AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



unusual indeed for a tenant farmer to undertake 

 to purchase a farm. In Germany, where peas- 

 ant proprietorship is the rule, the farms are 

 handed down from father to son by inheritance, 

 and thus the property is kept in the hands of the 

 tillers of the soil. The conditions with respect 

 to inherited wealth are, therefore, of great impor- 

 tance in determining the status of farmers with 

 respect to landownership. 



In the United States it is a matter of common 

 observation that farmers who are able to do so, 

 assist their sons in buying farms. This assist- 

 ance may be relatively very great in the case of a 

 wealthy farmer who has a small family; and 

 again it may be very small in the case of a farmer 

 in moderate circumstances, who has a large num- 

 ber of children among whom he wishes to distrib- 

 ute his assistance. Often the home farm is 

 greatly enlarged by purchasing a "forty" here and 

 an "eighty" there while the boys are growing to 

 manhood, and then parceled out as the young men 

 wish to establish homes for themselves. Again, 

 when the parents are gone, the remainder of their 

 accumulated wealth passes by inheritance to their 

 sons and daughters and helps very greatly in the 

 enlargement of their farms as their growing fami- 

 lies make larger farms desirable. 



The movement of population from country to 

 city, which has been so great in recent years in 



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