CHAPTER XVIII 

 LAND FOR THE LANDLESS 



Not only is the would-be farmer excluded from 

 the land by prohibitive prices, but hundreds of 

 millions of acres are held in great estates, while 

 over 400,000,000 acres of land enclosed in farms 

 is not under cultivation at all. This is particularly 

 true of the West and South where vast manorial 

 domains of tens of thousands and even millions 

 of acres are held by individuals and corporations. 

 While food has almost reached famine prices to 

 the poor, while milHons of people are herded in 

 tenements and about the great industries, while 

 humdreds of thousands of farmers have migrated 

 to Canada and nearly 40 per cent, of our 6,000,000 

 farmers are tenants, there exists in this country 

 land enough, if converted into moderate-sized farms, 

 to provide comfortable homes for at least 30,000,000 

 people. 



And if the land were cultivated as it is in France, 

 Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium there is prac- 

 tically no limit to the millions who would find a 

 free and adequate livelihood from the land. For 

 the United States is peopled at but 30 persons to 



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