126 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 



cumulations of wealth are, and for the same reason : 

 viz. because of the centralization of power. How- 

 ever, British landlordism has never been so oppressive 

 to the tenants as trade combinations are to the Amer- 

 ican farmer. It never forced the tenant to take $3.76 

 per hundred weight less for his hogs than it cost him 

 to produce them. (See Table No. i.) 



On the other hand, if ownership of land in this 

 country is to be restricted, it will be unfortunate 

 if the maximum to be held by one individual shall be 

 made less than can be economically operated. Bulle- 

 tin No. 41, United States Department of Agriculture, 

 already referred to, shows and observation and ex- 

 perience confirms that the renter's profit on money 

 invested is twelve times that of the farm owner. 

 Hence, to advise or encourage the man of small means 

 to at once buy a farm would be both unkind and un- 

 economic. Yet this theory was a stock argument in 

 the Federal Land Bank campaign, and is adding ma- 

 terially in continuing the land boom. 



In addition to the experience, observation and the- 

 ories in our own country, the history and experience 

 of others and older countries tend to prove that small 

 farming, a decline in agriculture and impoverishment 

 and degradation of the farmer, go together. In India 

 the farms vary in size from two to twenty acres 

 the average said to be less than ten and though 

 nearly 95 per cent, of the population is engaged in 

 agriculture, scarce a decade passes without famine in 

 some part of the realm. In 1770, during nine months, 

 10,000,000 died of starvation in one province. The 



