AGRARIANISM IN MEXICO 85 



been encouraged to buy some of the stock in these 

 rural banks. The government has promised to ex- 

 tend adequate facilities and guarantees to the 

 investors. 



One of the most advanced steps taken by the 

 Calles administration has been the encouragement 

 of agricultural education. Press reports state that 

 six agricultural institutions are to be established in 

 several states where the government has acquired 

 large tracts of land. Practical instruction in agri- 

 culture is to be offered farmers, relating to the par- 

 ticular problems of agriculture in the sections where 

 they are to be located. If this program succeeds it 

 will mark substantial progress in the educational 

 history of Mexico. 



But the agrarian policy of the Calles Government 

 has resulted in difficulties due to the excessive owner- 

 ship of land by foreigners. These difficulties had 

 their origin during the Diaz regime. Diaz encour- 

 aged America and other outside interests to acquire 

 ownership of land and mineral rights for the purpose 

 of bringing new capital into the country. But "the 

 process of concentration of the land," says Lewis 

 Spence, "which carried with it the dispossessing of 

 small landholders, through their title secured by 

 the Constitution of 1857, exerted a very potent in- 

 fluence in the downfall of Diaz." 7 



The seriousness of this problem in Mexico today 

 is clearly stated by J. Fred Rippy, of the University 



''Mexico of the Mexicans, Chap. 13, p. 205. 



