 11 34, 720 
Large cities in Minnesota________________- 60 | 297, 040 15 70, 760 37 118, 840 
Other towns in Minnesota_______________- 17 93, 320 7 15, 720 18 78, 320 
Towns and cities in other States__________ 25 60, 920 10 28, 360 24 55, 160 
i MAY FS I ate, ee, Oe eee 112 | 484, 080 56 156, 840 90 287, 040 
CLASSES OF LAND SETTLEMENT AGENCIES IN LAKES STATES 
The various agencies engaged in promoting land settlement in 
the Lakes States may be classified as (1) agents, (2) dealers, and 
(8) owners. Agents carry on a business of listing real estate to sell 
on commissions; dealers buy land for resale; and owners are engaged 
principally in selling lands which they acquired originally for other 
purposes. Most of the owners are lumber companies holding title 
to large areas of cut-over land, which they are trying to sell for 
whatever it. will bring in order to get rid of the burden of carrying 
charges. Dealers, on the other hand, are mainly concerned in the 
margin between buying price plus operating expense on the one 
hand and selling price on the other. 
Those owners who are still actively engaged in lumbering opera- 
tions are only casually interested in selling their cut-over lands and 
