A young farmer, whose total estate is less than $500, not counting a priceless wife and child, resolves to migrate from one of the old States to Kansas, Minnesota, or one of the Territories: he has heard that he will there find public land whereon he may make a home of a quarter-section, paying therefor $20 or less for the cost of survey and of the necessary papers. So he may: but, on reaching the Land of Promise, whether with or without his family, he finds a very large belt of still vacant land beyond the settlements already transformed into private property, and either not for sale at all or held on speculation, quite out of his reach. The public land which he may take under the Homestead law lies a full day's journey beyond the border settlements, to which he must look for Mills, Stores, Schools, and even Highways. If he persists in squatting, with intent to earn his quarter-section by settlement and cultivation, he must take a long day's journey across unbridged streams and sloughs, over unmade roads, to find boards, or brick, or meal, or glass, or groceries; while he must postpone the education of his children to an indefinite future day. Gradually, the region will be settled, and the conveniences of civilization will find their way to his door, but not till after he will have suffered through several years for want of them; often compelled to make a journey to get a plow or yoke mended, a grist of grain ground, or to minister to some other trivial but inexorable want. He who thus acquires his quarter-section must fairly earn it, and may be thankful if his children do not grow up rude, coarse, and illiterate. But suppose one thousand just such young farmers as he is, with no more means and no greater efficiency than his, were to set forth together, resolved to find a suitable location whereon they might all settle on adjoining quarter-sections, thus appropriating the soil of five or six embryo townships: who can fail to see that three-fourths of the obstacles and discouragements which confront the solitary pioneer would vanish at the outset? Roads, Bridges, Mills,--nay, even Schools and Churches--would be theirs almost immediately; while mechanics, merchants, doctors, etc., would fairly overrun their settlement and solicit their patronage at every road-crossing. Within a year after the location of their several claims, they would have achieved more progress and more comfort than in five years under the system of straggling and isolated settlement which has hitherto prevailed. The change I here indicate appeals to the common sense and daily experience of our whole people. It is not necessary, however desirable, that the pioneers should be giants in wisdom, in integrity, or in piety, to secure its benefits. A knave or a fool may be deemed an undesirable neighbor; but a dozen such in the township would not preclude, and could hardly diminish, the advantages naturally resulting from settlement by Cooperation.