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 class 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 advertisement makes it
appear as fruit land with a great future. It seems also to have been by
no means uncommon for the agent's comm