MARKETING OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS IN MINNESOTA AND NORTH DAKOTA.

This article discusses marketing of agricultural lands in Minnesota and North Dakota. It is the purpose of this paper to review, as briefly as possible and yet considering the more important forms, the methods of transferring land in the Red River Valley of the North, which lies in Minnesota and North Dakota. This area had long been a favorite field for fur-traders, explorers, missionaries, and adventurers. Incoming farmers now rapidly displaced the half-breed Indians who had been the chief occupants, and at this point came the first step in the transition of the land from free to economic goods. Within a few years the title to almost every available acre had passed over to the national government. Methods of transferring landed property in densely populated centers have been considered to some extent, including the significance of building and loan associations and other institutions of like nature or having like purposes in view; but it would seem as if less attention had been given, at least in the U.S., country to a consideration of methods of transferring agricultural lands than to any other phase of the land question.