For many years it was the practice of the United States government, after its lands had been surveyed, to advertise them for sale at public auction on a date fixed by the government. Time sufficient was always given to allow parties interested to go themselves, or send men into the woods, to examine the lands, and thus to be prepared on the day of sale, to bid as high a price on any description as each was willing to pay. After the time advertised for the lands to be thus offered, had expired, and after the land sale had been held, all lands not bought in at that sale became subject to private entry at the local land office. It was this class of lands that I bought in Wisconsin. After the Civil War, by act of Congress, each Union soldier was given the right to homestead one hundred and sixty acres of land, the government price of which was one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. It sometimes happened that the soldier found only forty acres, or possibly eighty acres, or one hundred and twenty acres, lying contiguous, that he cared to take as a homestead. Later, Congress passed another law enabling the soldier, who had thus previously entered fewer than one hundred and sixty acres, to take an additional homestead claim of enough acres, which, when added to his previous homestead, would make a total of one hundred and sixty acres. The soldier was not obliged to live on this additional piece of land, but had the right to sell his certificate or scrip from the government, to anyone who might choose to buy it, and the purchaser, by power of attorney from the soldier, could with this scrip, himself enter the land. This became a common practice, covering a period of several years, and it was with the use of this kind of scrip that very much of the land that was surveyed about the time I have been describing, was entered.