i 111. KONTIII/5 mil i:i i \. 



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people of small means, the Crosser bill, is now before congress. There 

 have been three investigations, one entirely by the federal government, 

 one a combination of the federal government and the state of Wyoming, 

 and the investigations carried en by the State Colonization and Rural 

 Credits Commission of California, to ascertain exactly what the situa- 

 tion is in the farming districts with respect to the need of funds for 

 the acquirement of homes and paying for them. All of those commis- 

 sions have reported, or will report to the same effect — that what we 

 need here is the system that has been inaugurated in practically all 

 of the first-class countries of the world except our own since the begin- 

 ning of this century. 



It may be of interest to just review briefly a little of what other 

 countries have accomplished in that direction. Germany, with its 

 well-known sagacity and its ability to use the government as a direct 

 agent of the service, has in six provinces since 1909 purchased one-fifth 

 of the entire area of those provinces, formerly held in great estates 

 and sold them cut in small holdings, none of them more than 65 acres 

 and practically none less than 2.") acres, except the homes for farm 

 laborers of two acres. The purpose was. first of all, to improve agri- 

 culture, and second, to improve social conditions, to get rid of a system 



in which there has been a great landed aristocracy i ne end of the 



social scale, and a discouraged and discontented peasantry at the 

 other end. In Ireland 9,000,000 acres or an area equal to one-third 

 of the farm land of this state has been bought and transferred to 

 tenants since 1903. In Russia over 3,000,000 farmers, poor in money, 

 poor in experience, have been enabled to acquire homes of their own, 

 have been helped in the building of houses, in the clearing of the land 

 and making it ready for cultivation, since 1906. California can not 

 ignore this movement and its lessons. We have 300 farmers owning 

 over 4niiu.iiiiii acres of the most fertile land in the world, that today 

 is either cultivated by tenants or not cultivated at all. 



The commission that has been studying this subject during the last 

 twelve months will soon issue a report. It lias represented a great deal 

 of labor. I believe it represents in its conclusions fairly what has been 

 Hie result of the world's experience and recommends a course here 

 that is in no sense an experiment, but which, under widely varying 

 conditions and in widely separate parts of the world, has been a most 

 wonderful success. I hope that it will all have your interest. I hope 

 you will all be able to read the reporl and I hope that it will have 



tile support ill the legislature that it deserves. 



