Questions 41-50
The Homestead Act of 1862 gave beads of families or individuals aged twenty-one or
older the right to own 160 acres of public land in the western United States after five years
of residence and improvement. This law was intended to provide land for small farmers
Line and to prevent land from being bought for resale at a profit or being owned by large
(5) landholders. An early amendment to the act even prevented husbands and wives from
filing separate claims. The West, land reformers had assumed, would soon contain many
160-acre family farms.
They were doomed to disappointment. Most landless Americans were too poor to
become farmers even when they could obtain land without cost. The expense of moving a
(10) family to the ever-receding frontier exceeded the means of many, and the cost of tools,
draft animals, a wagon, a well, fencing, and of building the simplest house, might come
to $1,000---a formidable barrier. As for the industrial workers for whom the free land was
supposed to provide a "safety valve," they had neither the skills nor the inclination to
become farmers. Homesteaders usually came from districts not far removed from frontier
(15) conditions. And despite the intent of the law, speculators often managed to obtain large
tracts. They hired people to stake out claims, falsely swear that they had fulfilled the
conditions laid down in the law for obtaining legal title, and then deed the land over to
their employers.
Furthermore, 160 acres were not enough for raising livestock or for the kind of
(20) commercial agriculture that was developing west of the Mississippi. The national
government made a feeble attempt to make larger holdings available to homesteaders
by passing the Timber Culture Act of 1873, which permitted individuals to claim an
additional 160 acres if they would agree to plant a quarter of it in trees within ten years.
This law proved helpful to some farmers in the largely treeless states of Kansas,
(25) Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Nevertheless, fewer than 25 percent of the 245,000 who
took up land under the Act obtained final title to the property.
【題組】41. Which aspect of the Homestead Act of
1862 does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) How it transformed the western United States into a place of small farms
(B) Why it was an improvement over previous attempts at land reform
(C) Why it did not achieve its aim to provide land for small farmers
(D) How it failed in the largely treeless states of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas
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