Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 87 



differently. It is not the number of acres and average crops that make 

 the money. It is the proper care those acres are receiving and at the 

 right time. That is where the small farmer has the advantage over the 

 large farmer. Hired labor is getting more scarce every year. Six 

 counties in the First Congressional district of Southeastern Nebraska lost 

 very heavily in population tlie last few years. My own county lost over 

 1,200. What is the cause? ]\Iy own neighborhood tells the story. "We 

 have read and have been told of people leaving the farm in years past on 

 account of poor schools in the country, poor roads, lack of churches, and 

 many other causes. Make the country attractive, it was said, and even 

 the city bred people would turn to the country. Of late years we have 

 received rural free mail delivery and telephone service. What is the 

 cause of the people leaving my neighborhood and selling their 40 and 

 80-acre farms? I never heard them complain about the poor roads, 

 schools or churches. They pull up their stakes and move on to cheaper 

 land. The big fellows have been l)uying out the little fellows. Land 

 was the safest place to invest their money and churches, schools and roads 

 were not always considered. Land was what they wanted; each one 

 wanted a little more. As those little farmers moving away, the hired help 

 getting scarcer, land owners moving to town, the land getting in the 

 hands of renters — forty-six per cent of the land in Southeastern Nebraska 

 is in rented farms, 90 per cent on a one-year lease. This is a bad 

 system. The landlord lives in town with the excuse of educating his 

 children and claims that country schools are not what they should be. 

 I would rather see some of those landlords out in the country wearing 

 out their lives than rusting out in town. 



That brings up the question of landlord and renters which we had 

 on the program at our State Meeting during Farmers' Week last winter 

 at Lincoln, Nebraska. The landlords were well represented and made 

 their pleas and told how tliey were getting along with their renters and 

 what the renters should do. I was called upon to give my opinion, and 

 told them I had nothing to say that would be in favor of a landlord. I 

 rented for three years and was not encouraged any longer to be a renter, 

 so I bought a home for myself in order that I might live independently 

 under my own "vine and fig tree," and I would encourage every renter 

 to do likewise. Again, we have no back history to draw from to offer 

 a remedy that would work out satisfactorily for both parties. Our 

 country life prophets should "bring forward a different remedy in order 

 to keep the people on our ricli corn belt land. A remedy must be brought 

 that will cause a breaking down of land holding, now too large, so' that 

 there may be provided more homes in the country for farmers, and young 



