LAND FOR THE LANDLESS 209 



comfort on a farm of 40 or 50 acres. In little Den- 

 mark the majority of the farmers, who as a class 

 are the most prosperous in the world, live in com- 

 fort on farms of less than 20 acres. If the 200,000,- 

 000 acres held by a handful of persons were divided 

 into 50-acre tracts they would provide farms for 

 4,000,000 farmers or 20,000,000 people. 



That which is true of agricultural and grazing 

 land is true of timber-land as well. An investiga- 

 tion by the Bureau of Corporations of the Depart- 

 ment of Commerce in 1914 reports that "1,694 

 timber-owners hold in fee over one-twentieth of 

 the land area of the entire United States from the 

 Canadian to the Mexican border. These 1,694 

 holders own 105,600,000 acres. This is an area 

 four-fifths the size of France, or greater than the 

 entire State of California, or more than two and 

 one-half times the land area of the six New Eng- 

 land States. Sixteen holders own 47,800,000 acres, 

 or nearly ten times the land area of New Jersey. 

 Three land-grant railroads own enough to give 15 

 acres to every male of voting age in the nine Western 

 States where almost all their holdings lie. In the 

 upper peninsula of Michigan 45 per cent, of the 

 land is held, mostly in fee, by 32 timber-owners. 

 In Florida 52 holders (mostly timber-owners) hold 

 one-third of the land in the entire State."* 



^Report Bureau of Corporations on "The Lumber Industry," 

 parts II and III, p. xviii. 



