THE BONANZA FARMS. 5V 



all of them formerly family homesteads, lying within 

 sight and hailing distance of each other. From a 

 half dozen to an hundred may be seen from almost 

 any elevated point. 



Now mark the change that has already taken place, 

 and is fast obtaining in all our new and great agricul- 

 tural regions. (Under the power of machinery and 

 capital the farms have grown from the size of 100 

 acres, as formerly, to 1,000 acres, to 10,000 acres, to 

 100,000 acres, even to 500,000 acres, or nearly 800 

 square miles, and more, with not one home upon their 

 vast areas ;) with no one surrounding a family rooftree 

 with all that made the old home a paradise. (Yet 

 these huge tracts are being developed, cultivated, 

 and made to yield as was no farm in the days of our 

 fathers. Now, machinery and a few score or a few 

 hundred hirelings and animals, to run and attend the 

 machines, do the work under the eye of overseers. 

 The hirelings) the human animals fare worked for 

 a few weeks or a few months in the year, paid barely 

 enough to live upon for the time being, and then are 

 turned out and driven from the place, to tramp or live 

 as best they can, no matter what may be the want 

 and misery of their lives, whilst the brute animals and 

 machines are well housed and cared for. The owner 

 of the farm has a property interest in the brute, but 

 no interest whatever in the human animal other than 

 that of getting the greatest possible amount of work 

 for the least amount of compensation. The most val- 

 uable improvements are for the protection of the 

 brutes and the machinery, whilst the human tillers of 

 the soil have neither right nor interest in anything 



