rom non-payment.(338)

[Illustration: Indian Cessions.]

During the third quarter of 1820, all sales in Illinois were at the
minimum price and a considerable proportion were of the minimum area. At
the same time, some of the land in Ohio, and a very few tracts in Indiana,
sold at a higher price, one tract in Ohio, but only one, selling for more
than seven dollars per acre.(339) To October 1, 1821, the land-offices in
Illinois reported:

Acres Sold. Surveyed, but
Unsold.
Shawneetown 592,464 2,401,936
Kaskaskia 419,898 1,615,942
Palestine 714 2,880,720
Edwardsville 437,993 2,696,727
Vandalia 7,923 2,545,677

All land in the districts of Shawneetown and Kaskaskia had been surveyed,
but the remaining districts were still indefinite on the north.(340) At
this time, Illinois money passed in the state at par, and the Bank of
Illinois was among those whose notes were received in payment for public
lands.(341)

As more and more land was opened to settlement, a new difficulty arose and
became increasingly troublesome. All public land was to be entered at the
same minimum price, and as a natural result, the poorest land was not
taken up and settlement became widely dispersed on the best tracts of
land. In December, 1824, the Illinois legislature sent a memorial to
Congress portraying the evils of sparse settlement, and asking that land
that had been offered for sale for five years or more might be sold at
fifty cents per acre. Better roads, better markets, and better
institutions were expected to result from such sales.(342) Two years
later, another memorial was sent. This asked that land be offered for sale
at prices graduated according to the quality of the land, suggested that
the poorest land might well be donated to settlers, and declared that
settlement was retarded by the high minimum price of land.(343) Governor
Ninian Edwards pointed out that in 1790, Hamilton had recommended that
public lands be sold at twenty cents per acre, which "was the price at
which Kentucky, long afterward, sold her lands."(344) In 1828, the
Committee on Public Lands recommended that public lands unsold at public
sale be first offered at one dollar per acre, and if still unsold, that
the price be reduced twenty-five cents per acre each two years until sold
or reduced to twenty-f