108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



positions where they will cease to become a burden to society 

 and gain for themselves bread and independence ?" I answer, 

 that there are a large class in cities who only need to have 

 these facts clearly presented to them, to take up with the oppor- 

 tunities for obtaining a good living and ultimately something 

 for themselves which farming as an industry presents ; and 

 the severe times through which these men are passing, will, 

 more than anything else, have a tendency to bring this about. 

 Then there is another class who cannot so well help them- 

 selves, and who must be aided by capitalists, to settle upon 

 State and government lands. I know capital is capricious, 

 timid, and shy of investment — but at the same time, when cap- 

 italists are sure of a fair "per cent." without risk, money will 

 be found to aid in this enterprise. Already societies and agen- 

 cies are being organized to occupy the government domain 

 with the unemployed in cities, and it must in time bring 

 good results, for whatever tends towards the decentralization 

 of population and labor, will surely operate as a relief to the 

 present evils. The merchant or manufacturer sends his 

 goods to a market not already overstocked with goods of the 

 same kind ; and working men must go, not to cities already 

 crowded with unemployed laborers, but to agricultural fields 

 which await their labor, where it may be used in producing 

 that food which the millions of the Old World demand, and 

 the production and shipment of which sets in motion other 

 industries that contribute to the world's business, and the 

 world's wealth. It is, I am fully aware, a most difficult and 

 perplexing problem — one which seems the more difficult of 

 settlement the more it is discussed — but I am so firmly 

 persuaded that the cultiv^ation of the land, the growing of 

 human food, and the life of the farm, for all classes of unem- 

 ployed men, offers the only true and consistent solution of 

 the problem, that it must be written, and preached, and 

 spoken — until our population is more in harmony with the 

 laws of production and consumption, our public lands occu- 

 pied, our capacity for food crops greatly increased, and the 



