This also incentivized immigrants to move west, as railroad owners sold excess land to them at inflated prices. The new railroads also provided access to goods for their farm and/or home from other cities. The railroads brought great help to the farm, they even delivered houses by rail. There was a great expansion with the combination of the Homestead Act and the railroad, "more than 1.6 million homestead applications were processed and more than 270 million acres – 10 percent of all U.S. land – have passed into the hands of individuals” (National