Homesteading — Then & Now
It's getting harder and harder to find good land
that's fit for raising a few crops (even fruit trees) or animals. Far too
much good farm and ranch land is being converted every week to housing and
industry. I won't even bother to talk about how such practices amount
to national and economical suicide (we've learned nothing at all from history).
It's enough simply to know that the price of decent land is climbing every day,
as it becomes more and more scarce.
Even so, good land remains. It may not be
cleared and ready for planting or grazing, but that can be good. You may
not wish to clear vast acreages of land for your crops and animals. You
may wish to build your own kind of farm (if you choose to farm), one that
is more naturally sustainable over time. Depending on what you hope to
produce on your land, you may be able to work around, or even incorporate,
sizable sections of raw woods, wetlands, or wild prairie.
Original Homesteading:
Getting "Free" Land from
the U.S. Government
Several Homestead Acts were passed in
the 1800's. By far, the most famous dated from 1862. Generally,
the required procedures for homesteading a parcel of public land
included:
1. To build a house on a parcel of
unclaimed land, usually not exceeding 160-acres (although the size
changed depending on the individual's marriage status and
time-period the homesteading occurred);
2. To determine and describe the
land's boundaries;
3. To live on the land for a
prescribed length of time;
4. To pay the applicable fees; and
5. To record the Homestead with the
applicable Government Land Office.
That was then. This is now.
Today, the Homestead Acts are mostly a
thing of the past (info
on the 2005 Homestead Act). So "homesteading" as we call
it today, isn't what it used to be. Not in the technical or legal
sense.
But people still buy and sometimes trade
for land from the U.S. Government. To find out more see the
next section.
Acquiring Public Lands |
