26 The State and the Farmer 



ent day. It is doubtful whether most of these 

 buildings were ever really effective even for 

 the old kind of agriculture. At all events, few 

 of them are adapted to the business that we 

 must now conduct on the land. Many a farm 

 would really be worth more with the buildings 

 off than with them on, for they would not then 

 stand in the way of actual betterment. Build- 

 ings are not permanent attachments to land 

 and should not be so regarded. A country- 

 man is always impressed, when he goes to the 

 great cities, with the fact that buildings still in 

 good state of preservation are torn down to 

 make place for new ones. These demolished 

 buildings may not even be very old, but they 

 are ineffective for present-day business and it 

 is unprofitable to keep them. The coming 

 business of farming will demand a wholly new 

 type of building in order to make the prop- 

 erty effective, and we must overcome our habit 

 of harking back to the time when the present 

 buildings were erected. Barns and other busi- 

 ness buildings that were erected fifty or sixty 

 years ago should owe the farm nothing by this 



