494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



finds that six hundred and fifty farms make an average profit of 

 $551.36, and that forty-two sustain an average loss of $232.45. 

 The average size of the farms reported on was one hundred and 

 ten acres. 



I can not agree with Mr. Hotchkiss that the family expenses 

 ought to be deducted in estimating the profits, unless an allow- 

 ance is made on the other side of the ledger for wages of the 

 family. The children of farmers begin to work as early as ten 

 or twelve years of age. Therefore, the first cited computation 

 of the profits of farming in Connecticut is the nearer to the 

 truth. The footings, as summarized by the commissioner, are as 

 follows : 



Total receipts from six hundred and ninety-three farms $707,153 



Total expenses, including family support 690,990 



Total profit $16,163 



Among the farm expenses we find the gross sum of $37,526 set 

 down to taxes and insurance, but there is no separation of the 

 taxes from the insurance. It is apparent that if the gross sum 

 of $16,163 had been added to the tax bills of these farmers, it 

 would have taken not only the whole of the economic rent, but 

 the profits on their capital besides. The statistics in hand lead 

 me to believe that the single-tax theory is already in operation 

 in rural Connecticut, "unbeknownst" to its advocates that is, 

 that economic rent is wholly taken by the tax-gatherer from 

 agricultural land plus something from the returns of the farmers' 

 capital invested in live stock, implements, and " distinguishable 

 betterments," which the theory requires us to exclude from the 

 list of taxables. Live stock, farming utensils, and wagons are 

 shown in the report to be sixteen per cent of the farmer's capital, 

 the real estate being eighty-four per cent. But the real estate 

 includes buildings of every description, fences, drains, wells, and 

 every kind of improvement. 



If this is the true state of the case in one of the most densely 

 populated States of the Union, where shall we look for the revenue 

 that is to liberate all other industry from taxation and abolish 

 poverty throughout the land ? I know something about farming 

 in the West, some years of my life having been spent on a farm 

 in a then frontier State, where the conditions were substantially 

 the same as those now prevailing in Dakota and Nebraska. I 

 know that my step-father, the owner of the hundred and sixty 

 acres under cultivation, had hard work to make ends meet in a 

 very economical way, although he had a family of willing help- 

 ers. Tea and coffee were luxuries never seen in the household. 

 Only one hired man was ever employed on the place, except in 

 harvest-time. Thus the wages bill was kept down to a minimum. 



