RAFFLE FOR RICH FARMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2628, 9 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

RAFFLE FOR RICH FARMS.

SPECULATOR GETS A £6OOO ESTATE FOR £2OO.

A Chjicago correspondent says remarkable scenes have been witnessed at Ooeur d’Alene, Idaho, where the largest distribution - of land ever held in - the United States is proceeding. Four thousand four hundred farms of ICO acres each are being appropriated on the raffle principle. The land is the choicest that is still open for cultivation in the United States. It has been up to the present a part of the Indian reservation. In fact, there are throe reservations included in the raffle—one of 451,000 acres in North-western Montana, another of 200,000 acres at Coeur d’Alene, in Idaho, and a third at Spokane, extending over 50,000 acres. The fact that it is drawn by lottery does not mean that the grant s are free. Up to seven dollars per acre will go to the redmen who have been dispossessed, and, therefore, the new owners will have to pay aihouiits varying from £4O to £224 for their farms. The terms are, however, so' easy, considering the richness of the land, that no one was surprised when anxious agriculturists began to pour in, and ever since thousands of people nave been camping in the open waiting for the drawing. The registration of applications ended on the Monday morning, and since then some hours each day have been spent in drawing the winning numbers amid tremendous excitement.

The drawings are being carried out with the assistance of children unconnected, in any way with the appjicants, A child is assigned to each lottery box, and draw,si the tickets entitling the lucky possessors to their new 'property. Fortunes are actually being settled in this way, for one man, for example, has drawn for £2OO a farm calculated by agriculturists to be worth at least £6OOO.