is description of
the operations of the land sharks and of the effects of their activity:

Relative to the land pirates, it is hard to estimate how much land
they sell, but we find that for every customer they do sell to they
queer deals for this country of from ten to twenty-four which the
other land men might have landed.... I estimate that within the
last two years the city of ---- has lost from fifty to one hundred
customers for land though these pirates, who infest the depot and
meet all trains.... Their first act is to find that the man is
looking for land and to find out whom he is expecting to see, for
they usually come up with some definite proposition to look over.
The pirate then proceeds to throw cold water on the locality that
he is to look over, and very often challenges the integrity of the
party whom he is going to see. He does this preparatory to starting
in to taking the man off and showing him something of his own.
Frequently these men do not own a foot of land, but have a few
pieces for sale on commission. They are usually irresponsible men
and often put through some rocky deals, and it is through them more
than anything else that the real-estate men have often got very bad
names for the way they have handled customers who come up to buy
land. When the customer's mind has been poisoned against the party
whom he was coming to see, and against the particular piece of land
or locality where he had formerly planned to buy, he is often ready
to quit and go back, and it is very hard for anyone thereafter to
deal with him, because his confidence has been shaken in the people
and the country.

The other type of land shark is composed of men who act within the law,
but, for their own gain, apply methods which are mildly called "sharp"
or "unethical." They either misrepresent the qualities of the land they
offer, or charge a higher price than the land is worth, or make in the
contract such stipulations as will afterward ruin the settler. They
profit by the settlers' failures, for each settler adds something to the
improvement of the land before the conditions of the land-purchase
contract which he is unable to meet compel him to leave the land. The
land shark sells the land to a new settler for a still higher price,
capitalizing the improvements made by the former settler. With the new
settl