SOCIAL SIDE OF COUNTRY LIFE 287 



vegetables as we do the demonstration of soil prob- 

 lems and the best way of making timothy grass give 

 us four tons to the acre. The State is needed at 

 present to secure sanitation, industrial education, and 

 carry the land tiller safely through crises. 



The plan as it will be prosecuted by Governor 

 Hadley is based on a general fact that most of those 

 who are anxious to leave city congestion are money- 

 less as well as homeless. It is very fortunate that 

 this is so, for all betterment schemes begin with those 

 who are well-to-do. The wealthy have been on the 

 move for many years, and have bought up large 

 tracts of land, including not a few of the very rich- 

 est farms, and are doing with them nothing at all 

 in the way of adding to the production of the country. 

 They create beautiful landscapes and elaborate 

 houses, but that is all. Just now we are greatly in 

 need of increasing the food products of the United 

 States ; and the poorer classes will do this, while add- 

 ing to their own comforts and creating homes. 



Governor Hadley has already brought about a 

 National Farm Homes Association; this has reached 

 over his own State to take in the whole Southwest, 

 and to some extent the whole South. Land is pur- 

 chased, as it can be in large sections, especially in 

 Arkansas and Texas and Florida and Georgia, at 

 ten dollars an acre or even less. It is then divided 

 into forty acre farms, thirty-two of these being 

 clustered about a central farm of one hundred and 

 sixty acres. This central farm becomes the residence 



