Figure 10. In some cases farmers are clearing difficult land (above) whi'e there is good 

 open idle land nearby (below). Probably the renting farmer, the owner of the land, and the 

 public would all benefit if the idle land in such cases were sold or rented to the operating 



farmer. 



to be fully and effectively employed. Probably not all present small farms 

 can be sufficiently and economically expanded by the addition of land on 

 other farms. However, there may be enough which can be expanded by this 

 means to take care of a large part of those operators who are relatively 

 young and interested in a larger business. 



There is also a somewhat different reason for encouraging a process 

 of making idle farm land available to farmers. That is that some land now 

 idle or nearly so is better than some land now in use. There would be a 

 gain in farm production efficiency by merely substituting this for some less 

 desirable land now in use. 



Thus there are three general ways by which farm production efficiencies 

 and lower costs may be achieved through making suitable land avail- 

 able to farmers, and in the long run consumers should benefit by less ex- 

 pensive farm products than they would otherwise have. It should be em- 

 phasized again, however, that we are not considering all idle land but only 

 that suitable for modern farming. Also some of that physically suitable 

 may not be taken due to bad location or other reasons. What can be done 



46 



