IS THE SMALL FARMER TO DISAPPEAR? 83 



UNIVERSAL, CONDITION OF LANDLORD AND LABORER 

 DEPLORED. 



Yet if, as a result of all these natural causes, this 

 country should drift into a nation of proprietary farm- 

 ers and farm laborers, it would be a matter of sincere 

 regret from the human standpoint. If our people are 

 to be wedded to the soil, how much better it would be 

 for everybody, it seems to me, save perhaps financially, 

 to have our lands broken up into small holdings of ten, 

 fifteen or twenty-five acres, so that each individual 

 workman might have a plot of land of his own and thus 

 the farm laborer become a small proprietor taking a 

 direct interest in his fields. There is no doubt of the 

 fact that it would be good for the fields, and I think 

 there is little doubt of the fact that it would be good 

 for the farm laborer. 



The civic center might still be retained, as it is in 

 the European small village, and a group of farmers 

 could build their houses near together, as I have al- 

 ready suggested, and thus have the benefit of incipient 

 social service. This service might be very much ex- 

 tended. The country is now covered with intelligent 

 and educated men and women who are engaged in the 

 farm extension service. It would be an easy matter 

 for them to engage, also, in the extension of social serv- 

 ice to the farmers. A common meeting hall might be 

 provided, which would be a kind of a club-house, where 

 the farm magazines could be kept, agricultural litera- 

 ture distributed, and perhaps some simple games of ten- 

 nis or billiards indulged in. If these centers were so 

 situated as to be accessible to a large number of farmers, 

 the dreadful isolation of the farm life would be to this 

 degree remedied, 



