AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 477 



in many localities, of the smaller holdings into comparatively large ones. 

 This movement is comparable, to my mind, to the segregation of small 

 factories into large ones, and instead of causing alarm, it should be 

 looked upon as the natural and logical result of new economic and social 

 conditions. We are apt to let feelings of sentiment influence us when 

 farms change hands, while only commercial instincts are aroused by 

 changes in manufacturing or mercantile business. 



The segregation of estates in various localities, has led to the fear 

 that we are approaching a system of landlordism, but we must not for- 

 get that upoj the more fertile lands and near the markets, farms tend to 

 grow smaller and the system of management to become more intensive. 

 The absence of the eniallraent of estates and the presence of popular 

 suffrage may be expected to be permanent safeguards against land- 

 lordism; but I shall be glad of the time when capital and skill shall 

 direct large rural enterprises in the remoter parts of the country. This 

 has no bearing upon the peasantry question which so many prophesy 

 will come upon us, for the necessary element of peasantry is not small 

 holdings, but social conditions. What the final outcome of farm hold- 

 ings is to be I do not know. I only know that competition will increase, 

 that great new problems will arise, and that the world is growing wiser. 

 The civilization of the coming centuries will not be the civilization of 

 today, and we must not attempt to prognosticate it by the ideals of 

 today. One part of that great organism will be agriculture, but how 

 great a part must be left to the future. 



4. Another proof of the reconstruction of agriculture is the growth 

 of specialization, and in particular the evolution of horticulture. The 

 production of bread stuffs and other necessities must be regulated by 

 the demand, but I hold it to be good economics to say that in the luxuries 

 and the amenities the supply creates the demand. Here is one great 

 check from drifting into peasantry — the possibility of maintaining one's 

 self uj)on a small holding while still retaining one's autonomy in the 

 -economic and social structure. Upon the one hand, therefore, I look for 

 segregation of estates and large area farming, and upon the other for 

 division of estates and small area farming. In any case, we need to heed 

 Virgil's advice: 



Ci' 



"And howso bi'oad the acres of thy desire, 

 The few are better for tillage." 



5. Still another proof of this readjustment of agriculture to the new- 

 time civilization is the sequestration of the district school. The old red 

 school house on the corner, flanked by the woods and the fields of corn, 

 battered and scarred by generations of scholars, the arena of the mighty 

 intellectual combats of the lyceum, the paragon of knowledge — how we 

 love it! How memory reverts to the master with his unimpeachable 

 wisdom and his unescapable rod? How the boys and girls romp again 

 along the roads and over the fields! The years have dimmed the picture 

 only to make the few colors stand out more clearly, and we cherish the 

 incidents because our feet are so rapidly carrying us down to the sun- 

 set. 



But the finger of time is laid upon the old red school house, and its 

 days are numbered. Not all the boys are needed on the farm any more. 

 We have mowing machines and riding plows, and one man does the 



