32 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



or for a song. Till to-day or let us say yes- 

 terday a charitable old gentleman in chin 

 whiskers and a red-white-and-blue waistcoat 

 has been lying awake nights devising new 

 schemes for giving away quarter-sections. 

 Now farm land is all gone, except for the small 

 matter of, say, two hundred and sixty million 

 acres of scenery that nobody would take as a 

 gift. It was all gone ten years ago, except 

 for a core, a scant four per cent. The late- 

 comers lined up and drew lots for this four 

 per cent. Our farm land has been employed 

 till to-day or yesterday not as capital, but 

 as a means of labor. And as labor it has 

 paid big wages. It didn't have to pay interest 

 on capital until there was no more of it to 

 be had for the asking. 



Meantime, "unearned increment" has sud- 

 dently appeared on the horizon. Railroads, 

 cities, the increasing hunger of the world, and 

 the demands of those who drew blanks in the 

 lottery, have increased the appraised price of 

 land as capital 118 per cent, in the first ten 

 years of the new century. 



With capital comes interest, rent. Jere- 

 miah is the pioneer of the business of farm- 

 ing, the establishment of agriculture on its 



