BACK TO THE LAND
"Life, to the average man, means hard, anxious work, with
disappointment at the end, whereas it ought to mean plenty of time
for books and talk. There is something wrong about a system which
condemns ninety-nine hundredths of the race to an existence as bare
of intellectual activity and enjoyment as that of a horse, and with
the added anxiety concerning the next month's rent. Is there no
escape? Through years of hard toil I suspected that there might be
such an escape. Now, having escaped, I am sure of it, so long as
oatmeal is less expensive than Hour, so long as the fish and the
cabbage grows, I shall keep out of the slavery of modern city
existence, and live in God's sunshine." (Hubert, "Liberty and a
Living.")
The wealthy class are taking up farming as a healthy and beautifying
diversion, and we may expect others to follow, as it certainly
promotes happiness and adds to the attractions of those who adopt
it. With the aids which science has given, a farmer can now make
good profits with less labor than was formerly necessary to get a
bare living. The amount that a single well-managed, well-tilled acre
will produce in a season is simply incredible. This accounts for the
increased demand for farming lands wherever they are to be had on
reasonable terms. The wage earners are learning this, and it is only
a question of a little time when manufacturing plants will have to
be convenient to lands where the families of the hands can have a
small tract of land to cultivate. This requires good transportation
facilities from the homes to the factories.
Corporate operation has been a great aid to human progress.
Organization is man's orderly way of following the Divine Plan for
his economic salvation vet the far mer has profited less by
organization than trades unions. Where farmers have organized to aid
each other to buy and sell, they have gained wonderfully, but a
beginning in this direction has but served to show how much more is
needed.
To the individual farmer with large area and small means, the
improvements in machinery that cheapen his production are not at
present available. The discoveries in methods of fertilization of
the soil only make it more difficult for him to earn a living in
competition with those whose ample capital increases production by
its use. Improvements in fruits and vegetation, by hybridization and
various methods that add wealth to those of means, only add to the
troubles of our present small farmers.
Hitherto corporate operation has been mainly for the benefit of
stockholders. The cases where those whose labor creates dividends
get more than wages have been rare. "A living wage" has been the
ambition of labor itself: all profit beyond this is supposed to be
the right of capital. There is with some persons an unconscious
reluctance to share profits with labor lest the laborers become
independent, and thus reduce their number to an extent to raise the
labor market, so that it is difficult to get fair consideration of
any business proposition that promises better conditions for the
producer or independence for the laborer. This is undoubtedly short
sighted, as the higher intelligence of the people who have land
increases production and gives enlarged opportunities for the
profitable employment of money. However, if capitalists persist in
this narrow view, the money of the people when they learn and think,
can be applied to this purpose instead of being deposited in savings
banks, where much of it is used in increasing the wealth of those
who already have abundance.
The idea of "helping others to help themselves" finds a responsive
chord in the hearts of many wealthy people. But the question is, how
can all be helped? No business method by which this can be
accomplished has, as yet, been practically demonstrated.
In no field does corporate operation promise more for the betterment
of human conditions, for a higher standard of morals and of
education, or great certainty of profit for capital, than by
systematically aiding men to obtain farms.
Progress proceeds on the line of returns for expenditure. When a
man's economic condition permits, his first thought is to give his
children an education and a better chance in life than he had. Those
who extol the simple life as the ideal condition of happiness do not
mean that want and deprivation of necessities is the ideal
condition. If they did, they would put their children in that
condition to make them happy. Both extremes of wealth and of poverty
are burdens and retard mental and moral progress. The ideal
condition is to be found on a farm where the land is paid for and
ample means are at hand to supply the necessities for physical
demands, with leisure to learn and enjoy those pleasures of the mind
which come with knowledge of Nature's laws, and wisdom to live in
harmony with them, and in a measure comprehend the purposes of
creation.
Mr. G. W. Smith, founder of the Hundred Year Club, suggests that
there is an opening in intensive farming for the benevolent but
canny wealthy who are interested in the soil and want to combine
philanthropy and percentage.
His plan is to get capital to secure land and all the necessary
means, give to each approved applicant perpetual leases of land for
a small farm and a lot in a village site convenient thereto, with a
house merely sufficient for shelter, requiring as a first payment
sufficient to secure capital against loss in case the farmer
forfeits his contract, say $100. Let the company provide scientific
supervision and conduct the operation mainly as though the farmers
were employees, all the necessaries to be charged to each with only
sufficient profit to pay the expense and a fair interest on the
capital employed. Through a purchasing and sales department all
products should be sold in the best market and each farmer credited
with the net result of his productions until the agreed sale price
is received, when title should pass in fee to the farmer, who,
during the time, has become scientific so far as that piece of land
is concerned, and in future can operate it with the advantages which
progress has made. A public building would be necessary for a
storehouse, in which rooms for meetings of various kinds should be
provided, also such shelter as might be necessary for assembling and
storage of products for shipment.
