230 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



to enable them later to become buyers elsewhere. Under such 

 conditions their farming is not likely to be improving farming, but 

 a variety of what in this country is known by the familiar name of 

 " farming for leaving " — farming, that is, consisting of taking out 

 of the soil all that can be taken. And so, though the object be 

 different, the result is the same. And not without an appearance of 

 reason, at any rate, has consideration of this point given an addi- 

 tional fillip to the increasing desire to discover a convenient system 

 of easy mortgage credit, such as would enable the intending ultimate 

 owner of land to become such at once, with the aid of borrowed 

 capital. A considerable point is made of this aspect of the question 

 at the present time, and it promises to add impetus to the agitation 

 for new methods of land credit. 



Now against the " robbing the land " referred to the late Secretary 

 of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Wilson, determinedly set his 

 face. His native Ayrshire acumen taught him that that must 

 necessarily mean national impoverishment. His successor, Mr. 

 D. F. Houston, kept up the battle with vigour, and without doubt 

 it will be further maintained with no less determination by the 

 present Secretary. And the three last presidents of the Republic, 

 Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Taft and Mr. Wilson, have in their public 

 utterances in succession strongly denounced the evil, and solemnly 

 warned their people of the likely consequences, well discerning 

 that American agriculture, a main national interest — which, 

 however, now on an average still only produces a poor fifteen 

 bushels of wheat per acre — must in the event of its continuance 

 go hopelessly down— at the very time when, by reason of the declared 

 disparity between the growth of the population and of agricultural 

 production, agriculture urgently needs to be strengthened as 

 much as can be. President Roosevelt has impressively warned 

 the nation that, from an exporting country, the United States may 

 soon become an importing one, and this warning is not without 

 its ominous bearing upon our own situation, since we are so largely 

 dependent upon supplies from abroad. 



To some extent that Cassandric warning has already been verified. 

 For the information given in the American " Official Market 

 Reporter " already records every year importations of butter, 

 potatoes, onions and like produce from Europe — Ireland (potatoes), 

 Denmark, Belgium and Spain, and even from Egypt. Those 

 importations are not without a warning for ourselves, who badly 

 need supplies from America. 



Another source of waste to the nation, provoked by the prevalence 



