1919] RURAL IK'ONOMICS. (i-ST 



A bibliography of magazine articles relating to the Tropics is Included. 



Village life after the war {London: Headley Bros., Ltd. [mil], pp. T'4- 

 118). — This consists of official reports of two conferences held under the 

 auspices of the Rural Organization Council In i;>it. The first considered ques- 

 tions of sm;iii holdings, particularly for ex-service men, wages, credit to all 

 classes, cooperation, bousing, recreation, and village social plans, and the 

 second took up questions of rural disfigurement, education, recreation, handi- 

 crafts, and village settlements for disabled service men. 



Land settlement for soldiers and sailors (Scot. ■lour. Agr., 1 [1918), Xo. 4< 

 pp. \80-lfib). — Tiiis article describes the areas in several parishes of Scotland 

 which have been made available for experimental small-holding colonies, pur- 

 chased under the Small Holding Colonics Ad of 1!>16. 



Proposal for the establishment on a voluntary basis of a county scheme 

 for the settlement for ex-service men on the land (London: Cent. Land 

 Assoc, 1918, pp. 8). — A scheme is proposed whereby the landowners mighl vol- 

 untarily meet the claims of ex-service men for the opportunity of becoming 

 established OH the land. County councils and parish committees would be the 

 means of putting the Landowners and soldiers in touch with each other. 



Better business, better farming-, better living — hints from a practical 

 farmer to the settlers on the projects of the United States Reclamation 

 Service, I. D. O'Donneix (Washington: U. S. Reclam. sen-., 1918, pp. 137, flgs. 

 16). — Suggestions for planning the farmstead and general recommendations as 

 to the methods and systems of farming deemed host for irrigated lands in the 

 reclaimed areas of the United States are presented. The keeping of farm 

 accounts is also dealt with in some detail. 



The agricultural ladder, W. J. Spuxman (Fed. Dd. Yocat. Ed., Vocat. Sum- 

 mary, l (1919), No. 9, pp. 19-21). — This is a study reported in an address be- 

 fore the joint session of the American Association for Agricultural Legislation 

 and the American Economic Association. January, 1919, of the rate at which 

 men become farm owners, and includes some data previously noted (E. S. R., 

 40. p. 92). 



It shows that a group consisting of owners who had passed through the three 

 Stages, namely, unpaid laborer on the home farm, hired man, and tenant, to 

 that of owner, constituted -0 per cent of the 2,112 farm owners in the States 

 of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota, according to data collected 

 in 1917. A second group of those who had gone from unpaid laborer to hired 

 hand, then to owner, constituted 13 per cent of the whole, those who had skipped 

 the hired-man stage 32 per cent, and those progressing direct from unpaid 

 laborer on the home farm to owner 34 per cent. 



A second phase of the investigation shows that "just two-thirds of these men 

 obtained their farms by purchase. . . . Twenty-four and one half per cent of 

 the whole number obtained their farms by inheritance, 7 per cent by marriage, 

 and 1.5 per cent by homestead ing." 



From a study of the average length of the hired-man and tenant stages in 

 four decades before 1917, it is apparent that " we are approaching a period 

 when the length of both these stages will become approximately fixed unless 

 conditions change materially, which, of course, they may do." 



The speaker concludes by advocating the making of new farms available at a 

 rate no greater than that at which our population is increasing, and recom- 

 mends advancement to farm ownership from the hired-man stage through 

 tenancy if the man can show knowledge of farming sufficient to success. 



Minimum wages for agricultural workers (Scot. Jour. Agr., 1 (1918), Xo. 

 4. PP- 484-Hl)- — A report of an investigation of the question of scale of 

 wages and efforts to establish a minimum wage in Scotland. 



