immediate community a self-sufficing unit; he must get from his
own land bread and meat and clothing for his family; he must be
stock-raiser, grain-grower, farrier, tinker, soap-maker, tanner,
chandler--Jack-of-all-trades and master of none. With the
railroad he gained access to markets and the opportunity to
specialize in one kind of farming; he could now sell his produce
and buy in exchange many of the articles he had previously made
for himself at the expense of much time and labor. Many farmers
and farming communities bought railroad bonds in the endeavor to
increase transportation facilities; all were heartily in sympathy
with the policy of the Government in granting to corporations
land along the route of the railways which they were to
construct.

By 1878, however, the Government had actually given to the
railroads about thirty-five million acres, and was pledged to
give to the Pacific roads alone about one hundred and forty-five
million acres more. Land was now not so plentiful as it had been
in 1850, when this policy had been inaugurated, and the farmers
were naturally aggrieved that the railroads should own so much
desirable land and should either hold it for speculative purposes
or demand for it prices much higher than the Government had asked
for land adjacent to it and no less valuable. Moreover, when
railroads were merged and reorganized or passed into the hands of
receivers the shares held by farmers were frequently wiped out or
were greatly decreased in value. Often railroad stock had been
"watered" to such an extent that high freight charges were
necessary in order to permit the payment of dividends. Thus the
farmer might find himself without his railroad stock, with a
mortgage on his land which he had incurred in order to buy the