A Stake in the Land Part 3

I should like to call your attention to the following form of certificate furnished inquirers in communication with this department:

THE STATE OF WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE IMMIGRATION DIVISION

Directing Certificate

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

The bearer ......................................... of ........................ is in communication with this department, and looking for a farm home in ............. County, Wisconsin. It is our purpose to keep in touch with him after his removal to this state, to note his progress, and learn if he is fully satisfied with the business relations he may have with any person or firm selling him land.

Any courtesies extended him will be appreciated.

.......................... 191......

_Director of Immigration._

C. P. Norgord, _Commissioner_.

In a bulletin of information for immigrants, issued by the Commission of Immigration and Housing of California, 1920, the commission offers its a.s.sistance to the seekers of land in the state of California, in the following words:

Immigrants who are thinking of buying farm lands should call upon or write to the office of the Commission of Immigration and Housing for free information and advice.

(_a_) The commission co-operating with the Agricultural Department of the State University will furnish without charge general information regarding agricultural lands; and

(_b_) It will make an investigation and free report to any immigrant concerning any particular tract of land which he may have visited, and which he contemplates buying. This report will cover the agricultural possibilities of the land and its accessibility to markets. If the immigrant states his previous experience, his financial condition, and gives other information which may be requested by the commission, the report will also give advice as to the wisdom of buying the proposed land.

No purchase or contract to purchase land should be made or entered into until the immigrant knows the nature of the land, its true money value, and that the land belongs to the one who proposes to sell it.

This is the kind of public a.s.sistance which the land seekers, especially the immigrants, most urgently need, and to which they are ent.i.tled. The only questions are, will the other states follow, and how can the opportunity of such reliable public a.s.sistance be made known to the land-seeking ma.s.ses?

III

EXPERIENCES IN ACQUIRING LAND

The experiences of the Russian sectarian peasants in America in their attempts to settle on land are illuminating in regard to existing conditions of land dealing and colonization as they affect the immigrant.

There are in the Western states about a thousand families (or six thousand individuals) of Russian peasant sectarians--Molokans, Holy Jumpers, Wet and Dry Baptists, and others. They were all engaged in agriculture while they lived in Russia. As a result of persecution by the Russian monarchy they left their country and came to America about ten years ago.

RUSSIAN SECTARIAN PEASANTS IN THE WEST

From the beginning of their American adventure they have had a keen desire to settle on land. They have made repeated attempts to acquire farms, but so far failure has been the rule, with few exceptions.

The facts regarding most of the unsuccessful attempts outlined below were obtained at a meeting of Russian sectarians in Los Angeles attended by about one hundred family heads. Each one told his own experience. The men had great difficulty in indicating American names--the names of companies, counties, etc.--so that in the following account names are omitted. When questioned as to how they could secure so much money, they explained that they all work whenever it is possible to find work, that they live moderately, that their men and women dress cheaply, that they do not drink or smoke or go to any places of amus.e.m.e.nt, as all that is prohibited by their religion, and that they save. They stated that their land-seeking attempts are backed financially by the entire colony; the losses are shared by all its members, although the individual families who are on the firing line lose more than the families who remain in Los Angeles and back these scouting parties.

These peasants believe that their difficulty in finding and settling on land has been due to several causes. First, they have not enough money to buy immediately a large tract of land, irrigate and improve it, and give the families a good start. Second, they do not know the country and conditions well enough, especially the agricultural possibilities.

Third, the private land dealers are mostly crooks who cheat them, either by misrepresenting the quality of the land, or by not fulfilling their contract promises, or by making contracts so complicated and so filled with catches that they afterward prove the ruin of the settler. The following are some of the most important of the attempts to find land.

From thirty to thirty-three families made a land-purchase contract with a company of ---- County, Was.h.i.+ngton. One hundred and sixty acres were sold to each family, at a price of from $40 to $50 an acre. Each family pays down $400 and should pay to the company 60 per cent a year of the first, second, and third years' crops, it being understood that the remaining 40 per cent would remain in the hands of the settler for the support of his family. But during the first year it developed that the company took out of that 40 per cent the interest on the mortgages and the taxes on the land, so that very little was left for the cultivator.

The next year the settlers left the land, worked on neighboring farms for another year, and then returned to Los Angeles. Some families had lost $400, some $700--practically all the money they had saved or borrowed.

Again, fifteen families made a contract with a company near Fresno, California. Forty acres were sold to each family at $115 per acre, with the privilege of water for irrigation on the stipulation that the company would receive half of the market value of the crops. The company promised to lend seeds and implements. Several of the families had come from Mexico to escape revolutionary disturbances there, bringing implements, horses, cattle, etc. When they arrived they had to borrow seeds and provisions for the support of the families. The company furnished these on a chattel mortgage at 7 per cent. But the company was not able to provide irrigating water, so the settlers, after two years of fruitless effort, had to leave the land, losing all their mortgaged personal property. Some families lost $700 in cash, some lost $1,000, and some even more.

Later, twenty families made a contract with a land company for the purchase of farms varying in size from twenty to forty acres, at a price of $120 per acre. To be cautious, the peasants sent out only seven families. The company promised to provide either a tractor or horses, implements, seeds, and water, and was to receive one fourth of the crops. But it turned out that the company was not able to furnish water.

During two years the settlers tried to make good, but did not succeed, the lack of water being the main cause of failure. One family lost $700, another $820, and the others lost about the same amount each.

Another group of twenty families made a contract with a company in the same neighborhood. Fifty acres were sold to each family at $120 per acre. The company agreed to provide two horses for each family and all necessary implements, and for its part was to receive half of all the crops. It also promised to give water. But when the time came the company supplied only thirty horses instead of forty, and only three plows for the whole colony; it also failed to furnish water. The land was good, but without water it was of no use. The settlers battled for two years and then left the land. Each lost from $500 to $1,000.

