Excerpt from How California Is Helping People Own Farms and Rural Homes Until about the end of the nineteenth century free or very cheap land was the economic foundation of this nation's democracy. A free homestead of 160 acres, said Frederick Howe, was a mirage of hope. It was the voice of opportunity calling to the pioneer.2 It formed one of the strongest political ties binding widely separated peoples together. It influenced the scale of wages for all workers. Men who did not feel content as wage earners became ...
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Excerpt from How California Is Helping People Own Farms and Rural Homes Until about the end of the nineteenth century free or very cheap land was the economic foundation of this nation's democracy. A free homestead of 160 acres, said Frederick Howe, was a mirage of hope. It was the voice of opportunity calling to the pioneer.2 It formed one of the strongest political ties binding widely separated peoples together. It influenced the scale of wages for all workers. Men who did not feel content as wage earners became their own employers on a homestead. It fostered the hopeful, confident, and independent Spirit of the people. When the free fertile land was taken up, farms began to rise rapidly in price. Twenty years ago good irrigated or irrigable land could be bought in the Sacramento and Imperial Valleys for from $20 to $50 an acre. That same land now sells for from $100 to $500 an acre. The money which would have bought a farm twenty years ago is now absorbed in the first payment. The cost of farm improvements has risen with land prices. To prepare land for alfalfa costs more than double what it did five years ago. To plant and bring an acre of fruit or vines to the bearing age requires an outlay of money that no one would have risked a quarter of a century ago. A water right often costs more than the former price of both land and water. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at ... This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Add this copy of How California is Helping People Own Farms and Rural to cart. $29.53, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bensenville, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Forgotten Books.
