BACK TO THE LAND 203 



Mr. G. W. Smith, founder of the Hundred Year Club, 

 suggests that there is an opening in intensive farming for 

 the benevolent but canny wealthy who are interested in the 

 soil and want to combine philanthropy and percentage. 



His plan is to get capital to secure land and all the neces- 

 sary means, give to each approved applicant perpetual leases 

 of land for a small farm and a lot in a village site convenient 

 thereto, with a house merely sufficient for shelter, requiring 

 as a first payment sufficient to secure capital against loss in 

 case the farmer forfeits his contract, say $100. Let the 

 company provide scientific supervision and conduct the 

 operation mainly as though the farmers were employees, all 

 the necessaries to be charged to each with only sufficient 

 profit to pay the expense and a fan* interest on the capital 

 empjoyed. Through a purchasing and sales department all 

 products should be sold in the best market and each farmer 

 credited with the net result of his productions until the agreed 

 sale price is received, when title should pass in fee to the 

 farmer, who, during the time, has become scientific so far as 

 that piece of land is concerned, and in future can operate it 

 with the advantages which progress has made. A public 

 building would be necessary for a storehouse, in which rooms 

 for meetings of various kinds should be provided, also such 

 shelter as might be necessary for assembling and storage of 

 products for shipment. 



The expense of public buildings and other utilities could 

 be paid for out of the increased value that they bring to the 

 land. The company should have a nursery to provide fruit 

 trees, etc., the growth of which, with the increase of popu- 

 lation, would make the farms, when paid for, worth far 

 more than their cost. Such opportunities as this, opened 

 to all, would do away with the tramps who are now able to 