About two years ago a farmer owning lands in the San Joaquin Valley got in touch with Russian peasants in Los Angeles. He agreed to sell these people land, with houses, stock, etc., at what seemed a nominal first payment--$200. It looked like a wonderful opportunity to the simple peasants, who, by their industry, had saved up two or three hundred dollars or more. About 120 families were induced to make the first deposit ($10 or $20). Then Prof. W. T. Clarke of the agricultural extension service of the University of California was asked by the Immigration Commission to visit this tract and report on it. He found that it was the poorest kind of alkali land--land that a gra.s.shopper would starve on. The farmer who was selling the land raised strenuous objections to the investigation and the resulting report, but the commission succeeded in shutting off the entire deal, except in the cases of four or five peasants who insisted on taking the farms and who are now making a failure of it.

On an attempt of the peasants to settle in Utah, twenty families contracted to buy farms at $100 per acre, 130 acres to a family. One fourth of the crops were to be paid to the company, which promised to provide water; but the company failed to find water and all the settlers and the company itself went to pieces. The settlers' losses were very heavy, some losing $1,000, some $2,000. They were again compelled to return to Los Angeles.

In 1907 certain agents of a German sugar company in Honolulu appeared and promised to sell the peasants good land in Honolulu. Thirty families made contracts to buy farms of forty acres, with the stipulation that they would pay the price gradually out of their income from the farms.

When the families arrived in Honolulu there was no land for them. The company explained that they had been merely hired for work on its plantation. Under the conditions of labor there they were half slaves and the life became unendurable. After six months of trial and hards.h.i.+p they returned to Los Angeles, each family having lost from $600 to $700.

In another instance seven families bought farms at Elmira, California, varying in size from twenty to seventy acres. The price was $117 an acre, and they paid down $10 an acre, the balance being covered by a mortgage at 6 per cent. This land is rather poor, but the settlers have stayed on.

THE SUCCESSFUL COLONY AT GLENDALE

Aside from a few families who have succeeded in settling on land here and there through the Western states and who are making ends meet, there is only one group of these peasants which has succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a well-to-do colony; that colony is at Glendale, Arizona, below the Roosevelt Dam.

The first colonists arrived in Glendale seven years ago from Los Angeles, while others came later from San Francisco and from Mexico. The development of the colony has been steady. There are four groups of colonists located a few miles from one another, but they communicate freely and consider themselves one colony. There are at present about seven hundred persons in the colony, with an average of five or six children in each family. The settlers paid down little money at the beginning. Some families did not pay anything; some paid $100, some $500, and a few paid $1,000. The price of the land was originally $125 per acre, but it has now doubled. Almost all the land is under cultivation. The men have acquired the necessary machinery, stock, plants, and seeds; they have plenty to eat, and a large number of families have Ford automobiles, while a few are considering the purchase of higher-priced cars.

The success of the peasants in Glendale is to be explained by the fertility of the new desert land, the adequate irrigation provided by the Roosevelt Dam system, reasonable conditions of land purchase, the capacity of the men for hard labor, and their love of the land. The main money crop is cotton of the highest grade and of exceptionally heavy yield. There is no difficulty in marketing farm products, for the colony is within a few miles of Phnix.

OTHER CALIFORNIA CASES

The report of the Commission on Land Colonization and Rural Credits of the state of California presents some interesting cases.[6]

A tract of wheat land was bought at $7 per acre. The buyer organized a syndicate composed of himself and his stenographer and sold the land to the syndicate at $100 per acre. The syndicate sold the land at $200 per acre. No settler was able to earn either the purchase price or the interest on it out of the soil.

Another colonization company bought 150,000 acres at an average of less than $40 per acre. The average selling price at the start was $75 per acre, but was soon increased to $175 per acre. The agents commission on the higher price was 30 per cent--_i.e._, considerably more than the cost of the land.

In another case an agent made a contract for selling a tract of land at 20 per cent of the selling price, which he was free to fix himself. He raised the price from $150 to $400 per acre, so that he received commissions of $80 per acre instead of $30. As the terms were one fifth cash, the balance in four yearly installments, the agent induced the settlers to buy as much land as would absorb all their capital for the first payments, and then he pocketed as his commission the total amount paid down. When the tract was all sold, the owner held the contracts of the moneyless settlers, the latter had the use of the land, and the agent had the coin.

Some colonization companies, in searching for a tract of land, have regarded price as the only consideration, saying that any land that could be bought for $25 an acre could be colonized. Only hardpan and alkali land could be bought in California at that price. Nevertheless, one company bought such an area, subdivided it, and traded it for houses and lots in Los Angeles. Some time later only three of the purchasers were found to be still in the colony, and probably not one of them intended to remain.

In one district a tract of "goose" land, after selling for $5 and then $15 an acre, was subdivided and sold as garden soil for $125 an acre.

Three brothers who were market gardeners bought farms and settled there with their families. They found the soil, when wet, to be a quagmire and when dry to be possible of cultivation only with dynamite. After three years of utter failure they were forced to abandon their homes, having lost their money, time, and labor, and having reaped a bitter feeling of injustice and wrong.

It appears from the report that a certain cla.s.s of land speculators, when buying land for reselling in plots, do not pay so much attention to the qualities of the land as to its advertising possibilities. If land in a widely known valley is alkali land, so much the better, for the buying price is lower. The speculator in his advertis.e.m.e.nt makes it appear as fruit land with a great future. It seems also to have been by no means uncommon for the agent's commission to be higher than the price paid by the owner for the land.

AN OKLAHOMA SETTLEMENT