ADVOCATE AND GUIDE. 97 



Poor, neglected and worn-out farms are sold and resold to city non- 

 farmers at such almost unbelievable figures that it has become a regular 

 occupation for real estate speculators. 



"Little or no crop raising is done on such farms, for skilled farmers 

 cannot make a living working them. It is men from the city who know 

 nothing about farming that buy them. As a consequence, such farms 

 become mere trading propositions and go unworked, though continually 

 changing hands at from $100 to $150 an acre and even higher figures. 

 These farms change hands so fast, he says, that the postoffice and R. F. 



carrier can't keep track of the mail which accumulates at the post- 

 ffice. 



"He gave numerous instances, all of Sumpter Township. Amongst 

 others he mentioned Eugene Spence, who sold his farm of 20 acres for 

 $160 cash. It then changed hands rapidly, once a month part of the 

 time, for 12 months and the other day it was sold for $3,200 ; poor land, 

 sand hills mostly, old and worthless improvements. 



"Adjoining it is the 40-acre farm of Ernest Near, equally worthless. 

 He sold it to a Mr. Moon for $1,300. It recently sold, he heard, for 

 ,000 after changing hands four times. This all happened during the 

 st 18 months. 



"I visited Irving Township which is purely agricultural, containing 

 no towns or even villages, talked with a number of farmers, and learned 

 that in some of the school districts they are having no school. District 

 No. 2, for instance, which at one time had 40 pupils in attendance, has 

 now but one child of school age within its boundaries, so the school is 

 closed and this one child is by an arrangement, getting its schooling in 

 another district. 



"This is typical of several districts in this township, and I was told in 

 other of the purely rural townships. One school district in Rutland 

 Township at one time having 30 pupils, has had but three the past two 

 or three years. They don't even raise children here now. One farmer 

 remarked that when his parents came to that district in the '60's, there 

 were generally four or five or more children to a family his own family 

 had seven and he proceeded to name his neighbors, picking out five 

 or six that had but one child in the family and some that had none. 



"The country church, a fair sized building that must have taxed the 

 neighborhood to erect, has been closed for ten years. The Grange Hall 

 in the vicinity is now the common meeting place for social affairs. The 

 average attendance at Grange meetings is about thirty. . . . 



"John B. Ketcham, Master of the Michigan State Grange, in the 

 Free Press of March 19th says : 'The wholesale price paid at Greenville 

 (Central Michigan) for potatoes is less than thirty-five cents a bushel.' 





