14 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



is the idle land? In all parts of our country it exists in 

 abundance. Almost every state in the Union has lands 

 which either have never been alienated, or which have re- 

 verted to the state through nonpayment of taxes. In the 

 East, particularly, the competition of Western lands, aided 

 by discriminating freight rates, now so notorious, has resulted 

 in the abandonment to the mortgagee of vast areas in New 

 York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and to some 

 extent in New Jersey. These are now largely resold. 



Declining fertility and exorbitant and oppressive trans- 

 portation charges have helped to keep these lands out of use, 

 and some still lie idle and neglected, to excite the wonder 

 of the social and economic student. To use the abandoned 

 lands of the East, equal rates on agricultural products is a 

 basic necessity. 



The first step, now well under way, is railroad control by 

 the Government. Equal access to transportation is as es- 

 sential as equal access to land, for transportation is indeed 

 an attribute of land. 



Extending the inquiry westward, the coal and oil areas of 

 Pennsylvania and Ohio are all controlled by a few hands. 

 The original fertility of the farming areas of these states, to- 

 gether with the fact that they have been producing for only 

 about a century, has enabled them to hold their own until 

 recently, but now only the best located tracts are in maxi- 

 mum production, and this can be maintained only by the 

 most advanced agricultural science. In spite of greater 

 advantages, the crowded cities and deserted country districts 

 are beginning to repeat in the fertile alluvial valleys of the 

 interior, the tragic story of the East. 



In the Mississippi valley, conditions seem better. Values 

 of farming lands are increasing rapidly ; the farms are rich 



