340 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



enterprise. This is the type of farming, however, which would 

 be forced upon us if the agricultural population should increase 

 in such a way as to bring about a continuous morcellement, or 

 subdivision of farms into smaller and smaller units. Such an 

 increase in the number of the rural population would therefore 

 inevitably result in a decline in its quality, because such petty 

 farming, being unattractive to men and women of capacity for 

 larger things, would drive them cityward and leave in the 

 country only the type fitted for small affairs. 



This presents a phase of the problem of rural depopulation 

 which is too frequently overlooked. Where the decline in 

 numbers comes about as a result of a readjustment of agricul- 

 tural methods, it may be, in the end, a good thing. Where the 

 farms have proved too small for the most efficient agriculture, 

 and where therefore the owners of small farms find them so 

 unprofitable as to be induced either to buy out their neighbors 

 or to sell out to them, the result is larger farms and a smaller 

 number of farmers. If the change results in making farming 

 more attractive to men and women of capacity, and in keeping 

 such people on the farms, the decline in numbers is compen- 

 sated for by a permanent improvement in quality. They who 

 believe that quality is more important than quantity must ap- 

 prove the change. 



Fortunately the transfer of land is so easy and inexpensive in 

 this country as yet, especially in the newer states, that there are 

 no serious obstacles in the way of this process. Where the farms 

 are either too small or too large to secure their highest value, 

 they tend to be combined in the former case, or to be subdivided 

 in the latter, until they approximate the size which gives them 

 greatest value. The reason why this process does not go on in 

 the same way in some of the older countries is because of the 

 difficulties in the way of transferring land. The long history of a 

 given title, the vast number of complicated legal rights and claims 



