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SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



August, 1922 



to have a democracy partly slave and partly 

 free. If we are going to have a real demo- 

 cracy in which the people rule we must have 

 an educated democracy, and to this end the 

 half of the population living in the country 

 should have equal educational privileges 

 with those in the city. 



In the third place, there must be a satis- 

 factory return upon the land, labor and 

 capital employed in the country if country 

 life is to have a sufficiently strong attraction 

 for the ambitious and the enterprising to 

 keep them upon the land generation after 

 generation. Without this, no tie, not even 

 a sentimental tie, will bind them to the soil 

 and induce them to continue upon the land 

 over a long period of time. As the condi- 

 tions are at present and have been for some 

 time, the labor of the farmer's family is not 

 remunerated at all equal to what could be 

 obtained by leaving the farm and going to 

 work in the town or city; and it is chiefly 

 the home ties which hold the young men and 

 women on the farms as long as they remain. 

 It does not take long for them to learn that 

 the great world beyond the farm has greater 

 opportunities for them, and with the thought 

 of making their own way in the world they 

 do not take long to decide between the 

 poorly-paid work on the farm and the more 

 liighly-paid employment of the factory or 

 the commercial establishment. In the face 

 of this drawing power leading them to leave 

 the farm, it will require an equivalent re- 

 compense (although not perhaps entirely in 

 money) to keep them attached to the farm. 

 How can these higher wages be paid.'' In 

 no other way than by the farmer being able 

 to secure higher prices for what he has to 

 sell, for he can only pay higher wages to 

 the members of his family when he receives 

 greater returns from what he has for sale. 



Lastly — and upon this I wish to lay a 

 good deal of emphasis — permanence of the 

 agricultural population upon the land de- 

 pends upon the maintenance by them of an 

 efficient standard of living. Analogies 

 drawn from other realms may not hold true 

 in every particular, but they may be useful 

 notwithstanding in impressing some central 

 truth and witli this object in view I may be 

 permitted to mention two or three. As early 

 as the middle of the sixteenth century it was 

 recognized that cheap money will drive out 

 dear money unless the former is freely con- 

 vertible into tlie latter. Again, those who 

 are familiar with the earlier life on the 



western prairies will remember that so long 

 as cattle only were allowed to graze upon 

 the land they flourished; but just as soon 

 as the sheep were introduced and were al- 

 lowed to graze with the cattle and so long 

 as both were allowed to multiply the sheep 

 gained . the advantage and the cattle were 

 driven from the ranges. The reason for this 

 was, of course, that the sheep could nibble 

 closer to the ground and could, therefore, 

 live on pasture which would not support 

 cattle. Something akin to this seems to be 

 true in the case of human beings. Those who 

 have a lower standard of living, that is, those 

 who can live and multiply upon a small in- 

 come will tend to displace those who will not 

 live and multiply except upon a larger in- 

 come. This is well exemplified upon the 

 Pacific coast, both in British Columbia and 

 California, where the cheap Oriental labor 

 will take away the jobs from the native 

 laborers in work which can be done by 

 either. The one can live and work where 

 the other cannot live upon the same wage. 

 The early immigration into the eastern part 

 of the United States has driven out the 

 native worker from some employments, such 

 as coal-mining, and now that the earlier 

 immigrants or their children have risen in 

 the social scale they in turn are being dis- 

 placed by the later immigrants. So, in the 

 case of farming, those who are willing to 

 live on a lower, that is, less expensive, 

 standard of living than the native farmers 

 are driving out the latter, for the reason that 

 being more saving and thrifty they can bid 

 a higher price either for the rent or for the 

 purchase of land than can the native farmer 

 with his more expensive standard of living. 

 It is for this reason chiefly that in British 

 Columbia and California the Japanese have 

 been taking the land away from the native 

 farmers. But the same reason accounts for 

 larger and larger amounts of land in the 

 Province of Ontario getting out of the hands 

 of the native and into the hands of those 

 who are not natives of this province. In re- 

 cent years a foreign element, to the number 

 of about fourteen thousand it is estimated, 

 has taken up land in one of the finest sec- 

 tions of the province between Toronto and 

 St. Catherines. The fact is well known that 

 in certain localities where the land is very 

 valuable the native farmers are leaving the 

 land and going to the towns and the land is 

 coming into the possession of those thrifty 

 elements of French Canadian stock who can 



