SOCIAL VIEWPOINT OR INDIVIDUAL VIEWPOINT ? 45 



M. F. Greeley, Stock Farmer; Editor of the "Dakota Farmer," 

 Gary, South Dakota. Mr. Greeley considers bonanza farming a 

 curse to the country and to the man who tries it. If carried too 

 far, after population gets more dense, it will keep thousands of 

 men from having homes of their own. It employs men in squads, 

 thus eliminating their individuality and independence. Those 

 employed on these farms have to work with the worst kind of 

 men. The soil is abused and then goes to other people in small 

 holdings to be built up by careful rotation, stock farming and 

 tillage. The bonanza farms are owned by men who spend their 

 money in the cities or in other States. They rot the public schools, 

 and detract much from the social life of the country. Mr. Greeley 

 does not know of one very large farm that has been running for 

 some time that is now paying, and says bonanza farming is on 

 the decrease. 



Franklin Dye, Farmer, Secretary of State Board of Agriculture 

 of New Jersey. Mr. Dye believes that the subdivision of bonanza 

 farms into small tracts would be beneficial by increasing the 

 population and giving employment to more people. The oppor- 

 tunity to use improved machinery on a very large scale on these 

 farms tends to make their competition diastrous to Eastern farmers. 



LeGrand Powers, Expert in Agriculture, U. S. Census Bureau, 

 Washington, D. C. Mr. Powers says all the big farms, including 

 the Dalrymple farm in Dakota, are in the market for breaking 

 up, just as the big farms in Southern Minnesota have been cut up. 



Social Viewpoint or Individual Viewpoint? Thus far in this 

 chapter the question of the size of the farm has been considered 

 from the social standpoint. The views once held by Thomas 

 Jefferson on the subject of a rural versus an urban population 

 have undergone much change in the last hundred years. 8 But 

 the question is still an important social problem, and one which 

 may well engage the powers of the true statesman. The social 

 aspect of this question takes on significance from the fact that the 

 rural population of to-day determines very largely the character 

 of the nation to-morrow. The country birth rate exceeds the city 

 birth rate. Children on farms are an economic asset, in the city 

 an economic liability. The children of the farm to-day recruit 

 the city to-morrow. Hence if the country is to be occupied by an 



8 The popular usage of two words in our vocabulary throws an interesting 

 side light on this question of town and country. From the Latin urbs (a city) 

 comes our word "urbane"; from the Latin rus (the country) comes our word 

 rustic. Webster's dictionary ^defines these two terms as follows: urbane; 

 courteous in manners, polite, refined; rustic; rude, awkward, rough. 



