in these lands has been the great speculating business of Western men.  Five or six years ago, when the rage for such purchases was at its height, land was becoming a scarce article in the market.  Individuals or companies bought it up with the object of reselling it at a profit; and many, no doubt, did make money.  Railway companies were, in fact, companies combined for the purchase of land.  They purchased land, looking to increase the value of it fivefold by the opening of a railroad.  It may easily be understood that a railway, which could not be in itself remunerative, might in this way become a lucrative speculation.  No settler could dare to place himself absolutely at a distance from any thoroughfare.  At first the margins of nature’s highways, the navigable rivers and lakes, were cleared.  But as the railway system grew and expanded itself, it became manifest that lands might be rendered quickly available which were not so circumstanced by nature.  A company which had purchased an enormous territory from the United States government at five shillings an acre might well repay itself all the cost of a railway through that territory, even though the receipts of the railway should do no more than maintain the current expenses.  It is in this way that the thousands of miles of American railroads have been opened; and here again must be seen the immense advantages which the States as a new country have enjoyed.  With us the purchase of valuable land for railways, together with the legal expenses which those compulsory purchases entailed, have been so great that with all our traffic railways are not remunerative.  But in the States the railways have created the value of the land.  The States have been able to begin at the right end, and to arrange that the districts which are benefited shall themselves pay for the benefit they receive.

The government price of land is 125 cents, or about five shillings an acre; and even this need not be paid at once if the settler purchase directly from the government.  He must begin by making certain improvements on the selected land—­clearing and cultivating some small portion, building a hut, and probably sinking a well.  When this has been done—­when he has thus given a pledge of his intentions by depositing on the land the value of a certain amount of labor, he cannot be removed.  He cannot be removed for a term of years, and then if he pays the price of the land it becomes his own with an indefeasible title.  Many such settlements are made on the purchase of warrants for land.  Soldiers returning from the Mexican wars were donated with warrants for land—­the amount being 160 acres, or the quarter of a section.  The localities of such lands were not specified, but the privilege granted was that of occupying any quarter-section not hitherto tenanted.  It will, of course, be understood that lands favorably situated would be tenanted.  Those contiguous to railways were of course so occupied,