Never yet
Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world’s wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands, from hill and mead,
Reap the harvests yellow.
Whittier.
PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION.
The views herein set forth were in the main briefly stated in a pamphlet entitled “Our Land and Land Policy,” published in San Francisco in 1871. I then intended, as soon as I could, to present them more fully, but the opportunity did not for a long time occur. In the meanwhile I became even more firmly convinced of their truth, and saw more completely and clearly their relations; and I also saw how many false ideas and erroneous habits of thought stood in the way of their recognition, and how necessary it was to go over the whole ground.