THE FARM LAND 95 



who can remember the starvation rations of the last war, star' 

 vation rations because English farmers could grow but a small 

 percentage of the food needed in the British Isles. And England 

 has a vast colonial empire to which she can look for her food 

 supply. America's colonies could not supply the need if Amer 

 ican farmers should give up their land. 



There is a middle ground between these extremes. It is not 

 impossible to establish a balance of nature and a balance of eco' 

 nomics on the land. One step toward such a balance is a method 

 of land'use management that preserves the fertility of the soil. 

 A second step is balanced crop production which would reduce 

 surpluses and restore profits to agriculture. Finally, an increase 

 in the buying power of the average American would create the 

 larger market our farmers need today. And to make this possible 

 the American people must create the social institutions by 

 which this balance of man and the land can be established. 



Regardless of what various groups of people may predict 

 for the farmer and the future of agriculture, two things seemed 

 fairly clear by 1935. The farmer was unable to help himself, 

 and the government decided that it was its duty to come to his 

 rescue. 



People who believe that the least government is the best 

 government disapprove of this development. But the farmer 

 who sits in his dust'filled shack in North Dakota and looks out 

 at his cornfield, which to anyone else looks more like a sandy 

 beach, can't help himself. Fifty years ago he might have moved 

 somewhere else. Today he must make the best of a bad bargain. 

 He is the last of the pioneers. If he is to be made into a stable, 

 reasonably prosperous, intelligent worker of the soil, he must 

 be helped out of that pioneer stage where the soil was a mine, 

 and into the stage of stability where the soil is the basic re" 

 source for him and all the generations which will follow him. 

 The state and federal governments are the only agencies so far 

 that have been able to do this. 



