The Irrigation SSchemes of the West. 203 



patent that on the whole every new State in an agricultural region 

 will for a long time export a considerable surplus of foodstuffs of 

 some sort, and thus act distinctly, to a certain extent, in bearing 

 down the market price. Most assuredly, after making all allow- 

 ances, the competition of the new regions in selling just what we 

 want to sell, is a danger and an injury that must be taken into the 

 account. But that is only the beginning. 



A second channel of mischief is the absorption by the free lands 

 of the men and women who ought to supply, and in the normal 

 condition of things would supply, an abundance of labor, at 

 moderate wages, for established farmers. The demand for trust- 

 worthy farm help, at prices that farmers can afford to pay, is left 

 largely unsatisfied — to the injury of the farming interest, and 

 perhaps most of all to the overburdening of the wife of the small 

 farmer with tasks of which hired servants should greatly relieve 

 her — by the facility with which the persons who ought to supply 

 it can go west and become farmers on their own account, your 

 property and mine being freely offered them for that purpose. 

 Why should anybody work for you, except perhaps at extrava- 

 gant compensation, when the government is willing and anxious 

 to make him a landed proprietor himself, without money and 

 without price? 



Xor is it farm labor alone that is drawn away from its natural 

 homes by the recklessness of Uncle Sam in giving everybody a 

 farm. A class of people better off financially go west also and 

 take their money with them, the class among whom the farmer 

 looks for tenants if he wishes to let his property, for purchasers 

 if he wishes to sell. Whv should a man of some means hire vour 

 farm or buy it, if he can get one of his own for nothing, grow up 

 with the country, and presently land in Congress and go to mak- 

 ing laws for vou and the rest of us? 



Kow notice, please, how" these three wrongs converge to drain 

 the verv lifeblood of the established farmer who has bought his 

 farm and paid for it, or (still worse) owes something on it. The 

 value of his crops is reduced by unfair and illegitimate competi- 

 tion; the supply of labor that he needs is minimized and therefore 

 its price enhanced; and the class among whom he ought to be able 

 to find tenants or purchasers is immensely restricted. The same 

 malign influences act, of course, on all his brother farmers. Their 



