TO THE EDITORS.
{"newspaper_name": "The Columbian fountain.", "edition": "01", "page": "p1", "byline": ""}
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"There appears to be manifest distrust
in your paper respecting the good policy
Of giving away the public lands. l would
simply ask Of you, are you willing that
those lands should lie waste for years pur-
chased, perhaps, by extensive companies
or speculators, without undergoing the
least cuhiuations Would it not, sirs, be
so much more wealth added TO the Com
monwealth, were every square mile duly
cultivated? A Poor MAN"


There seems to be an honest zeal here,
and we, therefore, reply. Lands only lie
waste in this country for want Of popula-
tion, not for want Of money 10 purchase.
A poor man" has only to emigrate from
New Yolk to Wisconsin, Western Mis-
souri,, Texas, or Arkansas, and he can find
enough land "without price" "Squat-
ting" on the Government land is free to
every body. The squatter may be on gov
ernment lands years before they are brought
to market, and have trebled them in value,
when under the pre-emptlon law, he can
have them at $l 25 per acre, no matter
what they are worth.


The public lands now are as free as air
to those who choose to settle on them, and
with common industry the crop of single
years cultivation will yield to the cultiva-
tor sum amply sufficient to enable him TO
purchase, not the mere right of occupancy
simply, but the absolute fee in perpetuity.


Where in the world can such advantages
be found? And yet would the government,
say, ''No real settler shall ever be driven
from the land he actually takes and cultivates,
it would take away fear, and give an i'm
mense impulse to settle the lands.