Page 91

     HIBBABD-HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN DANE COUNTY. 91
                       CHAPTER III.
   THE PURCHASE OF LAND FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
   The land laws under which the land of Dane county was
purchased from the federal government were comparatively sim-
ple. The system of credit had worked itself out into such a
nuisance that after i820 cash payments were required. The
clamor of the poorer class of purchasers had resulted in a series
of reductions in the minimum number of acres sold in a unit lot,
until congress, on April 5, i832, passed an act requiring the
public domain, still unsurveyed, to be divided into forties, and
after that each forty was sold separately. This was just in
time to insure the division of Dane county into these smaller lots,
as the survey of southern Wisconsin was then in progress, this
county being finished in x834.15 There seems to be no particular
order in the way land was put upon the market, except that it
had to be surveyed. The land to be sold was "proclaimed" by
the president not less than three months, or more than six months
before coming into market, i. e., it was advertised in certain
newspapers officially designated, and descriptions by number were
given of each separate parcel offered. These proclamations were
copied by western newspapers so that ample notice was given to
all interested. It is worthy of note that in most cases the land
offered for sale was scattered promiscuously about, so that it was
difficult to buy more than a quarter or half section in one block.
It would appear that this was a precaution against purchase by
speculators of large tracts in a body, purchase that would give
them the power to control and retard actual settlement to a greater
iArehlves, office of secretary of state.
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