46 THE " BACK TO THE LAND " MOVEMENT 



inferior class to-day, the city and the nation of to-morrow will 

 consist of an inferior class. In two important matters the city is 

 now superior to the country, namely, public education and care 

 of public health. The child wanting a high school and college 

 education must go to the city. In matters of health, however, 

 from Jefferson's day down almost to the World War, popular 

 opinion seemed to hold that the open country with its fresh air 

 was the home of good health, and the city was the home of the 

 physically unfit. But the World War, with its military draft and 

 consequent medical examinations of millions of young men from 

 both country and city, showed that although country people have 

 a better chance for long life, yet they also suffer from a greater 

 number of preventable physical defects. The city consumer who 

 would favor the bringing into our country and settling on the farms 

 there the cheaper labor of the Orient or even those European 

 peasants whose standards of living are low, has a sadly short- 

 sighted view of his country's welfare. Any public policy which 

 attempts to build up the city at the expense of the country, such 

 as a protective tariff on manufactured goods, may easily cause a 

 migration from the country to the city, or conversely, a migration 

 to the country of immigrants and others with an un-American 

 standard of living. The important thing, from the standpoint 

 of a noble and powerful nation, is to have a country population 

 with a high standard of living. And such a high standard of living 

 is fundamentally a question of the individual farmer's economic 

 welfare, although this standard includes wants of a so-called 

 higher order. In short, the private welfare of the farmer is the 

 public welfare of the state. 



The question of the size of the farm may be briefly considered 

 from the standpoint then of the individual farmer. The funda- 

 mental question is the same What will produce the highest net 

 returns? Under the law of survival of the fittest, those farmers 

 will survive whose farms conform most nearly to this economic test. 



Family Size Farm. Numerous investigations and " surveys" 

 have been made recently, looking into the size of the farm business, 

 thanks to the newly discovered science of farm management. Only 

 a few of these can be mentioned here. W. J. Spillman, while 

 Chief of the Office of Farm Management, conducted such a survey 

 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This study emphasizes the 

 " small-farm fallacy" (as some call it), and shows that less profits 

 come from small farms than from large farms. Farms of from 30 

 to 40 acres required for each crop acre $15.00 worth of machinery, 