The expense of public buildings and other utilities could be paid
for out of the increased value that they bring to the land. The
company should have a nursery to provide fruit tree, etc., the
growth of which, with the increase of population would make the
farms, when paid for, worth far more than their cost. Such
opportunities as this, opened to all, would do away with the tramps
who are now able to live on the charitable, only because of the
known difficulties of finding work.
The farmers should be utilized as far as possible in the purchasing
and sales department, and should divide into committees to try
various experiments connected with their business, that through
their reports all may be benefited by the knowledge gained. Dairying
and large orchards on land suitable and not of use in the general
farming plan could be conducted by the community, each farmer being
a stockholder. The labor performed on these cooperative undertakings
should be paid for and charged to cost of production, each one who
performs a share of the labor participating in the profits as near
as may be. As money is received by the company from products, it can
be used in similar operations. When the farms are paid for, the
farmers can continue the cooperative features that experience has
proved useful and extend the business principle to other fields,
such as heating, light, and power by electricity, machinery for
preparing products for market, drying, canning, etc., as well as for
the cultivation of the soil.
Where the land is level the farms can be laid out on a general plan
that will admit of the use of steam plows to reduce the cost of
plowing, save hard labor, and reduce the number of work animals.
Among the multitude of advantages the individual would have in these
communities, social, educational, and economic, health and physical
development appear as not the least.
The farm, as it is, still furnishes a horde of recruits for insane
asylums; its isolation and monotony of everyday life, with its lack
of social intercourse and educational advantages, nearly
counterbalance the strain and poverty of the cities.
But the greatest difficulty is the growing inability of the farmers'
sons to secure land and the means to cultivate it when they arrive
at a marriageable age. Those who have seen for threescore years the
ever-increasing flow of boys and girls from the farms to the cities,
greater in proportion to the rural population than in any other age,
realize the necessity for aid in this direction. While it is true
that the farm has contributed largely to the numbers of our
successful city men, the fact remains that the mass of boys who come
to the cities as well as the city born, lack the faculty to grab or
save, and fail, while the healthy girls swell the ranks of
prostitution, where an average of eight years lands them in a
pauper's grave.
Our soldiers, as well as those of other countries, are not up to
former physical standards. Degeneracy, disintegration is apparent in
every direction.
The power of a nation depends on the physical and mental condition
of the great mass of people, and to leave the people in ignorance
that they may be controlled by the intelligent few who understand
their needs and may have their welfare at heart, is a mistake that
other nations than Russia have made. The law of the survival of the
fittest has wiped out races and nations who have ignored this
fundamental law, that all men must progress together.
A race or civilization with such a basis of farmers as this plan
would create would be enduring.
The nation or race, like the individual, must have intelligent
organization and live in harmony with the laws of nature in order to
survive. Opposition to them means destruction Cooperation is
constructive.
If we are to profit by this lesson, it is necessary that we improve
the conditions surrounding our lower classes. That this is
recognized by a large number of leading minds is proved by the
efforts of the many who are engaged in educational and other social
movements, most of which result in little net good to the
wage-earners.
Obstacles to small farming near large cities are that farms of three
to ten acres with buildings are not plentiful, and that mortgage
loans are hard to get in the East and loans to help in building are
hardly to be had at all.
Land is either held intact as large farms or is sold entire to
speculators who hold it until it can be divided into city lots.
Here, it would seem, is an opportunity for those who are interested
in bettering the condition of their fellow men by wholesale, and can
invest large capital, but little time, in the work.
Let them buy up land in large acreages and cut it up into small
plots of from one to ten acres, charging enough advance to return
interest on the money invested and to meet the necessary expenses in
such operation. Then make liberal building loans to buyers.
Inquiries among real estate men show that they always have a larger
demand for small acreage than they can meet, so an immediate market
with large profits would await those who are first in this field.
There is no use in blaming people for not leaving the cities to go
to the farms; they don't know enough to go, they don't know enough
to make a living if they do go, and they don't know enough to enjoy
it. Besides this, they have not the capital. We must teach them and
help them.
George H. Maxwell's Homecrofters' Guild at Watertown, Mass., where
boys are taught what to do with the earth and how to do it, is worth
whole shelves of books on "The Exodus to the Cities" or the
"Prosperity of the Settler."
It is reported that the state of Texas offered six million acres of
land for sale to settlers, at one dollar per acre. It has been
suggested that it would be better that the states should rent out
the land at four per cent of the sale price. This would leave more
money in the hands of settlers and enable many to get farms who
cannot pay the price and have enough left to raise a crop. In
reality it would be better for the state to help farmers get a start
rather than to tax them one dollar per acre to begin with. However,
under our system of government, we permit only those who have money
to have land.
There can be no doubt that the state of Texas and her people would
be better off if the land were leased than to have it sold. Probably
a tax on the value of the land instead of a rent would be the best
for all the people, especially as it would check speculation.