THE BONANZA FARMS. 69 



tivatcd acres of the Grandin farm there was not one 

 family finding there a permanent home, where there 

 should have been at least one to every fifty acres of 

 land in crop, or one hundred and six families. This 

 would give one hundred and six houses in place of the 

 five that were there found ; one hundred and six barns 

 in place of three, with other buildings in like propor- 

 tion, and a permanent population of at least five hun- 

 dred where there is not now one fixed inhabitant, with 

 all the accessories of household comfort and home 

 improvement that do not now exist in the smallest 

 degree. And so of the other 65,000 acres belonging 

 to the same parties when it shall come into cultiva- 

 tion. A fixed population that would be continually 

 adding to the wealth of the country and making de- 

 mands for the school and the church, instead of a 

 nonresident ownership that is heaping up colossal for- 

 tunes by skinning the land, impoverishing the people, 

 making war upon women and children, and leaving 

 the country without homes. 



More than this : It will rob future generations of 

 their patrimony in the soil. The fifty millions that 

 the next half century will add to our population must 

 find their homes in the already overcrowded towns or 

 cities, or perchance among the occasional workers and 

 servants upon the great farms. The small farmer and 

 family homestead will have passed away, and our great 

 agricultural regions will show the results of the " be- 

 neficent competition " that has destroyed them. 



The effect of the operations of these adventurers 

 and speculators in farming, under the power of capi- 

 tal and cheap labor, is not confined to the sections in 



