292 LAND AND LABOR. 



into small tracts of the large farms already created, 

 each and all of which would be occupied by a family 

 that would surround itself with all the improvements 

 its means could command, and fill the country with 

 independent homes. 



The large farmer, capitalist, and corporation that 

 depended on occasional labor for the work necessary 

 to the successful use of machines and animals on their 

 farms, would, in the first place, at seed time and har- 

 vest, be unable to find a great amount of unemployed 

 labor, ready to take any work that might be offered, 

 however short the time required or small the compen- 

 sation ; and when hands could be found, they would 

 be limited to six hours of work per day. If more 

 work should be required, more hands must be ob- 

 tained. But the small farmer, doing his work within 

 his own family, would not be affected by any of these 

 disabilities. He would govern his own time for work 

 by the necessities of the occasion, making it longer or 

 shorter, as might be required, whether it were twelve 

 hours per day or but one. And in those operations 

 requiring the use of the great agricultural machines 

 that so materially facilitate and lighten the work of 

 the farm, cooperation and joint ownership could be 

 most advantageously adopted ; or the reaping, thrash- 

 ing, etc., as now often done by specialists, who own 

 the machines, may be more generally adopted ; thus 

 giving to the small farmer of to-day the full benefit 

 of all the improvements that have been made in agri- 

 cultural implements, and immeasurably advancing 

 his condition above that of the farmers of our fathers' 

 time. Under these conditions the small farmer would 



