68 LAND TENURE 



happy combination of hard work and good management this man 

 made a success of farming. He built a home far above the average 

 farm home both in beauty and convenience. His yard was decor- 

 ated with beautiful shade trees and pine trees. His out-buildings 

 were painted. Now the neighbors of John McNiel likewise built 

 themselves homes and also planted trees on the prairie. After 

 the lapse of twenty-five or thirty years these trees became groves 

 of immense shade trees. But these neighbors were not prosperous. 

 First John McNiel buys out the neighbor on one side. This house 

 is demolished; every tree is cut down; the place where once a 

 human habitation stood was reduced to cultivation and became 

 the site of green cornfields. And then the neighbor on the other 

 side was bought out. The well was filled up; the trees were cut 

 down; the houses removed; this home was obliterated from the 

 face of the earth. Likewise with a third farm. Now, this process 

 may be viewed as a process of growth or as a process of decay. 

 From the standpoint of John McNiel, farming is a success and the 

 large holding is better than the small holding; from the standpoint 

 of the three neighbors, however, farming is a failure. The writer 

 on a recent visit to this section was impressed with the process of 

 decay which is overtaking these homesteads, especially those 

 houses built from thirty to fifty years ago. He carries in mind 

 the vivid impression of one house in particular where the outbuild- 

 ings had fallen into decay and the house itself was converted into 

 a sheep fold. About the house and even passing in and out of the 

 doors were hundreds of sheep, suggesting the days of Queen Eliza- 

 beth, when enclosures had converted tillable lands into sheep 

 pastures to such an extent that laws were enacted against the 

 " decay of villages." In this same neighborhood is another farm 

 which was given, "ready made," new house, buildings, equipment, 

 and all, to a young farmer and his wife by the mother of the farmer. 

 This place has changed hands, the present owner having greatly 

 improved it and enlarged it by adding two small farms to it. 

 The farmer to whom it was given could not make a living on it, 

 and is now working as a day laborer. This case simply illustrates 

 the human side of the problem of land tenure and of any scheme 

 of legislation intended to benefit small landholders. Some men 

 are tenants and ought to remain tenants, because they are not 

 qualified to be owners. Some are day laborers because of their 

 personal qualifications. There can never be a perfect system 

 of land tenure until there is a perfect race of men to occupy 

 the land. 



