THE FARMER OF YESTERDAY 7 



product of the Land, without which he must 

 die. It has not yet occurred to him in the 

 mass that he has developed concentration and 

 congestion to a point so remote from the pas- 

 toral ideal of his forefathers that he has 

 created the greatest anomaly of Waste in his- 

 tory, a condition in which the simple act of 

 distribution of food has become infinitely more 

 complex than the basic process of production 

 itself. 



He has built cities 228 of which boast over 

 25,000 population; 50 more than 100,000; 19 

 more than a quarter of a million; 5 more than 

 half a million, and 3 from 1,500,000 to 5,000,- 

 000. He has -constructed steel mills (a single 

 corporation employing more than 200,000 

 souls), not only to transport the surplus of 

 food, clothing and luxuries to world markets, 

 but to feed, clothe and amuse himself in the 

 very act of doing it. He has devised a system 

 of banking and exchange as clumsy and timid 

 as a rabbit, to move crops. He has acquired 

 steamships, canals, telephones and telegraphs, 

 marvelous systems of intercommunication, 

 capitalized at ten times the value of the na- 

 tion's farm lands that he knew a generation 

 ago capitalized at stupendous figures not 



