191»] RURAL ECONOMICS. 91 



It is the conclusion that the round barn means economy of building expendi- 

 ture, increased mow capacity, greater convenience, and an attendant lessening 

 of barn labor. 



Water systems for farm homes, G. M. Warren (U. S. Dcpt. Agr.. Farmers' 

 Bui. '.).',] (1918), pp. 68, figs. 50). — This is a rather extensive compilation of data 

 presented in easily usable form, covering practically every detail of the subject 

 of farm home water supply systems. Information is given regarding water 

 sources and supplies and water purification, and also regarding the mechanical 

 features of practical water-supply apparatus, including power equipment for 

 pumping. A specially noteworthy feature is the number of diagrammatic illus- 

 trations. 



RURAL ECONOMICS. 



Bural reconstruction in Ireland, L. Smith-Gordon and L. C. Staples (Lon- 

 don: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 1911, pp. XIII+219).— This is an account of the 

 forces at work since 1880 for the agrarian reorganization of Ireland. There 

 are now cooperative creameries, producers' cooperative societies, credit socie- 

 ties to overcome the evils of former money-lending methods, and societies for 

 the collective purchase of farmers' supplies. They are all organized on the 

 principle that farmers can act collectively through the local neighborhood unit 

 with individual protection through the one-man-one-vote manner of control. 

 The business is done with one another instead of with customers, and profits 

 are divided among the members. 



The Irish Agricultural Organization Society, established in 1894, finds its 

 chief work in the supervision of all existing cooperative societies. Experts 

 are assigned from this society to give technical advice on the various types of 

 work, such as banks, poultry, and home industries. Cooperation has been most 

 successful in Ireland in those districts in the north and west which are said 

 to have suffered most severely from an unfair tenant system and unjust taxa- 

 tion. The movement has resulted in the development of social consciousness 

 and the recognition of common interests and capacities for a social program, 

 as well as in the development of greater individual powers as wealth producers 

 and business men. 



The future of the movement is deemed to lie in the policies to be adopted 

 by the society, and the authors believe that it will accomplish most if it con- 

 ducts an educational program to teach true cooperation to the existing socie- 

 ties instead of confining its energies to organizing new branches. They feel 

 that " the changes in economic organization brought about by the cooperative 

 movement herald a day of returning prosperity in Ireland." 



Report of the Agricultural Policy Subcommittee of the Reconstruction 

 Committee (London: Win. Reconstruction, 1918, pp. 1S6). — This report has been 

 discussed editorially (E. S. R., 30, p. 402). 



The most pressing agricultural development problem in the United States, 

 C. V. Piper (Proc. Soc. Prom, Agr. Sci., 38 (1911), pp. 18-18).— This problem 

 concerns the vast area of undeveloped coastal plain land from Norfolk, Va., 

 to Galveston, Tex., excluding the great alluvial land of the Mississippi Valley. 

 The soils of this area are predominantly sands or sandy loams, and except 

 for 30,44:">,000 acres of swamp were covered largely with pine timber. The 

 author states that four general types of farming have been developed on the 

 cut-over pine land, but that profitable utilization of these lands in the im- 

 mediate future is possible only by either reforestation or cattle- raising. He 

 discusses these two solutions, and concludes that reforestation is the less 

 feasible and that these great areas can not be developed unless the pasture 

 problem is solved. 



