AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. SHOWING THAT HOMESTEADS MAY BE HAD BY THOSE DE- WITH THE PUBLIC LAW ON THE SUBJECT OF FREE HOMES, TOGETHER WITH NUMEROUS SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS, WHO, THOUGH COME THE OWNERS OF AMPLE FARMS. BY THE AUTHOR OF "TEN ACRES ENOUGH." New York: PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER, (SUCCESSOR TO C. 8. FRANCIS & CO.) 522 BROADWAY. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, BY JAMES MILLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. RENNIE, SHEA & LINDSAY, ANDERSON & RAMSAY, 28 Frankfort Street, N. Y. PREFACE. THE rich man needs no such work as this. His ample purse will enable him to purchase land whereever his fancy may lead, paying for other men's improvements, and lavishly expending his means on new ones. He has his idols in common with the poor man. The first thought of the former is to improve and embellish; that of the latter is simply to acquire. The now wealthy man was at one time actuated by a similar impulse. Henceforth his ambition is to spend. As the poor are always with us, there is a constantly existing crowd whose aspirations are identical with those which he once entertained. Many of them are equally deserving with their successful predecessors. Many of them have no thought of achieving fortune by commerce, trade, or manufactures, or the national vice of office-seeking. Their attention is directed exclusively to agriculture, and the acquisition of land. They have either been brought up as farmers, or a passion has been born with them to become such, or disappoint ment elsewhere has turned their thoughts in the same direction. In all these cases, they are aiming for a common goal-the securing of a farm. Multitudes succeed in their object, while other multitudes fail-some from ignorance, some from incurable incapacity, others from misdirection. The man who digs for gold at random will invariably become poor, while he to whom the precise spot has been pointed out wherein the precious deposit lies concealed, will, with a fraction of the same industry, become rich. To be successful in any thing, effort must be directed by intelligence. Fortunes may be stumbled on occasionally, but stumbling will be found to be a very precarious dependence. So far as misdirection may be a cause of failure, it can to some extent be avoided. My object is to show how such result may be prevented, by suggesting practical methods for insuring success- -some original, some derived from the ripe experience of others. I write with no reference to mere land speculation, such as induces men to purchase to-day for the sole object of selling at a higher price tomorrow, the new buyer selling a week later to a still newer one, while neither has, in the interval, expended a dollar in improvements. I treat almost exclusively of gradual increase of value, and only incidentally of sudden enhancement. Incidents of |