The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-03-24

is now due-how much Of our future education
and culture will hereafter be due-to the prn-
ciple embodied in these two acts. II this re-
public proves to be an everything power among
the nations of the earth, it will mainly be due
to the education communicated in these public
! schools.
Thre is another aspect in which our public
lands cause Us to differ from all other nations |;
every man, the poorest, the most ignorant,
may have farm of one hundred and sixty
acres by agreeing to reside on it for five years.
The place OF his birth is no opposing element
| to his right to own farm-his manhood enti-
ties him to his homestead The Chinese, the
Esquimaux, the Irishman, and the Sandwich
Islander alike, may each possess his farm if he
will but become an American citizen. Prussia
may equal us in education, England and Ger
many may surpass us in the intellectual culture
OF the higher classes France has more scien-
tifc men but in the number Of happy fami-
lies, where the home is owned by those who
occupy it, the United States has the pre-emi-
nence over every nation in the world. In En-
gland the ratio OF landholders to the popula-
Doomsday-Book enumerates 45,706 owners of
real estate III England-the census of 1861 emu
merates only 30,776 ; so that one-third Of the
real estate owners OF England have been swal-
lowed upby the other two-thirds within the last
! eight centuries there are only two landholders
now where there were three then. The whole
landed property Of England is owned by less
than drad ay1I- Ftu-t hr1 ~
the people! And, under the law Of primogen-
iture, that terrible disprcportion ls rapidly in
creasng. In this country there are nearly six
millions Of landholders against the thirty thous-
Of England. The fiscal year 1869 alone gave
two and half millions OF acres to homestead
aud pre-emptlon settlers. And that same year
converted nearly eight million acres, represent
ing sixty thousand estates, from wild lands in
to arabic farms, each the happy home OF Its
rustic possessor 80 that this single year made
twice the number of freeholders in the nited
States that England possesses with her ten CEN
turies Of civilized existence. d oes not this
significant difference Of the ownership OF real
property offer the true explanation Of the lit
erary fact that, with popul ations nearly the
same, this country has three thousand five hun
dred newspapers, Great Britain only thirteen
hundred and seventy-two?
The homestead act Of 1862 gives to every
naturalized foreigner home farm Of one hun
dred and sixty acres. No lands thus acquired
''shal in any event become liable to the salts
faction Of any debt or debts contracted prior
to the issuing Of the patent therefor"-al fu-
ture improvements i'll these homes are untroub-
led by the remembrance of past indebtedness
When the homestead settler dies before the ex-
piratlon Of his five years, his heirs may contin-
ue the settlement and cultivation OF the estate,
and thus obtain perfect title. When both pa
rents die, leaving infant heirs, their title not
yet consummated, the farm may be sold for
cash for the benefit of the heirs, the purchaser
receiving title direct from the government.
But the settler can have bu: one chance to ac-
qure a homestead if he sells or deserts his
first claim, he can never acquire another, The
sale Of a Homestead right not only gives no IT,
tie to the purchaser, but is treated as prtmd
fdcid evidence Of abandonment, and the orig
inal claim is Cancelled.
There are five modes Of acquiring title to the
!
1st, by purchase at public sale 3D. by private
purchase Sd, by the application of land war
rant; 4th, by pre-emptIon and 5th, under the
homestead law. Occasionally large quantities
OF land are offered at public auction, pursuant
to proclamation by the President, or to public
notice from the Land-offce. When lands thus
offered are not disposed OF at the minimum
II +l,a tbax
may afterward be purchased at that rate fol
cash or by land warrant. In the enormous
railroad grants, which it is the Congressiona
fashion OF the day to bestow, government gives
, up to the future railroad every alternate sec.
ton Of land for thealternate section reserved
it obtains a double price, or =, so an acre. il
| thus builds tho railroad by giving it half the
land 1t trverses. 1t repays itself for this gen
erosity by charging double price for the hal
left because of It's proximity to a railroad. Il
, builds the railroad by doubling the price of land
to the future settler along the line.
, Before these days of railroads lands were
Z only parted with for cash, or as a reward To-
! military service. The warrants given for par
tlcipation IN the Revolution are still looked up
on in many New England families as prouC
! proofs of ancestral connection with the grea
! struggle for independence. Framed in paint
: ed pine, hung up in the rarely opened farm
house parlor, they invest the present genera
ton with the virtues of 1776. OCCASIONAL,
t these warrants, blackened by time. find thei
way through the market into the T.and-ofice
Family necessities or family divisions have oh
liberated the counec ton OF the warrants Wit
the Revolutionary services OF the past, an
: clothed them with tn Q pecunlary vauo of th
I present But we doubt if Mr.. George Pea
} body, who few years since obtained lam
t warrant for some slight participation IN the va
of 1912, ever sold that military memento o
! his early days.
g So simple is the land system of this countr
: that but few legal questions have arisen unde
a titles granted by the United States most o